Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 13: Tunes as the curriculum

Middle of a blues: bars 5 to 8

Episode 58 · 15:28 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris takes bars 5 to 8 of a C blues: first the scales (F7, then C major down to the third of A), then the many movements a player can hear in those bars. They include the sharp-four diminished and its dominant family, F major to F minor, triads walking down by half steps, the tritone of the VI dominant and the flat III diminished. The point is how many movements fit into four bars, not copying his phrases.

Step by step

  1. 0:38Scales for bars 5 to 8 in C: F7 up and down, then C major up and down to the third of A; Bird and Bud hear bar 7 as major, not dominant
  2. 1:44On F7: start on the third, come down with one half step and end on F; or use three half steps, come down to the third and go up a diminished to the fifth of C
  3. 2:52Skip F7 and go straight to F sharp diminished, the sharp-four diminished, ending on the fifth of C
  4. 3:24Lower each note of F sharp diminished to find its four dominants (B, D, F, A flat); the two diminished chords together make the scale Barry won’t call half-whole
  5. 4:29Treat the bars as F major to the sharp-four diminished, or F major to F minor
  6. 5:36For F minor Barry would play the B flat 7 scale, hearing the minor as part of a dominant
  7. 6:10Bars 7 and 8: plain C major down to the third of A, or hear the passing changes players put there and let your line imply them
  8. 8:04Barry hears E minor 7 as an E minor triad plus a G major triad, so walk triads down by half steps: G, G flat, F major, or E minor, E flat minor, D minor
  9. 10:31Use tritones: run C major into E flat 7 (A7’s tritone) or into A flat 7 and then G7
  10. 11:54The flat III diminished works in this spot too

Barry’s own words on this

13.1 The blues the Barry way4.4 Scale outlines8.3 Four dominants from every diminished chord10.1 Be a movement player

In the course

Scale outlinesA minor 7 is two triadsThe tritoneThe family of dominantsThe diminished scale: a diminished plus four tonicsCome up a diminished from the thirdBe a movement playerIV6, raised IV diminished, IThree, flat three, twoI to flat III diminishedThe blues the Barry way

Transcript

  1. 0:03hello and welcome to episode 58 of things I’ve learned from Barry Harris today I thought we would finally get around to working on the second four bars of a blues which would be bars five through eight and all the different variations of ways to play them maybe I’ll even give some examples of how I think about it but first we’ll talk about the scales so I’ve done the scales previously to the blues is my first episode episode 7 I think which I’ll try to leave someplace is the first four
  2. 0:38bars and in that episode we did it in the key of C so I guess we stay in the key of C so the second four bars of the blues in the key of C starts on f7 so we’ll play f7 scale up and down and then we’ll play the next part is C major seven up and down to the third of so that’s a that’s a point of contention for a lot of people because they’re used to hearing a blues where that goes back
  3. 1:10to a dominant chord as opposed to major but if you listen to bird and bud and all the Masters they’ll play that as a major because that’s a specific sound they like to hear so that’d be natural will be there so that’s basically what we’re gonna look at those two things you have seven up and down C major seven up and down to the third of a so first we’ll take a look at just playing f7 scale into C major so anything that you know how to do an f7 let’s start on the
  4. 1:44three and put one half step and then we’ll end on the F so say let’s see [Music] just the simple phrase I don’t know if I exactly play it that way but it’s just an idea maybe let’s try to put three half steps let’s see maybe we’ll come up with diminished from the third
  5. 2:18so we’ll say Watson so that was running three half steps and then putting down to the third going up a diminution ending on the fifth so that’s if we just did f7 now we can also think we kind of referenced it a little bit on the last line will you think of four dominant sharp four diminished which is nice so
  6. 2:52now we can do anything up I might not even play f7 I might just play that diminished so if we played again first four bars I didn’t even play any f7 I just went right to F sharp diminished and again I ended on the five of the C so there’s another way then you can play that
  7. 3:24actual diminished scale which is if I take the F sharp diminished and I lower one note of each one of them I get four different dominance which very first so there’s the for dominance the for dominance would be B D F and a flat so if I play those four notes I got a diminished if I also play after up diminished then if I put those two things together I did this scale which some people refer to as a whole step
  8. 3:57half step or half step whole step which Barry can’t stand that phrase cuz he he feels like it leaves out what what its origins are which is actually more important than the scale itself so yeah you could just play that scale over that this mark so let’s see that was just that scale again I ended on that v so there’s a lot of different ways also
  9. 4:29instead of f7 we could treat this maybe like F major so that would be F major to that sharp to the sharp four diminished that’s four majors and also we could treat it like four major to four minor so which would be that’s a nice one so too
  10. 5:02[Music] those were all nice too and that’s just treating it as f major to minor another movement which goes back to one so all these movements you could do just on that what we’re using the scale just F seven up and down but these are all the little movements that can happen within those two bars which would be I guess bar five and six so that’s that little aspect so one thing when you’re
  11. 5:36talking about form agent for minor Barre would probably say F major scale and he would then say B flat seven scale because Mary looks at the minor the five as the five of a dominant so he would look at that as a B flat seven scale so that’s why I was kind of messing around B flat seven scale there the next part of it goes to C major now this part is interesting because you could just play regular C major scale up and down to the third of a which is kind of what we do when we put the scale we could you know
  12. 6:10do lines you know those are all one to the six dominant but we can get even deeper in those because sometimes people play for instance and other changes in that little spot the major for two beats two for dominant of two to be to the three chord to the six chord so be
  13. 6:48that’s a change that people play which means you should probably play that if you’re a soloist so that’s a nice one [Music] that’s a nice one some people play this it’s a nice one that’s all these change but do doo dee
  14. 7:25doo dee da ba ba dee doo dee doo dee doo see that’s the important thing is to hear those changes behind it another set of changes people use is sometimes one to the floor and then they’ll play three to five so we play that those will all changes we play well these are all little things that you do a lot of let’s
  15. 8:04see and Barry likes to say that it is like Barry says that a minor seven consists of two things it consists of an E minor E minor triad and it also consists of a G major chart so that means any of those things I can run like a G major triad and then run it down a half step until we get to on this change a minor D flat minor D minor Barre
  16. 8:39sometimes thinks G major triad to G flat major triad to F major triad so if we play that’s a nice one so that’s nice [Music] those are nice too or we could focus on just the the E minor to the E flat minor to the D minor
  17. 9:14which would be pretty or I could play straight a minor seven for the first one up all pretty sometimes people play this too which is the one to the two
  18. 9:57[Music] I just did try ass [Music] those are pretty too sometimes people take the tritone of the six dominant so in this case it’s a seven and then they’ll play E flat seven so let’s try
  19. 10:31that so it’ll just be like running C major running C major into a flat 7 which is beautiful [Music] that’s pretty I just came down the second of a cord from the second of a flat seven so also sometimes when when doing that me minor D flat minor some
  20. 11:18people play it’s obviously instead of thinking the e-flat the E flat minor there you could also think it’s dime which would be e a flat seven so sometimes you could think playing C major to a flat seven so that’s into a flat seven into G seven so see all the
  21. 11:54different ways I mean you could go crazy thinking about all these things but also flat three diminished is a nice one [Music] that’s nice one too so that would be something like that’s a nice one that’s a nice on the flat three diminished so let’s see so just in that the point of this is not that you copy
  22. 12:36my phrases which aren’t that great anyway but it’s just the idea of how many different movements you could play in that little spot that little four bar spot of a blues is incredible that’s why I think a lot of the great musicians always say if you really want to learn how to play jazz you have to know a blues you have to know rhythm changes and you have to know some ballets you know body and soul or embraceable you or things like that I think because that takes a
  23. 13:11lot of the of the aspects of the music into account in a tune so just within those twelve bars of a of a blues if you just notice just those four parts that we talked about today how many different movements did we come up with and there’s more I mean there’s more I know guys play a lot of other changes but I’m just trying to break it down to show you just small few so you see different reasons while you have to learn how to play a flat major to f7 or E flat major running into a flat 7 or E flat I’m
  24. 13:46sorry or C major running into E flat 7 or C major running into a flat 7 or E minor walking down to E flat minor which Barry considers that a flat minor a flat 7 but all the little important things they’re involved all the half steps the thirds the triads the chords the the the everything you worked on to try to create lines using those movements so between that and the first four bars there’s a lot of things to practice really a lot of things I could see
  25. 14:18already just from giving this little video how many things I don’t really see that well that I have to see that I know mentally oh okay yeah that’s right see major into a flat seven but how many pretty ways do I know how to play it you know it’s very important so enjoy working on these and hopefully before the next two years I’ll make the last episode of the last four bars but I hope you enjoyed episode 58 and also if you get a chance make sure you check out
  26. 14:51barry Harris’s website because he’s been doing online classes from his house when he’s feeling up to it and you can register on Barry Harris comm I think it’s ten dollars to take a lesson with them which is remarkable and it’s in a zoom setting so it’s great it’s a class you know lesson where he just goes to the piano and talks and he’ll talk about movements and things like this only the examples are you know obviously on a master level so okay anyway until next time see you soon