Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 13: Tunes as the curriculum

You’ve never played this on a blues

Episode 124 · 10:59 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris zooms in on bars 7 and 8 of a B flat blues, where B flat major heads to C minor. The chord in between, usually G7, can also be a D flat (C sharp) minor, a D flat 7 or a D flat diminished, and he makes lines for each. He links this to Barry’s idea of movement and Coleman Hawkins’s saying that he played movements, not chords.

Step by step

  1. 0:00Barry’s blues in B flat: B flat 7, E flat 7 and B flat 7 up and down for the first four bars, then E flat 7 in bars 5 and 6.
  2. 0:37Bars 7 and 8: B flat major up and down to the third of G; many play D minor to G7 going to C minor.
  3. 1:13The G7 can instead be C sharp (D flat) minor, D flat 7 or D flat diminished; all of them go to C minor.
  4. 2:22We already use all three when comping: that D flat chord can be dominant, minor or diminished.
  5. 3:00A line on D flat 7: one half step between its third and second, then come down a chord from the second.
  6. 3:34Or come down the D flat major arpeggio, the important arpeggio on the root of the dominant.
  7. 4:13Go up a triad from the root of B flat (1-2-3-5), then come down a C sharp minor arpeggio and end on C minor.
  8. 4:47Try the same spot as D flat diminished.
  9. 6:02These are three movements that fit one spot; this is what Coleman Hawkins meant by playing movement, not chords.
  10. 9:47When transcribing, hear these as the masters thinking D flat 7 or D flat minor, not as altered G7 notes.

Barry’s own words on this

13.1 The blues the Barry way10.1 Be a movement player8.5 The tritone6.1 Arpeggios on every degree; the three important arpeggios of a dominant scale

In the course

Scale outlinesThe three important arpeggios of a dominantDon’t think altered, think familyBe a movement playerBars 7 and 8 of the bluesThe blues the Barry waySmall things

Transcript

  1. 0:00Hello and welcome to episode 124 of Things I’ve Learned from Barry Harris. And today I thought we would talk about there’s a specific movement in the blues that is very common in a lot of other songs. And I’ve been looking at it a lot lately and seeing how many variations you can come up with and it’s really special. The part is, let’s say, in the seventh and eighth bar of a blues. So normal blues in B-flat, let’s say, We have Bb7, Eb7, Bb7 up and down, that’s the first four bars.
  2. 0:37Now the fifth and sixth bar is going to be Eb7 up and down. And then Barry has, so that’s the fifth and sixth bar, now the seventh and eighth bar is going to be Bb major up and down to the third of G. And then it does F7 up and down, and then Bb up, F7 up. But we’re going to take this 7th and 8th bar of B-flat major up and down to the 3rd of G. I’ve been looking at this one little particular spot where we could say it’s like B-flat major, and then some people play D-minor to G-7, going to C-minor.
  3. 1:13So, B-ba-da-ba-da-ba-ee-ba-dee-da-dee-da-da. That works perfectly. But that doesn’t always have to be G-7. Sometimes that can be It can be C sharp minor. So D minor to C sharp minor. Sometimes it can be D minor to C sharp 7 or D flat 7 going to C minor.
  4. 1:48Sometimes it can be D, da, da, boo, da, boo, E, da, D, da, D, do, A, da, D, da. Wait. No, the other diminishing. D, da, D, boo. So it can be, so each time I’m doing something different. One time I did D minor to C sharp minor or D flat minor. One time I did D minor to D flat 7. And one time I did D minor to D flat diminished. They all go to 2, every one of those. So D minor to G7 goes to 2.
  5. 2:22The D minor to D7 tritone. Db7 goes to C minor. The D minor to C sharp minor or Db minor goes to C minor. So when we chord, we do this all the time. Or we’ll play. We do all three of those. So what’s funny is that D-flat or that C-sharp can either be dominant, it can be minor, or it can be diminished.
  6. 3:00So if you think about making up lines for that spot, like we were doing this just to scale up and down. That was nice. I turned it into D-flat 7, so I’ll try that. one, two, three, four. Let’s see. Maybe I’ll do it. That time I put in one half step between the third and the second of the D-flat,
  7. 3:34and I came down a chord from the second of the D-flat. So let’s see. That’s a pretty phrase. that was treating it like a Db7. I’ll do another one. Maybe I’ll say... That’s how I just came down a Db major arpeggio because that’s one of the important arpeggios of the dominant chord on the root. How about if I did... Let me change the first part. Instead of saying... Maybe we’ll do a triad up. Okay, let’s try that. So we’re going to do a
  8. 4:13triad up from the root. And we’re going to play one, two, three, five of B flat. So we’ll say, ah. That time I did D minor, and then I played C sharp minor arpeggio down. Ended on C minor arpeggio. So let’s try that one again. So we’ll say E flat seven. Here’s B-flat. Ah. And this time, let me make the D-flat. I’ll make it the D-flat 7.
  9. 4:47So let’s see. Ah. That was just coming down D-flat. I could have come down D-flat major. So that’s a nice one. Now let me hear what diminished sounds like. I like the diminished one. I mean, that is a beautiful phrase. I like that.
  10. 5:26Love that stuff. So isn’t that wild that you can make this C sharp or D flat, you can make it either minor, you can make it dominant, or you can make it diminished. And it all goes to the next C minor. Every one of those. So it really makes you see the blues, like if we’re playing a blues, you try to do, let’s see, from the beginning. That was a nice one right there.
  11. 6:02So the idea is, see, and this goes back to when Barry talked about playing with Coleman Hawkins, and Coleman Hawkins said, I don’t play chords, I play movement. This is what I, I’m assuming this is what he was talking about, where he’s talking about going from this chord to this chord, Barry would refer to that as a movement. So in this instance, we’re going from B-flat major to either C-sharp minor or D-flat minor, or D-flat seven, or D-flat diminished. So those are three movements.
  12. 6:34B-flat major to D-flat minor, or B-flat major to D-flat seven, or B-flat major to D-flat diminished. Those are three different movements, but they all work in the same spot. And it’s just great. So you have to figure out, okay, that’s what practicing is. See, what learning how to improvise is, this is what I’m starting to discover is, after all these years of like really thinking about it, is you have to learn how to play from this chord to this chord. That’s the whole ball game. This chord to this chord. That’s a movement. And the one that’s going to be the best, Barry used to say this all the time, he would say,
  13. 7:11the one that’s going to be the best is the one that knows how to do all these little small things, but can do a million of them. That’s the one that’s going to be the best. So that’s what I’m striving for and I hope that’s what the channel kind of gives you inspiration to do. To sit there and try to come up with like, okay, if I started on B-flat, if I started on tonic and ran up to the three, maybe the four. That time I went all the way, I got down to what would be the flat seventh of the F sharp seven or I’m sorry the the minor third of the C sharp minor so I said one two three four
  14. 7:58that’s a nice one so once so again so take from the E flat seven now I mean, that’s pretty stuff. Or I could try to practice that same phrase. And what do we say we could make this diminished? So let’s do that. So let’s see. Let’s see. That’s the diminished.
  15. 8:33That’s the... That’s a nice one. What’s the one that we missed? Oh, the one that we missed is... because obviously you can’t use that for D-flat 7. But I want to use a D-flat 7, so let’s say... I like that. That’s, again, down from the 2nd of the D-flat 7, down a chord from the 2nd. I mean, this stuff is just beautiful. So think about it. You sit up, and you just practice going from this movement to this movement. You know, any which way.
  16. 9:11Let’s try that one again. Let’s see. I like that. That’s a really nice one. So, ah. So now that is an interesting part of the blues that perhaps you’d never thought about playing those little changes at this little spot of the blues at the seventh and eighth bar.
  17. 9:47Never. But do you see how you can make your blues now filled with all this beautiful stuff that doesn’t exist? And, on top of that, if you’re transcribing like Coleman Hawkins or Bird or Bud Powell or even Barry, you’re going to hear them playing these little movements within there. Maybe sometimes it’s a little different, but at least now you have a point of reference to. Because I remember when I was transcribing first, when I first started starting with Barry and I was transcribing something, I remember often I would say to myself, like, I don’t understand where this note is coming from or what this is coming from. And then, of course, then I would try to compare it to G7 and not say,
  18. 10:26oh, I guess he’s playing the flat 9, the flat 7, the raised 5. It wasn’t any of that. It was, oh, he was thinking a D flat 7. Or he was thinking a D flat minor. You see, that’s what it was. So that’s what the masters really can do. They really can play movement. I mean, like Coleman Hawkins said. So anyway, I hope this was helpful to really getting even deeper into a blues and seeing how much beauty there is as you go in deeper. Anyway, until next time, enjoy.