Chris Parks · Stage 1: Rhythm and time
Don’t Ever Do This: Dotted ‘Swing’ Eighths
Chris tells how, in one of his first classes, he played a scale with a dotted, would-be jazzy swing, and Barry told him never to do that because this is eighth-note music. Transcribing Bird, Bud and Coleman Hawkins showed him they play even eighths with accents, and he passes Barry’s advice on.
Step by step
- 0:38Chris’s mistake: running B flat major with a dotted ‘swing’ feel he thought made it sound jazzy.
- 2:00Barry’s answer: don’t ever do that; we play eighth-note music.
- 2:37Check it by transcribing Bird, Bud and Hawkins: even eighths with accents, never the dotted rhythm.
- 3:20Practise your scales and lines in straight eighths, the way the masters play them.
Barry’s own words on this
In the course
Transcript
- 0:00Hello and welcome to episode 62 of Things I’ve Learned from Barry Harris. And today I thought we would spend at least just a little bit of time talking about a mistake that I made when I first started playing with Barry and started playing jazz. And that I see a lot on YouTube videos, including from people that are teachers, and I’m surprised that I actually see it. And it’s a lesson that I learned really early. And it basically goes like this. One of the first classes or the second class when I started getting used to Barry’s method.
- 0:38And I was having trouble learning the scales. And I think it was, we were doing the scales for rhythm changes. And I remember him telling the class to run a B-flat major up. And I was so happy that I was able to, I practiced and I knew my B-flat major scale. but coming from a rock world that I came from I thought there was some sort of difference or a special way that you played something a scale to make it jazzy to make it sound more jazzy so I he told this the the class to play it up and along with the class I played my B flat major like this with that you know
- 1:18what I thought at the time was well hey it’s like a jazzy swing this is what swing really is and that was the thing that I thought differentiated let’s say a blues player or a rock player from a jazz player was oh I see they play the same scale but they put this little swing on it or the dotted eighth note with the whatever the thing is so that’s what I thought and I just remember after I finished playing this, Barry turned around right to me because I was sitting to his left, and he heard me more than he heard the rest of the class because obviously the rest of the class was
- 2:00just playing straight eighth notes. They just played a straight. And I was playing it my jazz, what I thought was a jazzy way. And he said, just very quickly, he said something along the lines of Don’t ever do that. We’re eighth note music. We play eighth note music. Don’t do that. And I remember being taken aback like, wow, did I commit like a jazz sin or something like that? And I realized that it was just something. I don’t know why I thought I was hearing it in the music. But then I went back and listened to a bunch of Charlie Parker, a bunch of Bud Powell, a bunch of Coleman Hawkins.
- 2:37And I realized when I transcribed them, that’s not what they’re playing at all. they’re playing straight eighth notes. They have accents on different things and they might do slightly different things with the rhythm, but it’s never this. It’s never that. It’s never that. So I came to realize that what my ears were telling me was something that was jazzy was not. I was completely incorrect about it. And the only reason why I’m making the video about this now is because I’ve seen a lot of videos talking about jazz music, and that’s the way that they talk about it. And I’m just wondering who’s taught that,
- 3:20who’s been teaching that, because Barry clearly does not believe in that. And he uses as his example all the people that he’s idolized, and none of them play like that. So I’m not sure where this started where people think they need to swing eighth notes in order to sound jazzy, but my advice to everybody would be the same advice that Barry gave me, which is don’t ever do that. Don’t ever do that. So, okay. Anyway, this was a short and sweet lesson. I hope to make another one right after that, but I just thought I’d make this one to clear that problem up. Okay,
- 3:59Until next time, hope you enjoy Not Swinging Eighth Notes. Until next time.