Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 13: Tunes as the curriculum

The bridge of Cherokee and tricky spots

Episode 11 · 13:17 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris goes deeper into the bridge of Cherokee, treating each ii-V as its dominant and working on how one chord runs into the next. Following Barry, he fills the spots most players skip, such as the two bars of B flat before the bridge, by finding scale notes that surround the next chord’s tones, and he varies the bridge with rule-built phrases, Barry’s chromatic scale and the tritone.

Step by step

  1. 0:00Recap the bridge: C sharp minor 7 and F sharp 7 to B major, then the same move down in whole steps to C minor and F7, back to B flat
  2. 1:19Don’t pause before the bridge: run the two bars of B flat major straight into F sharp 7
  3. 2:00Find B flat notes that surround F sharp 7’s notes: F and G surround F sharp, G and A surround G sharp, B flat and C surround B
  4. 4:06An F sharp 7 phrase: from the fifth up to the second with two half steps, pivot a chord, touch the tritone, end on the second of B
  5. 5:25Don’t restart on every dominant: after F sharp 7 into B, come back in on B major and run it into E7
  6. 7:36The same habit in rhythm changes: run the last two bars of B flat major into the bridge’s D7
  7. 8:51In the bridge of Confirmation too: run the B flat major bars straight into A flat 7 (E flat minor to A flat 7, going to D flat)
  8. 10:01A phrase with Barry’s chromatic scale: from the seventh climb chromatically to the fourth, then come down a chord; on B major start from its third
  9. 11:56Also run F sharp 7 into its tritone C7, a family dominant, before resolving to B major

Chords and notes in this video

Tap a time to jump to it in the video.

Line2:00
𝄞
C4FGC5
  1. F
  2. G

Barry’s own words on this

13.3 Standards worked in class7.3 Getting through changes6.5 Surrounding notes (approach from above and below)6.10 Barry’s chromatic scale (chromatic runs with chord tones on the beat)

In the course

Barry’s chromatic scalePivotsThe tritoneThe family of dominantsRun one chord into the nextNotes in common and notes that surroundCherokeeSmall thingsOne phrase on all four dominants

Transcript

  1. 0:00Hello and welcome to episode 11 of Things I’ve Learned from Barry Harris. Today I thought we’d look at the bridge of Cherokee and all the different angles and different things you can practice on it. So just for a quick reminder, I had done the scales for Cherokee in an earlier episode, you can go and check that out. But I’ll just go over the changes are going to be C sharp minor 7 to F sharp 7 to B major. You’re going to do the same thing down whole steps.
  2. 0:32B minor 7 to E7 to A major. A minor 7 to D7 to G major. G minor to C7. C minor to F7, which means your back is Bb. Now, the scales that it takes is F sharp 7, well, at least the first part, F sharp 7 up and down and B major up and down. So we were working on phrases that run F sharp 7 to B major. But right before that is an interesting part that a lot of people don’t play that Barry points out. And that is in the last two bars of the first 32 bars, it’s just a B-flat major for two measures, which is...
  3. 1:19Then you start the bridge with your F-sharp 7. Now, what Barry likes to do in those little spots is, because what you hear a lot of times in people soloing is they’ll play a nice phrase, play a nice phrase, and then right before the bridge, it’s like they play a pretty B-flat major phrase, then there’s a pause, then they go into their playing F-sharp 7. Barry likes to run B-flat major into F-sharp 7. So he really breaks it down to the smallest degree, So he takes any note of Bb and he says where is the next or what two notes of Bb surrounds this note of F sharp or so on.
  4. 2:00So just for instance, in Bb, the fifth is F, the sixth is G, and that happens to surround the tonic of F sharp 7. So if we said for the last two bars leading into the bridge, one, two, three, four, one, two, three. So we just surrounded the F sharp. The next one is the 6th and the 7th of the B flat, which is the G and the A, surround the 2nd of the F sharp 7.
  5. 2:40So let’s see. So let’s see, where would that fall? 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2. or let’s see let’s take the Bb and the C the Bb and the C or the C and the Bb surround the fourth of the F sharp 7. So if we said, or let’s see, so let’s try that. 1, 2, 3,
  6. 3:264, 1, 2. So anyway, those are just little things that you can work on running B flat major into F-sharp 7, which are really interesting. So that you have a, it’s not just like here’s the chord change, here’s your phrase, here’s the chord change, here’s your phrase. It’s here’s the chord changes, and then you run a pretty phrase in between all of them, which is really nice. Now, likewise, if you’re thinking of the, if you’re thinking of the bridge, it’s the same change in whole steps a few times down. So you might not want to play just
  7. 4:06an F-sharp 7 run into a B major run every time. But let’s just take an F-sharp 7 run. Let’s say, let’s run up from the 5th. Let’s run up from the 5th to the 2nd. We’ll put in two half-steps. We’ll pivot a chord. And come down and hit two notes of the tritone. and then end on the second of B. So let’s see.
  8. 4:44Okay, so that’s a phrase. And then you can do it here. And the same thing for... And then... Anyway, so that would be for the bridge. But one thing Barry likes to point out is if we play that, let’s say, that first change, it’s something you can become aware of playing through changes. If you play that first change and you’re focused on F sharp 7 running into B major.
  9. 5:25Now the next phrase, you might not want to just start. I mean you really wouldn’t want to do that but you don’t want to start right away playing again now E7 into A major. What you might want to do is then run B major because that changes B major and then it goes to B minor E7. So what you might want to do is run the first one F sharp 7. Now we So what I did there was I played the F sharp 7 into B major, I took a little pause, but I didn’t come back on the E7, I came back on the B major running into E7.
  10. 6:17You know, or whatever. So there are so many ways to look at, okay, here’s this chord for this many bars, this chord for this many bars, how do I run one into the next one? And especially with a song like this where it’s doing similar thing, down-hole steps. You know, it’s easy to fall into the pattern of playing the same phrase on this one, same phrase on that one, so you want to try to mix it up to make it sound a little bit more interesting. Anyway, that’s one aspect of Barry’s method that’s also people don’t talk about a lot, but his approach to soloing in terms of where you are on the chord and running one chord that not a lot
  11. 6:56of people run into another chord. And like I said, he really breaks it down to the smallest form. So the notes of Bb, that’s around F-sharp7. And then in this instance it would be what notes in B also are common with the E7 or surround E7. That’s the type of thing he would look at. And we might look at that for two hours. We might just work on the bridge for Cherokee for two hours. But again, it’s not just looking at the bridge for Cherokee for two hours. You’re dealing with it in a lot of different songs. For instance, in rhythm changes, again, the last two bars, rhythm changes in B-flat is
  12. 7:36B-flat major up and down. And then it starts D-7, up and down. So what most people do is they’ll play a pretty B-flat major phrase. and then or whatever they end up doing. But Barry likes to say, well, don’t leave that B-flat major running into D7 out. So he’ll come up with a phrase or or, let’s see,
  13. 8:15Anyway, that’s another instance where he thinks, let me run this B-flat major into this D7. And it’s not common. A lot of people don’t even think of it that way. They’ll play the last part of their rhythm changes in B-flat, take a breath, and then run something D7 as soon as the bridge starts. I think it’s pretty interesting how he thinks of it that way. Another place where that happens that’s common,
  14. 8:51oh, let’s say in the bridge of confirmation. Starts on F sharp 7 and then B flat major. And then it’s going to do a 2-5 to D flat. So E flat minor to A flat 7 to D flat major. and then gets back to F, after he gets to C7. That’s another spot. So he’ll say, practice F7. Which is running Bb major
  15. 9:28into Ab7. So there’s another thing that he likes to do, which is taking a normal thing that people do, which is the bridge. Now that’s for confirmation. So, anyway, it’s just another thing. So, back to, I didn’t mean to sidetrack that way, but that’s kind of an important concept
  16. 10:01that at least I’ve overlooked a bunch of times. So it’s interesting to look at. But let’s go back to the bridge of Cherokee. Let’s play maybe another phrase, but let’s play a phrase using his chromatic, his chromatic scale. So maybe we’ll start on the 7. And we’ll go chromatically all the way up to the 4th. And when we get to the 4th, we’re going to come down a chord. So.
  17. 10:36Maybe we’ll hit the major 7 after that. No, let’s not. Let’s just say... And then we’ll do the same thing for the B major, but we’ll start on the 3rd of B major. Yeah, so let’s end on the 7th. So let’s say... And then you do the same thing for E7. But here, the last two, you wouldn’t do it.
  18. 11:17You would just do, let’s say, the first one. And then... Or whatever, however you want to finish up short seven. But that’s another interesting way to look at using his chromatic scale. you know it’s not again i’m just doing these uh purposely down hole steps so you can really see how to work on them but obviously when you’re soloing you’re going to want to throw all this stuff in at different times so um yeah but the bridge to cherokee leads to a lot of different things because obviously the bridge to cherokee goes into so many different keys and it’s going
  19. 11:56to help you. And that’s also, let’s say, if you take the first, the first change F-sharp seven, F-sharp seven also brings in tritone, which is C-seven, going into the B major. So of course you should work on phrases, running F-sharp seven into C-seven, which we talked about in the previous episode talking about family. That’s one of the families. F-sharp seven to C-seven. That’s one of the four dominants that F-sharp seven is family with. So yeah,
  20. 12:36I hope you enjoy practicing your scales and your exercises for the Bridge Cherokee. And I’m going to do this more often, maybe take a look at just two bars or four bars of things just to get a little bit deeper into it. But if you have any questions, please feel free to ask me down below. Or even, I’m actually available for Skype lessons if anybody’s interested also. But yeah, I’m really enjoying these, like I’ve said before, and I hope you guys are too. So until next time,
  21. 13:08enjoy practicing the Bridge of Cherokee. Thanks.