Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 5: The added-note rules

Rules for half steps on the I Got Rhythm bridge

Episode 50 · 12:37 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris takes one phrase built on Barry’s half-step rules for a dominant scale and carries it through the rhythm-changes bridge in E flat, keeping it in one position on the guitar. He explains the rules as rhythmic placeholders, which Barry drew from Charlie Parker, that keep chord tones on the beat, and he varies them, for instance using the sixth instead of the major seventh, so the result is your own line rather than a copied lick.

Step by step

  1. 0:04The bridge in E flat: D7, G7, C7 and F7 for two bars each; whatever phrase you make on D7, apply it to all four
  2. 1:15Play the phrase in one position, around the fifth to eighth frets, instead of sliding one fingering down the neck
  3. 1:51First rule: start on the tonic and descend with one half step between tonic and seventh (between D and C on D7)
  4. 2:26Variation: make the added note the sixth instead of the major seventh, for a different sound
  5. 4:27Rule: if you start on a note, run up and come back down, use the rule for the note you started on (tonic up to the third and back: still a half step between tonic and seventh)
  6. 5:07Take it through G7 and C7, then add triplets in places
  7. 5:40Rule: if you go up a third, the next note you hit sets the rule; tonic, third, then the second takes two half steps (second to tonic, tonic to seventh)
  8. 7:37Barry found the rules by transcribing Charlie Parker; the half step is a rhythmic placeholder that keeps you on the beat
  9. 8:45Combine the rules with the sixth variation: from the second, the half step to the tonic, then the sixth instead of the seventh
  10. 10:34Use the principles to create phrases instead of copying Bird’s, so everyone ends up sounding different

Chords and notes in this video

Tap a time to jump to it in the video.

D71:51
𝄞𝄢♯
C3DC4CD♭
  1. D
  2. C#
  3. C

Barry’s own words on this

5.3 Dominant 7th scale descending5.6 The added note need not be a half step5.1 Why add a note13.2 Rhythm changes (‘seven songs in one’)

In the course

Know it everywhere on the guitarThe descending half-step rules for the dominantNo bebop scale: the half step is a placeholderRhythm changesFreedom and your own voice

Transcript

  1. 0:04hello and welcome to episode 50 of things I’ve learned from Barry Harris today I thought we would talk about taking a phrase or practicing a phrase on a dominant chord and taking it through the bridge of rhythm changes I got rhythm and in this case we’ll do it in the key of E flat and the bridge before I got rhythm is in case you don’t know is BD seven for two measures G seven for two measures C seven for two
  2. 0:41measures and then F seven for two measures so the scales that Barry likes to play so that you get to hear the changes would be D seven up and down now whatever phrase we come up with we’re gonna try to apply to D seven to G seven to C seven into F seven and I think for guitar players in particular what would
  3. 1:15be kind of interesting and also so that you could start to see different fingerings and different spots the instrument is being able to do it kind of in one position you know you could play a phrase and then just move it around like guitar players know how to move things around so that they can have the exact same fingering each time which is fine but it’s probably also better to see if you can do it in one position so we’ll take a phrase one of the things that Barry likes to do is his rule for half steps let’s say and one of the
  4. 1:51rules for half steps is if you start on a tonic and you descend you’re going to put one half step between tonic and seven hmm so for d7 we’ll start on the tonic and we’ll run down we’ll descend it we’ll put one half step between tonic and seven between DNC okay so now we have that together now one interesting thing is that half step
  5. 2:26doesn’t necessarily have to be there it doesn’t have to be between tonic and seven it could be I started practicing where and I’m sure he said it Barry has said it before but instead of them between the tonic and seven I make the half step of the six so the note that I put in between tonic and seven is no longer than major seven it’s the six so now you get this instead of you get this which has a different sound to it and sounds kind of good so if we were going to do that on all on all the different chords for the I got rhythm you’d have
  6. 3:03to do it in G C seven three four and the same thing for G seven so you could say you could do it here and then for C seven obviously guitar player would just move down a whole step but my idea was just try to keep it within the first couple of between like the fifth and eighth
  7. 3:36fret or somewhere around there so if we started and we set out one two [Music] okay so let’s do that again so we got one two three four one would be for the c7 so let’s do the starting D sub one two three so that’s nice to do within one position so you can come up with
  8. 4:27anything so another rule that Barry has is let’s go back to putting a half step between tonic and seven another rule that Barry has is if you start on a note and you run up to any other note and you come back down you still use the rule for the note that you started on so for instance if I started on tonic 15 and ran up let’s say to the third and back down I’m still gonna put one half step in between tonic and seven so let’s say one two three let’s run down to third so one two three and then you should do
  9. 5:07that on g7 then you should do it on c7 [Music] so let’s see if I can do the whole thing 1 2 3 so also you can try to put little triplets in in certain places so let’s
  10. 5:40see I’ll just add some triples 1 2 3 [Music] nice to take a little phrase and to be able to do it in one position so anything another thing is if you go up a third starting on going up a third mmm the next note that you hit is going to
  11. 6:13be the rule that you use so for instance if I say now I end on the second so I play tonic third now the next note I hit is the second we’re gonna use the rule for the second which let’s say would be two half steps so one two three now the two half steps are going to be between second and tonic tonic and seven so now say [Music] so that’s the whole bridge have I got
  12. 6:52rhythm now that’s if we went up if we went up a third so that was kind of a nice little let’s do triplets now too so again taking a simple phrase using one
  13. 7:37of Barry’s ideas one of his rules and saying let me see what I can do with it these are just his half-step rules I’m gonna make a video about half steps because a lot of people are asking me about them but remember Barry’s rules for half steps he came up with them because he had really transcribed a lot of Charlie Parker and he noticed that there were certain similar things that he did where he put the half step so he noticed he put the half step between 2nd
  14. 8:10and tonic and tonic and 7 or he noticed he put the half step between 3 and 2 to 1 and tonic 7 in certain spots or he noticed tonic and 7 in certain spots and so on so he came up with these rules now basically the half steps that we can look at it is it’s a rhythmic placeholder so in other words it’s to get you from this point to this point but so that you still stay in rhythm or on the beat so for instance if we took a look at d7 let’s say and we said ok so
  15. 8:45the first rule for the half step is between tonic and 7 [Music] again what if I said well I forget about the tonic in seven I want to make my half step on the six so I’ll do this instead instead of putting it between D and C I’m gonna put and then let’s start from two no half steps now let’s say - we do use the half step between 2nd and tonic but then when we get to the tonic we’re not going to use the major 7 we’re
  16. 9:17going to still use that 6 so it would be this now we got something different happening it used to be this which sounds good but this sounds good too now let’s use three now three normally would be one half step or this is the normal half step which is between tonic and seven again but let’s use my six let’s say now three half steps is normally between 3 & 2 2 & 1 and tonic and 7 so this is what it would sound like which
  17. 9:55is great but what if I used instead of 3 between 3 & 2 I used 4 so now I said so now we got 3 bit more now I’m still gonna use the half step between 2nd and tonic then when I get to tonic I’m still gonna use my 6 which is really pretty [Music] I mean just you just start coming up
  18. 10:34with things and this is the difference in between between as far as I’m concerned between Barry’s method and everybody else’s method is that it hands you over this knowledge though this understanding about how scales move and how rhythm moves and it allows you to come up with phrases that Charlie Parker never came up with and there’s nothing wrong with saying that it’s not saying your phrases are better than Charlie Parker but it is a way of making of creating of using these principles to create instead of just copy because
  19. 11:10copying Charlie Parker phrases is beautiful and it’s great and it’s nice to get into your fingers but if you go on to a jam session or you’re on a gig and you play nothing but Charlie Parker phrases that’s not really what the music is about the music is supposed to be about progressing or moving forward and you can’t move forward by playing somebody else’s phrases that they played you know 60 years ago it’s just that’s not that’s not the way to do it the proper way to do it is to take these principles that Barry’s laid out for us and try to create our own phrases with
  20. 11:44them which is extremely important and it’s the only thing that’s going to propel the music as opposed to keep it stagnant so and this is what makes Barry’s system and Barry’s way of explaining things so special is that it does allow you to do this so every single person that watches this video if they went home and put half steps in different spots we’ll all have something different to play we would all sound different every one of us just imagined that that would be pretty incredible so
  21. 12:18touched on a couple of things in this video but I hope I hope you enjoyed it and I’ll see you next time I hope you enjoyed episode 50 so until next time thanks