Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 6: Line devices

How to create major lines from scales

Episode 63 · 11:20 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris turns from dominant lines to G major. He combines Barry’s 5-4-3-2 triggers with the major half-step rule, treating the half step as a movable rhythmic placeholder, then works the G major arpeggio and G6 with surrounding notes (including figures from Bud Powell and Bird), triplets and pivots.

Step by step

  1. 0:00In G major, know the scale up and down, in thirds, triads and chords, just as for D7
  2. 0:37Barry’s 5-4-3-2: landing on 5, 4, 3 or 2 triggers a set figure (at 4: 2, flat 3, 3; at 3: a pivoted major triad from the fifth)
  3. 1:42The basic major rule: starting on the tonic, one half step between 6 and 5
  4. 2:17The half step is a rhythmic placeholder: from the tonic jump up to the second, or at the sixth jump up to the major seventh, or put it on the four
  5. 3:30Whenever a line lands on 5, 4, 3 or 2, set off its 5-4-3-2 figure
  6. 4:02Put the half step between tonic and seventh, come down to 5-4, then add 3
  7. 5:13Play the G major arpeggio (a triad with the bottom note on top) and its inversions, up and down
  8. 5:47Surround each arpeggio note: a half step below, then a half step above, then the scale tone above and the half step below
  9. 7:01Bud Powell’s version: the note, a half step below, back, the whole step above, back; and Bird’s note, half step below, note
  10. 9:00Do the same with G6 (1-3-5-6) and its inversions, adding a triplet on the first note, a pivot, or a half step below the first note

Chords and notes in this video

Tap a time to jump to it in the video.

Line1:07
𝄞♯
C4DGBCG♭
  1. D
  2. F#
  3. G
  4. C
  5. B
Line1:07
𝄞♭
C4ABCB♭
  1. C
  2. A
  3. B♭
  4. B

Barry’s own words on this

6.8 The 5-4-3-2 (and 4-3, 5-4-3-2-1) phrases6.5 Surrounding notes (approach from above and below)5.2 Major scale descending6.7 Pivoting

In the course

The scale every way: up and down, thirds, triads, chordsThe half-step rules for the major scaleNo bebop scale: the half step is a placeholderBarry’s arpeggio and its inversionsPivotsHalf step belowNap backSurrounds5-4-3-2Bud Powell ideas

Transcript

  1. 0:00hello and welcome to episode 63 of things i’ve learned from barry harris and today i thought we would talk about in this continuing this series of creating lines uh that we would do some major phrases because we’ve been doing basically um dominant phrases for d7 so if we’re going to stay in that same key let’s say we’ll do phrases in g major so some of the things you should know obviously is the scale up and down scaling third scaling triads scaling chords all the things you’re supposed to know for d7 you have to know these for g
  2. 0:33major or or g minor same thing so now let’s talk about let’s take a few little things that barry brings up all the time which is well one of them is 5432 which i’ve made a video about previously but just a refresher 5432 is just kind of these things that he calls out that when you land on this particular note it triggers something else to happen so five would be um if we’re thinking in the key of g major which would be five major seven
  3. 1:07tonic four three so five triggered that to happen then if we hit five four now four is going to trigger something to happen and the four is [Music] two chromatically to three so two flat three major third that’s four three would be still starting on the five though and then we’re gonna um come up a triad from the um fifth which is just a pivot instead of saying we say so it’s a pivot so so it’s a major triad
  4. 1:42from the fifth then you got two which is just seven major seven chromatically to two so so we got that let’s think about those for a second and let’s let’s start let’s say on the tonic and some of his half step rules we’ll use the basic rule for um a major which is one half step starting on the tonic would be one half step between six and five so there’s our rule now what’s
  5. 2:17interesting is what he what he’s discussed later on is that that half step can really be in a lot of places and the half step is really not the important thing but it’s the rhythmic placeholder that’s more important so instead of maybe putting it between six and five maybe we could put it um we could start right away with the tonic and put it between tonic and seven so since there’s no half step between tonic and seven we’re just going to put second and then we get this [Music] which is a really pretty phrase now maybe we’ll get to the six and
  6. 2:53instead of putting the half step here we’ll jump up to major seven let’s see what that sounds like also pretty soon pretty phrase let’s instead of doing the flat six or the major seven let’s put the half step below the six let’s say maybe the four that’s also pretty it’s a really pretty phrase that’s one
  7. 3:30thing that you could do so any time you get to these fives or four or three you can do your um five four three or even two so let’s try using one of those there was that was the uh we went all the way down to two and then we did two so but we put the half step instead of between six and five we put it on four which is a pretty phrase we could have done that let’s see um
  8. 4:02this time let’s put the half step between uh tonic and seven so that’s a nice phrase so that would be a half step between the tonic and seven and i came down to five four and i did four and maybe i’ll add three on that let’s see pretty phrase let’s see so now what i’m trying to do is combine two different things just using that one half step and the five
  9. 4:36four three two obviously there’s a billion things i could start on any note and and continuing this way [Music] that’s nice starting on the three now with the one half step so let’s say that’s nice so i did four [Music] maybe we’ll put the half step in a different spot maybe we’ll put it uh between uh this instead of six and five we’ll put it on the four [Music] that’s nice beautiful phrase
  10. 5:13[Music] really pretty phrase let’s say maybe we’ll do um [Music] well that’s just that’s just um uh five four three two using also just the one half step rule for six and five also a nice thing to practice is this major obviously g major arpeggio and remember for arpeggio barry is referring to um it’s a triad but with the bottom note repeated on top
  11. 5:47so there’s a g major invert inverse from the fifth [Music] and then down those are beautiful um you can also um let’s see we surround those sometimes we surround them with or let’s start with we’ll do a half step below each one so let’s do the arpeggios like that [Music]
  12. 6:27those are pretty also a half step above which is kind of weird those are pretty awesome [Music] these are all useful when you’re soloing how about if we do a scale tone above so we’ll surround each one of these notes with a scale tone above and a half step below so the first one is this second one third would be surrounded
  13. 7:01with the four and the flat three then the five will be surrounded with the major sixth and the flat five then back to the first one so [Music] really pretty [Music] oh bud pal does a really pretty one but he does a slightly different thing he says uh instead he’s done he starts on note half step below back to the note up to the whole step above then back to
  14. 7:35the original now before we get to the next one he starts we’re going down now he starts with the scale tone above so he says and now he does the same thing for the five half’s the below i mean a skeleton both three so he does man he does it so good but so that’s another idea just just to use
  15. 8:10so also just uh [Music] playing the note and then doing a half step below going back to note so let’s see one two those are nice i think birds she wrote somebody pointed out bird she wrote does something like that which is the same idea as that um so these i think uh even bud pal does these with
  16. 8:46like the full two notes [Music] which are also pretty but let’s take a look another thing that’s nice too besides just those major things are the major six which is one two three uh i’m sorry one three five six an inversion version inversion inversion inversion so those are nice phrases to play listen if you said one two three
  17. 9:22i just put a triplet on the first note but [Music] let’s see that’s a pretty phrase i added the um the pivot for the three i put a little break in there too but it’s nice phrase [Music] um let’s try the next one let’s say that’s a nice one let’s see
  18. 10:05[Music] i mean some of these are so pretty oh man oh that’s nice half step below the first note of the um we’re thinking uh g6 half step below the first note [Music] that’s nice that’s pretty [Music] okay i’ll try from here
  19. 10:46[Music] man these are pretty i mean these are really pretty really pretty stuff so again it’s just another quick lesson and how you take a look at maybe some of the things that you practice for major and put them together for lines i’m gonna make a couple more with major because there’s a there’s a million different things in my head that i haven’t even talked about but i’m trying to keep these short so uh until next time i hope you enjoyed episode 63 and keep practicing g major until next
  20. 11:18time