Barry’s classes

Surrounding notes, half steps on the dominant scale, B-flat seven arpeggios and the start of rhythm changes.

Rules beat scales: filling half steps in major, harmonic minor and diminished scales to break habits.

Scale rules, 24 ways to play a four-note arpeggio, the blues, offbeat phrasing and a Cherokee drill.

On a B-flat blues: how scale exercises are defined, diminished routes to the two chord, and pivoting.

Three key arpeggios in the dominant scale, on tonic, fifth and seventh, and a scale plan for the B-flat blues.

The opening minute of his first Hague class; the subject is not clear from the recording.

The first class continues as he introduces the diminished scale.

He explains that C6 is built from two diminished chords, a scale everybody should know and write out.

Applying the rules when a line starts with a leap, a triad or a triplet: which note falls on the beat.

Where the half steps go when running down a dominant seventh scale from any degree, then tried out on Lover.

Building fast phrases for Perdido: a chord on the third of B-flat, a chromatic descent, an F7 run back home.

Singers, horns and rhythm practise coming in on each offbeat, on Misty and a blues line.

Building the sixth and minor sixth diminished scales, ways to practise them, and moving between them.

He drills the 4-3 and 5-4-3 phrases on Cherokee, stopping to feel them, then starting on the second beat.

Students play the bridge of Rhythm changes with Barry; mostly music, with little talk in the recording.

For the singers: he shows a figure Monk used to play over Sweet Georgia Brown, and the class tries it.

A short clip of him coaching students on the tune; the details are hard to make out from the recording.

He sings Charlie Parker’s Bird Feathers line and talks the class through it.

How Bird played D7 over E-flat minor to A-flat 7, and why to practise tritone-related sevenths together.

Barry recalls a Charlie Parker line on Embraceable You played off the tritone, and calls the ninth a second.

He borrows diminished notes over the tune and traces the major to relative minor to half-diminished movement.

He plays the tune and explains why he does not believe in playing chords with the left hand.

He tells of a classical pianist who did not know her piece’s changes, and why to learn composition.

Barry moves voices out of chords through the minor sixth diminished scale, so that harmony becomes line.

Coaching horn and bass through solo phrases on Parker’s tune: pivots, pickups and when a triplet is needed.

Mostly playing: the class runs through the bridge of Cherokee as he counts them in.

Take a phrase’s notes off one at a time so it starts on every beat and offbeat, then add them back in time.

Moving melodically through the quick key changes of Giant Steps instead of thinking chords; common tones.

A 41-second clip of Barry playing I Want to Be Happy for his students in The Hague.

A short drill with students on two-five-one progressions in drop-2 voicings, with him at the piano.

Built from C6 plus the missing diminished: chords from the scale, borrowing, and the family of four dominants.

He has a pianist drive a run with the whole body, not the fingers, keeping each chord shape fixed in the hand.

A one-minute tip: practise the scale’s chords short-short-long, then switch the rhythm, in one key or many.

A follow-up: he plays the major scale, then the sixth diminished scale, and asks which is more interesting.

A student plays B, A and G major scales through the bridge, then C7 and F7 scales for the closing dominants.

Piano playing is movement, not fingers: the fingers alone cannot get you around the keyboard.

He plays the tune and explains what he does and does not want to hear when students play for him.

He teaches a band the bebop blues phrase by phrase, then coaches hi-hat brushes and small piano voicings.

Barry has the singers sing major and minor triads, then rehearses April in Paris with them section by section.

Why rhythm matters most in improvising, and how thinking rhythm first keeps the hands from playing habits.

A brief clip of the class playing scales through Sweet Georgia Brown as he counts them in.

He maps scales onto the last 16 bars and shows why E-flat 7 works over a G half-diminished chord.

The scale route continues, E-flat 7 to A-flat 7 to D-flat major, and the class stops after 16 bars.

A brief clip of the class on the tune; beyond a reminder to play the E-flat, little is clear.

Why pianists should master small, blended two-hand chords, starting with sixth chords, not big voicings.

On Star Eyes, Barry plays B-flat minor with the sixth in the bass where most would play G half-diminished.

Songs are more than chains of two-fives: Stella’s opening chords, and where every half-diminished comes from.

Horn players must swing on their own, not depend on the bass and drums to do it for them.

He teaches the 5-4-3-2-1 phrase, and the half step to put between six and five when you run down.

Why D natural is wrong on that C minor seventh, and how many major keys each kind of chord belongs to.

He reviews the half-step rules for the descending dominant scale; the added note can go almost anywhere.

He plays the diminished in one hand against the sixth in the other, then reversed: nobody can call it wrong.

Bird’s tritone phrase on Indiana, then an exercise for horns: F-sharp 7 in place of C7 over G minor.

Why you have to learn tritones: he has the student play F minor while he plays E against it.

A short clip on minor songs, starting from songs in F minor; little else is clear from the recording.

A short clip: the class takes a passage of the tune through every key as he counts them in.

Barry moves the notes of a chord by ear on the E-flat sixth diminished scale, top voice and bottom.

Barry asks for something quick and simple that most of the class can’t yet play; transcribed on screen.

Major to minor to minor with the sixth in the bass: the movement Barry plays for a half-diminished change.

After a band run-through, Barry half-jokingly begs drummers not to accent beat four alone, Philly Joe style.

Even fine classical pianists don’t know the changes of their pieces; learning them is the way to improvising.

Horn players can’t lean on bass and drums: everyone must swing on their own and hold the tempo.

Don’t blame the drummer, Barry tells the band: everyone slows down, so everyone must keep the tempo up.

Every player swings alone, Barry tells the band; nobody can depend on bass and drums to swing for them.

Chord symbols don’t teach improvising; like Coleman Hawkins, Barry says, play movements, not chords.

Why does a Bud Powell passage in B-flat suddenly turn to C? Barry puts the question to his class.

A clip from the class that is almost all music, with applause and very little talk.

Barry walks the band through the changes, scales up and down on each chord, and tells them not to be scared.

A music-only clip filmed inside Barry’s Tuesday workshop in New York.

Barry has a student’s idea played slowly and tells the class to watch the top of the chords.

Freddie Cole drops in on the vocal class and Barry holds up his soft singing as the way to win an audience.

Barry works a line through key after key at the piano; playing it, he says, is how he comes to know the keys.

A short clip of Barry working out an idea at the piano; the subject is not clear from the recording.

Barry works a line the uploader calls classical through different keys at the piano in class.

Mostly music: Barry plays and coaches at the piano, asking for a passage slowly and checking where it fits.

Untitled footage from the weekly classes with no description or transcript; the subject is not clear.

A short clip from the class, mostly music; the speech is not clear enough to tell the subject.

A few seconds of Barry at the piano in class, with no speech.

Barry plays and coaches at the piano in class, asking for a passage slowly and checking where it comes in.

Barry works out a run that keeps going down the scale at the piano in class, saying he can’t do it fast.

An 18-second moment in class with a brief remark about the last chord played.

Barry, unsure of the name at first, settles on Topsy and plays it at the piano in class.

A second clip of Barry playing Topsy at the piano in class.

A 42-second clip from the weekly classes with no description or transcript; the subject is not clear.

Barry names chord shapes at the keyboard: a flat second, A minor six and the one that’s on the three.

A standard is sung in class, apparently ‘Never Let Me Go’, with a few brief comments at the end.

A short clip of Barry playing a waltz, posted with other clips from his class.

A short clip of playing in class, with a few brief remarks about D minor.

A very short clip in which a tune is sung; the song is not clear from the recording.

A 30-second clip of piano playing from the class, with no talking.

Barry asks a student what chord shape they played and shows the one it should be.

The class sings a tune together; the words and any remarks are hard to make out.

A 20-second clip from the class, posted untitled; the subject is not clear from the recording.

Nearly eight minutes from the class, posted without a description; the subject is not clear yet.

Barry talks through a G6 chord moved up a step and back again.

A clip of under a minute from the class, posted untitled; the subject is not clear from the recording.

A one-minute clip from the class, posted untitled; the subject is not clear from the recording.

A clip of just over a minute from the class, posted untitled; the subject is not clear from the recording.

A clip of under two minutes from the class, posted untitled; the subject is not clear from the recording.

A clip of just under two minutes from the class, posted untitled; the subject is not yet clear.

A two-minute clip from the class, posted untitled; the subject is not clear from the recording.

Over the playing, Barry calls out where to slide, naming F sharp and C sharp.

Another upload of the same clip: over the playing, Barry calls out where to slide, at F sharp and C sharp.

Improvisation class: diminished chords, and a harmonic minor scale played from the sixth.

Barry coaches the singers through ‘How Beautiful’ in a short clip from his vocal class.

Barry tells a student he cannot follow what they are playing, and stresses clarity at the keyboard.

Barry corrects a student’s voicing, with talk of a minor tenth.

A short clip of playing from the class, with almost no talking.

Barry shows a way to use C7 and checks that the students are writing it down.

About a minute of piano from the class, with no talking.

A 30-second moment in which Barry takes up a student’s question; too short to say more.

Barry sets the class going on an exercise that starts from C major 7.

A 22-second moment: Barry remarks on standing where a student stands and watching them play.

A very short clip from the class, mostly music; the subject is not clear from the recording.

A one-minute clip of Barry playing, with no talking.

Barry plays and talks through a move to E flat 7 in a short clip from his piano class.

A short clip, mostly music, with a few remarks about a change.

Barry says you must be able to sing an idea and play it in every key, on B or A as on C.

An idea is played very fast and the room reacts, in a one-minute clip from the class.

Five minutes from one of Barry’s piano classes; the subject is not clear from the recording.

In a February 2020 class, Barry has Rossano Sportiello play to show that left-hand tenths are rarely needed.

A brief clip from the vocal workshop: mostly singing and applause, with little talk.

Barry rehearses the singers through a song, catching a missed half-step rise and going over the bridge.

With Eli Yamin: the torture test of four keys a minor third apart, and his twelve-tone creation story.

Improvisation’s European roots, why to learn the standards, and drop voicings on a diminished seventh.

Jazz as classical theory continued: scales in thirds, each chord’s scale, four dominants from one diminished.

Borrowing diminished notes for the sixth, raising and lowering notes of the diminished, the scale of chords.

With a guest guitarist: moving notes of the diminished seventh, and the major sixth diminished scale.

Major sixths as minor sevenths, the scale in thirds, drop 2 and borrowing; improvising is learning to talk.

Playing My Ideal with Monk for an hour, then Stella by Starlight and the minor sixth on the dominant’s fifth.

Part 1 with a score of what he plays: what the colleges get wrong, and the torture test in four keys.

Part 2 with a score: improvisation’s European roots, Hawkins on movements, not chords, and drop voicings.

Part 3 with music and text: jazz as classical theory, scales in thirds, and each chord’s own scale.

A one-minute clip from the William Paterson University class; the subject is not clear from the recording.

A university feature: staff explain why Barry’s formalised method is new to students and teachers alike.

In E♭ major, Barry plays the sixth on the tonic and the sixth on the fifth, then adds one note of the other.

Seven minutes of footage from Barry’s visit to William Paterson University; not yet transcribed.

Another copy of the William Paterson clip: the two sixth chords of E♭ major, and adding one note of the other.

NYU students play and Barry coaches: leave space, hit on the ‘ands’, and practise sixteenth-note triplets.

Barry on three-note chords, the sixth diminished scales, what Chopin knew, and moving a phrase onto Cherokee.

Only fifteen seconds survive: Barry starts to show how it sounds when you go to the sixth diminished scale.

A short pre-show panel of the 2012 NEA Jazz Masters on jazz as the most beautiful, and most neglected, music.

For New School students: sixth to diminished to dominant, sixths from a diminished, foot on one and three.

A short demonstration, mostly at the piano, of moving from a minor chord to a dominant.

A 15-second continuation of the minor-to-dominant demonstration.

A short, mostly played clip of the whole-tone scale with half steps added.

Barry uses the whole-tone scale over a II–bII–I resolution and asks how the tritone resolves.

Barry tells a student his thinking is all wrong and shows bebop phrases over the Giant Steps changes.

On Giant Steps movement through scales, Barry admits he plays F seven less well than B-flat seven or C seven.

Mostly music: Barry plays the blues, then a phrase on E seven in place of B-flat seven, also in double time.

There are millions of ways to play the blues, yet we repeat ourselves; then the band plays the three chords.

A 36-second clip in which Barry shows how to end a tune the way Art Tatum did.

Barry shows how to end a tune the way Bud Powell did, following on from the Art Tatum ending.

Barry disguises ’Round Midnight by swapping the chords between the hands, to fool anyone watching closely.

Barry shows a chord substitution on ’Round Midnight, hearing a B-flat seven as really an E chord.

From any note of the scale you should be able to move: Barry takes a C6 voicing in contrary motion.

Barry checks a student’s notes on Bouncing with Bud; he learned it at 15 or 16, so the student may be right.

A short clip of Barry playing the opening of Bud Powell’s I’ll Keep Loving You at the class.

Play the piano horizontally, not vertically: Barry shows a D minor sixth chord borrowing notes from its scale.

Mostly music: more of Barry’s examples at the piano; the subject is not clear from the recording.

Barry plays a whole-tone pattern and dismisses textbook fingering rules: use whatever suits your hand.

Mostly at the piano: Barry demonstrates moving chords over a II–V.

A brief clip: Barry shows how he begins Bud Powell’s I’ll Keep Loving You.

More chord movement and borrowed notes on I’ll Keep Loving You, and the four chords of the diminished scale.

Barry tries note pairs and octaves moving through the diminished scale, finding what sits well in the hand.

A brief clip: Barry shows a student an ending for Like Someone in Love.

Music isn’t exact: the main thing is to groove and keep time, like the bass player who began patting his foot.

A 27-second clip in which Barry demonstrates a passage of ’Round Midnight at the piano.

Barry plays the way Monk ended a song and shows a few other small devices.

Barry plays over rhythm changes, explains why he thinks in scales rather than chords, and builds a break in F.

Barry coaches students through the break in A Night in Tunisia; mostly music, with count-ins and retakes.

The closing clip from the Spain clinic, in which Barry plays an introduction for I’ll Keep Loving You.

A 21-second clip, the third of three, in which Barry demonstrates moving from minor to dominant.

A short clip of Barry demonstrating further examples at the piano during the Spain clinics.

A brief clip in which Barry shows how to move through chords while keeping the hands still.

A 35-second clip: starting from D minor seven, Barry explains the II–♭II–I with the tritone substitute.

Barry plays a II–♭II–I using the whole-tone scale, slowed down with the notation shown on screen.

With Spanish translation: the four dominants and their families, borrowing and drop 2; then mostly music.

The first short clip from the morning of day three; the subject is not clear from the recording.

A short clip of Barry directing the class and calling students up in turn; the subject is not clear.

Barry coaches students on a movement at the piano, first with both hands, then the right hand alone.

Coaching a student, with Spanish translation: chords on the scale in every key, and enjoying each moment.

A short clip from the morning of day three; the subject is not clear from the recording.

Coaching a student, with Spanish translation: know all the chords on the scale, and transposing is a game.

A short clip: Barry shows a diatonic chord exercise and urges a student to learn it in all 12 keys.

With Spanish translation: the diminished scale, surrounding its notes, and the dominants that come from it.

Barry plays My Romance, with Spanish translation, explaining the triads he puts over the chords.

A short spoken dedication recorded for the We Love Jazz festival in Carboneras, Spain.

Real jazz versus modal playing, the diminished scale, the ‘ands’ for drummers, and believing in a teacher.

Eleven minutes from the class, mostly music with brief instructions; the subject is not clear.

A one-minute clip in which Barry shows an introduction for Yesterdays.

A two-minute performance of Sweet and Lovely at the workshop; who is playing is not stated.

Blunt words on jazz schools, Coltrane imitators and festival bookings, and why triads and scales come first.

Barry coaches a student at the piano, on a phrase built from a G minor triad or the harmonic minor scale.

Learn Monk’s tunes, not his playing: Monk devices, mirror-image drills, playing along with a record.

Nearly eight minutes of Barry speaking in Rome; not yet transcribed, so the subject is not known.

A half-minute clip of Barry thanking everyone for coming at the end of the workshop.

Four minutes from the five-day Rome masterclass of 2014; not transcribed, so the subject is not known.

A short clip on the sixth diminished scale and its family of keys a minor third apart: C, E-flat, F-sharp, A.

Barry teaches his tune Clockwise and talks about hitting a chord and finding the scale that goes with it.

A short clip of Barry coaching students and pointing them to the D minor sixth diminished scale.

Four and a half minutes from the March 2016 workshop; not transcribed, so the subject is not known.

Thirteen minutes from the March 2017 masterclass, mostly music; the subject is not clear from the recording.

The chromatic scale as the source of every other scale, and why music, like math, has no end.

Stella by Starlight taken apart: diminished movement and the sixth in the bass, then students play standards.

More from the same class: the diminished chord as the ruler of modulation, and more ways to play the scales.

Four minutes from the 2016 intensive on Stella by Starlight and the sixth diminished; not yet transcribed.

Donna Lee at the Buenos Aires class, the first of two parts; not yet transcribed, so details are not known.

The second part of Donna Lee at the Buenos Aires class; not yet transcribed, so details are not known.

A two-minute clip of Barry with Manuel de Falla conservatory students; mostly music, with little clear talk.

A second short clip from the residency with conservatory students; music only, with no talk.

A one-minute clip of Barry playing in the class; the subject is not clear from the recording.

Under three minutes of music from the class; no talk, and the players are not identified.

Nearly five minutes of music from the class; no teaching talk, and the players are not identified.

Five minutes of a ballad sung at the class; music only, and the performers are not identified.

Singers work on The End of a Beautiful Friendship as Barry insists each one swings on their own.

The real minor (melodic both ways), microphone advice for singers, and feeling six against the bass’s four.

Barry covers upper structures, such as a D triad over F7, drop-2 voicings and the sixth diminished scale.

Listeners greet Barry and chat with him after the concert; the band is introduced near the end.

At the Detroit Jazz Festival: his Detroit youth, Bud Powell and Art Tatum, Monk, the Jazz Cultural Theatre.

On the radio with Jake Feinberg: Detroit, hearing Tommy Flanagan, Bud Powell, teaching, Cherokee in every key.

A Brazilian podcast reads, in Portuguese, Constance Valis Hill’s 1998 interview with Barry on tap and bebop.

A long radio talk: losing the Jazz Cultural Theater, sitting in with Bird in Detroit, Hawkins and Monk.

Radio talk with Ben Sidran: Bud Powell the searcher, Monk on rhythm sections, and teaching singers to phrase.

A 1985 TV report from his Lower Manhattan club: teaching by day, defending bebop on the stand by night.

Playing with Coleman Hawkins, living with Monk, bebop as classical improvisation, and teaching in Sicily.

From a 1981 Detroit Black Journal interview: before he was 21, he’d run into the Bluebird to play a tune.

An excerpt from the film Jazz from Detroit in which Barry recalls hearing Charlie Parker and falling for him.

Documentary portrait centred on the Jazz Cultural Theatre: the classes, Lester Young and Bird, why he teaches.

Documentary portrait: Detroit roots, learning solos from records, Monk and Nica, choirs, and his stroke.

Solos and two-piano duets, Detroit memories, how his workshops began, and accompanying singers.

Fifteen seconds from Rome, 2019, which the uploader describes as Barry referring to Debussy.

The second of Sebastian Wheat’s master-class clips: technique and dedication, with notes called out to play.

The third of Sebastian Wheat’s master-class clips; mostly music, and the Spanish captions show little more.

Think of movement, not chords: the major and minor sixth diminished scales, and the two scales he added later.

Barry goes through Chopin with pianist Francesco Venerucci and hears in it the sixth diminished scale.

Barry names the chords of a piece, hears the diminished as dominants, and urges Europeans to improvise.

A short clip from the master classes at the Philadelphia Clef Club, set up by his old student Alfie Pollitt.

From his New York vocal class: Easy Living sung through in G, part of a key-change exercise.

A master-class clip, mostly at the piano, working on Monk’s ’Round Midnight.

Barry traces a player’s line through Half Nelson’s ii–Vs, says it comes with no plan, and the class tries it.

Barry tells of a young church pianist who learned Tatum by speeding records up; then the class plays it slow.

A short, untranscribed clip from the New York class of 31 March 2015, filed under Polka Dots and Moonbeams.

Forty seconds of Barry improvising a bebop line over Coltrane’s Giant Steps changes in a master class.

Ten seconds: rhythm is the most important thing, because the whole universe is built on it.

A short workshop clip of Barry showing pianists how to accompany a standard.

A talk by Barry set to theory visuals and named after his remark “I am jazz”; not yet transcribed.

Asked what jazz is, Barry answers mostly at the piano, playing the sounds he likes.

Forty seconds, music only: one of Barry’s ideas played in his piano class.

Twenty-four seconds, music only: another of Barry’s ideas played in his piano class.

Be prepared for anything: Barry on technique, and on five constructive minutes of practice every day.

At the piano with a classical player: melodic and harmonic minor and the major scales, by way of Chopin.

Another copy of the Half Nelson clip: a player’s line through the ii–Vs, which Barry says comes with no plan.

A piano class at the Lincoln Square Neighborhood Center, with Philip Anderson; not yet transcribed.

New York as jazz’s finishing school, then Hawk: sitting in with him, living with him, and his last illness.

Barry drills young pianist Zohar Cabo on chord shapes and sends him home to practise them in 11 more keys.

A short montage: Barry says a jazz house should play jazz by tradition, then other masters speak on bebop.

One minute: a stride exercise on the sixth diminished scale, shown with a notated transcription.

A ii–V–I from Barry, set to a notated transcription of what he plays.

At the Tuesday class Barry has young Zohar Cabo repeat a voicing, then play it again from another note.

A two-minute clip from one of Barry’s classes; the subject is not clear from the recording.

How to sing a ballad, using Embraceable You, with the class singing along.

A short clip of Barry at the piano from a set of 2019 class excerpts; the occasion is not stated.

Barry questions the fuss over Bill Evans beside Bud Powell, recalls the forties, and says to learn melodies.

Barry plays and drills students on a scale exercise, taking it all the way up and then back down.

A short class clip, captions fragmentary: Barry relates the A minor sixth and A♭7 to the scale.

A 27-second excerpt of Barry at the piano; the occasion and the subject are not stated.

A short class clip, captions fragmentary: Barry on the A minor sixth, feeling the tritone, and A♭7.

Mostly music: Barry plays bebop lines for the class, with brief remarks on what he is playing.

A 19-second remark, apparently from a class; there is no transcript to say more.

Mostly playing; in between, Barry tells students they have to show the bass player the changes.

A short class clip: Barry on how the major sixth, the minor sixth and the half-diminished chord relate.

A short class clip, captions fragmentary: the A minor sixth, the tritone, A♭7 and the scale.

Barry’s Red Rooster story, the lost teaching of improvisation, and jazz graduates who miss the basics.

A 1981 American Black Journal special on Detroit jazz; Barry, among several guests, on the Bluebird Inn.

Barry plays Giant Steps in Rome, 2019, urges slow practice and reflects on Tommy Flanagan’s Giant Steps date.

Jazz Congress 2020: the fundraiser that flew him home from Italy, jazz schools and modes, Bird and Bud.

A master-class clip its uploader titles long and short movement; there is no transcript to say more.

D7, F7, A♭7 and B7 as one family; then the sixth diminished scale, his ‘personal scale’, starting from C6.

A 1980s class clip: Barry introduces Giant Steps, after remarks on how horn players first learn the piano.

Ali Jackson on Barry: piano at four, his influences, and coming up in Detroit with Jackson’s father and uncle.

A short excerpt from The Hague workshop: Barry demonstrates his sixth diminished ideas at the piano.

A one-minute outburst: Barry dismisses an idea and tells students to learn melodies and sing the solos.

Barry plays Woody ’n’ You plainly, then again with the diminished chords he puts into it.

A 30-second clip: Am7 to D7♭9♯11 voiced in close position, then in drop 2 and drop 3.

F6 to Em7♭5 in contrary motion from one note, then Am7♭5 to D7 in contrary motion in drop 3.

Rome, 2013: on I Should Care, Barry uses the scale though it fits the melody poorly, then a two-tritone trick.

Barry learned jazz without ever hearing of Dorian or Lydian; the modes, he says, came in to make money.

A saxophonist from the weekly class sits at the piano to learn from Barry; mostly music, few words.

A very short clip of Barry teaching piano; there is no transcript yet, so the subject is not clear.

A comic re-edit of class footage in which Barry looks at Stella by Starlight with the class.

A two-minute lesson clip in which Barry tells the students they are not swinging; there is no transcript.

A short clip of Barry on runs over the dominant; there is no transcript to say more.

Barry calls it simple stuff: moving between triads, A to F and C to E♭, within the dominant family.