Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 9: Sixth chords and the scales of chords

The scale we never talk about: dominant 7 diminished

Episode 148 · 11:15 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris looks at the dominant 7 diminished scale, an often overlooked one of Barry’s four scales of chords: C7 plus D diminished. He runs it through Thomas Eccles’s ‘elevator’ of textures and moves it in parallel, oblique and contrary motion, then plays Barry’s Chopin phrase with chords, using tenths for the diminished.

Step by step

  1. 0:00Barry’s four scales of chords include dominant 7 diminished and dominant 7 flat 5 diminished, which came later.
  2. 0:38The C7 diminished scale is C7 (C, E, G, B flat) plus D diminished (D, F, A flat, B); learn it in drop 2 on all string sets.
  3. 2:03In thirds it has one major third, minor thirds and one second, from the chromatic notes between flat 7, 7 and root.
  4. 2:39Then triads, broken drop 2s and octave chords.
  5. 3:53Then drop 3 (fifth- and sixth-string roots) and drop 2 and 4.
  6. 5:07Move the chords in parallel, then try oblique motion, holding one note while the others move.
  7. 6:16Contrary motion, then Barry’s Chopin phrase: up a step, down a third, then the same from the next scale note down.
  8. 6:51On the C7 diminished scale the phrase changes slightly; Barry played it with chords, C7 with the diminished above and below.
  9. 7:27On each diminished, play only the lowest and highest notes of the drop 2, a tenth.
  10. 8:37Try it with broken drop 2s, and with triads, using flat fifths for the diminished.

Chords and notes in this video

Tap a time to jump to it in the video.

C70:38
𝄞♭♭
CEGC6DFBB♭A♭
  1. C
  2. E
  3. G
  4. B♭
  5. D
  6. F
  7. A♭
  8. B

Barry’s own words on this

9.8 The 7th diminished and 7th flat 5 diminished scales9.4 Playing the scale of chords (block chords up and down the 6th dim scale)10.5 Drop voicings

In the course

ThirdsBarry’s four scales of chordsThe dominant 7 diminished scaleThe dominant 7 flat 5 diminished scaleDrop 2, drop 3 and drop 2 and 4The elevator: Thomas Eccles’ floorsParallel, oblique and contrary motionBorrowingMoving the inner or outer notes of a drop 2Barry’s Chopin phrase

Transcript

  1. 0:00Hello and welcome to episode 148 of Things I’ve Learned from Barry Harris. And today I thought we would discuss one of Barry’s four scales of chords that gets overlooked a lot by myself included. And it’s probably because he didn’t really come up with it until the 80s. So there’s the Dominant 7 diminished scale and there’s Dominant 7.5 diminished scale. so everybody knows his or a lot of people know his major six diminished scale and his minor six but he has the same concept for dominant dominant seven flat five and today we’ll look at the
  2. 0:38dominant uh the dominant uh diminished scale which is as all of barry’s beautiful eight note scales show us it’s composed of two different things it’s a c7 so the four notes of c7 c e g b flat. And then the four notes are D diminished. D, F, A, flat, B. And when you put the four notes of C7 with the four notes of D diminished, you get this beautiful eight note scale, which consists of those two different chords. Now, what it gives you is this beautiful sound. And there’s C7, D diminished, another C7, another D diminished, C7, D diminished, C7, D diminished, C7.
  3. 1:26Pretty. And these are just in drop twos, because that’s what most of us guitar players start off with, four consecutive strings. And you have to know them, obviously, on all four sets of strings. And so on. The highest four, the middle four, and the lowest four. so that’s great but remember as a scale as we know like barry talks about and of course thankfully we have thomas eckles talking about explaining every part of this that we should know so in other words we just played single notes now if we think about thomas’s elevator floors the next
  4. 2:03floor is going to be two notes which are going to be thirds so these are really pretty too so here So you have a major third, minor third, minor third, another minor third, another minor third, another minor third. There’s your second, a minor third, and there’s your major third on the top. So you have one major third, all minor thirds, and one second. Because we seem to always have that second in every one of Barry’s minor sixth dimension. because you have that chromatic someplace.
  5. 2:39So on the dominant 7 diminished, you’re going to have the chromatic between the flat 7th, major 7th, and tonic. In the other two, the major 6th and the minor 6th, you have that half step in between the 5th, flat 6th, and 6th, which are really pretty too. So there’s our, that’s it in thirds. Another thing you have to know. The next thing after thirds, according to Thomas’ elevator rules, is triads. So it’s pretty. You get all these really beautiful sounds.
  6. 3:16That’s triads. The next would be what Thomas would refer to as, he calls it shell voice. I call them broken drop two. These are really pretty also. Beautiful. Very pretty. The next would be octave chords. So let’s play octave chords. Basically the same thing, except we’re just going to add an octave.
  7. 3:53Oh, let’s do this one. Oh, this one. very pretty octave chords and then of course drop twos which we did earlier sorry and then the after drop two is dropping three also drop threes are for guitar players play a note skip a string play three notes so
  8. 4:31So you have to know on the, I just did them all on fifth string root, but you also should know them on a sixth string root also. So those are drop threes. Then you have drop two, drop four, which is going to be play two notes, skip a string, play two notes. So these are really pretty. Oh, let’s open on these. Let’s see. Oops. Those are really pretty.
  9. 5:07They’re pretty with a flat 5 also, but we’ll get to that in another video. So now you have all of these beautiful things that you know how to do with this scale, in addition to your major 6 diminishes and minor 6 diminishes. Now we treat this scale of chords the exact same way that we treat the other two that we’ve talked about, the major six and the minor six, being that we can move those parallel the way that I just did, meaning all the notes are moving in the same direction at the same time. That’s one form of moving.
  10. 5:39You can also do oblique motion where one note is staying and other notes around it are moving. So in this case, I’m leaving the E and I’m just lowering the thirds. But while this E is ringing, this one might be pretty. That’s a really pretty move. That’s oblique motion. And then, of course, contrary.
  11. 6:16One note moves in one direction. The other note moves in another direction. So there’s a million things that we can do with C7 diminished scale. same way we did them with major 6 diminished and minor 6 diminished but I thought this was a nice one to show this little move that Barry used to do and people have taught this before but Barry used to play this Chopin phrase which is if I took just regular C7 scale would be starting on a note going up a note and then going down a third and then from the note you ended on
  12. 6:51go down another scale note and do the same thing So that’s a really pretty move. That’s on a plain C7. Now if we did that on Barry’s C7 diminished scale, it would be slightly different. Because now you get this. It’s a really pretty move. So what Barry used to do was he would do them with chords.
  13. 7:27So instead of, here’s C7, there’s a diminished above it and a diminished below it. So that’s what he would play. He would say. That’s a beautiful move. He would enhance it even more by, instead of playing drop twos for everything, sometimes he would say the lowest note and the highest note of a drop to is a tenth so when he played the diminished instead of playing the full diminished chord he would just play the lowest note and the highest note and he would do that
  14. 8:04every time on a diminished so you get this What a beautiful move. So if we said... That is a pretty move. Really pretty. Now, you could do that with drop tubes like I’m doing with... Or you could do it with any of the other elevator forms. If I did a broken drop tube.
  15. 8:37just a broken drop too, which would just be three notes, which for piano would be kind of, that’s their closed voice. And if you notice, it’s a sixth. So look, if I start here, well, that one’s actually a seventh, but the rest of them are a sixth, really. Aren’t those, that’s a pretty move too, look. That’s a really nice move. Suppose I did it with triads. So here’s triad.
  16. 9:14Now we’ll take the lowest note, the highest note of the triad is a fifth. So if I did, if I were going to, I could do diminishes like that, flat fifths. So I could even change the fingering and say, oh, sorry. That’s a really nice move. So wait, let me see if I can do it. That’s a great move.
  17. 9:50Listen to how pretty that is. Oh God, hold on. I love that sound. Oh, let’s see. Yeah, that’s it. And then, um... That’s great. Oh, man. So let’s see. That’s a beautiful sound. What I like about it is, you know, when we play dominants,
  18. 10:34we generally, I was saying this at the class the other day, we have a tendency to always do a whole lot of stuff with the dominant. You know, flat fives, raised fives, ninths, thirteens, flat thirteens, all that stuff. so we alter them all the time but the plain dominant especially if you’re thinking about it according to this particular scale is so beautiful and gives you so many nice options anyway i hope that inspires you to practice not only berries major six diminished and minor six diminished but start to throw in the dominant seven diminished as well anyway happy practicing