In plain words
Rhythm sat at the top of Barry’s list, and he reached for cosmic images to say so: the universe is built on rhythm, the turning of the sun is rhythm, and a single thing slipping out of rhythm would bring everything down. He told a class they had not given rhythm enough attention, and that real improvising starts from treating it as the most important thing.
He put it bluntly to one master class: before you are a horn player, you are a drummer. The day before, a trumpeter had hummed him a phrase over the telephone, and Barry’s reply was: where’s your rhythm? Give me some rhythm first. Rhythm comes first, he said, because that is what music is.
Student performances and coaching19:53
The hardest thing to judge, Barry said, is whether your mind is leading your hands or your hands are just doing what they are used to. He pictured the hands as monsters with a will of their own, slipping into favourite grooves unless you watch them. His best answer was to think of a rhythm alone, without even humming a pitch, and then find notes to suit it; that was when he came closest to being original.
Rhythm is also the point of his scale drills. He said the half steps go into the scales so that you practise rhythm, and that running a scale with them is more than scale practice, because you are practising rhythm as well. Of his phrase drills he said the aim was not those particular phrases but to show how things fit together and to make students conscious of rhythm.
Half-step rules on the dominant scale, part 24:405:22The 1998 workshop, part 116:22Feeling the ‘and’33:08
How he said to practise it
Make up a rhythm without humming any pitch at all, then find notes to fit it. Barry said this is hard, and that it was the nearest he got to playing something original.
Rhythm before notes2:52
Keep thinking about rhythm away from the instrument, even walking down the street. Barry pointed out that rhythm is the one thing you can think about anywhere.
Rhythm before notes4:47
Hear a line such as Bird Feathers as a rhythm rather than as notes, and learn to read a written rhythm and sing it. In the same class Barry had everyone sing a phrase of their own beginning on the ‘and’ of one after a count-off.
Listen to Bird’s tunes for their rhythm alone. Barry wished someone would make versions of them with the pitches taken out, so students could hear just the rhythm and start learning from it.
Rhythm before notes5:20
In Barry’s words
Each one plays from the moment he says it. Every other moment he teaches it is listed below.
We must realize that the most important thing is rhythm, the universe, the whole structure is rhythm.
You’re a drummer before you’re a horn player... so you have to think of rhythm. Rhythm is first.
The hands are like monsters... if you aren’t careful with the hands, they’ll just play those grooves that they like.
I come closest to being original if I think of the rhythm first, without humming a note.
Where this comes from
Everything above is drawn from these. Open any one to check it.
Every moment he teaches it11 moments in 8 recordings
Each time opens the transcript there; the video plays when you are online.
Rhythm before notes
- 1:10
Rhythm rules the world; students have not concentrated on it, and improvising needs it first.
- 2:20
The hands as monsters with their own grooves; think the rhythm alone, then fit notes.
- 4:47
Think of rhythm all the time, even walking down the street.
- 5:20
Wishes for Bird tunes with the pitches removed, so students hear only the rhythm.
Rhythm comes first
- 0:00
The most important thing is rhythm; the whole structure of the universe is rhythm.
Student performances and coaching
- 19:53
You are a drummer before a horn player; tells a trumpeter to give him rhythm first.
Bird Feathers
- 0:36
After singing Bird Feathers: think of a line’s rhythm, not its notes; sing written rhythms.
Half-step rules on the dominant scale, part 2
- 4:40
The half steps are put into the scales so that we can practise rhythm.
The 1998 workshop, part 1
- 16:22
Running a scale with half steps is practising rhythm, not just a scale.
Feeling the ‘and’
- 33:08
His phrase drills are meant to make students conscious of rhythm.
Dropping notes to feel every beat
- 4:16
Players must really practise rhythm, keeping it going all the way through whatever the tempo.
From the lessons1 lesson, 4 points
Notes taken from Barry’s classes, each tied to the moment it comes from.
Rhythm comes first
- Idea
Barry said the music is more classical to him, Western and Eastern, and more Eastern in its rhythm, which he felt students had not concentrated on enough. In his view rhythm rules the world: the sun’s motion and everything else is rhythm, and if one thing went off rhythmically the whole universe would collapse. To really improvise, he said, you have to treat rhythm as the most important thing.
- Idea
Barry told one class that you are a drummer before you are a horn player. When a trumpeter hummed him a phrase over the phone, Barry’s answer was to ask where the rhythm was and to give him some rhythm first. Get the rhythm, then the notes. As he put it, music is rhythm.
Student performances and coaching19:58
- Idea
Barry admitted it is hard to tell whether the mind leads the hands or the hands lead the mind. He described the hands as monsters with a life of their own: they fall into grooves they like and will keep playing them if you are not careful. The closest he came to being original was to think of a rhythm first, without humming any notes, and only then make notes fit it. Thinking a rhythm with no pitch is hard, but it keeps the hands from simply repeating their habits. He suggested thinking about rhythm all the time, even while walking down the street.
- Exercise
After singing a line from Bird Feathers and recalling Bird’s solo, Barry told the class to think about the rhythm of a line as opposed to its notes. If we concentrated on rhythm, he said, we could look at a rhythm written out and sing it. Try his exercise: have someone count off one, two, three, four, then sing a phrase of your own that starts on the ‘and’ of beat one.
In writing3 notes
What his interviews, his students’ class notes and other teachers’ articles add.
In a 1994 e-interview Barry said bebop cannot be discussed without rhythm and syncopation: knowing the ‘ands’ and not treating them only as pickups to the beat, and drummers knowing rhythm too. He called rhythm first, and said he always tries to make people practise in time, keep the time going and think about rhythm constantly.
Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶1506Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶1507Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶1508Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶1509Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶1510
Looking back on bebop’s arrival, Barry said it was mostly the rhythm that Bird changed, and called Bird the great influence on rhythm, the player who changed the drums along with everything else.
Andrew Velez, Barry Harris: A Thousand Percent Music Man ¶10Andrew Velez, Barry Harris: A Thousand Percent Music Man ¶13
A forum member complained that online the method is often reduced to the chromatic scale, the half-step rules and chord-scale thinking, and said the way out is to pay attention to rhythm, recalling that Barry said rhythm rules the world all the time.
jazzguitar.be members (usernames kept per post), Question to Barry Harris Line Building Disciples ¶75jazzguitar.be members (usernames kept per post), Question to Barry Harris Line Building Disciples ¶76
How other teachers explain it1 video, 5 series episodes
Barry’s students, and their students, teaching it their way. A second opinion, not Barry.
- Barry Harris - musical philosopher - his rhythm, melody, harmony
Barry as a musical thinker on rhythm, melody and harmony, by its title.
16 min On YouTube
In the teaching series
Episodes on this idea in the long series by other teachers. Each name opens that whole series in order.
Read further2 links
These open on the web.
Free to read
- Barry Harris (on video); Howard Rees (producer, The Barry Harris Workshop Video Part 2: product page and 156-page workbook table of contents
— Its first session covers feeling the rhythm of a line alongside scale practice and the extra-note rules (paid).
Books and paid courses
- The Barry Harris Workshop Video (Part 1), Howard Rees / Jazz Workshop Productions: 4+ hours, 5 clinic segments + 102-112 page workbook (ABCs, scales on song forms, movable chords, rhythm section, vocalizing)
Barry himself (produced and transcribed by Howard Rees) — Barry’s own workshop on video with Howard Rees’s workbook: scale practice, song forms and a rhythm-section chapter (paid).