Colour from the familyTriads over a dominant, two sixth chords, two tritones/sus

If you know all the big chords, Barry says, the small chords are already in your hands, yet many players cannot rip off simple small-chord playing because they never learned the little things. Most important is learning to play a sixth chord for a major chord; there is nothing wrong with that sound. He illustrated with We’ll Be Together Again, a song he says everyone should know.

Small chords, not big ones1:402:132:49

In a workshop Barry had the players play a chord on the tonic of B-flat major and the two chords that follow it; some could not play those chords down by half steps and faked it. He asked who would notice that the first chord is made of two triads, then had them play a D minor triad and its next inversion, starting from the fifth.

The 1998 workshop, part 145:2746:3747:1249:56

Following Schoenberg, Barry names the voices of a four-note chord like a choir: soprano is 1, alto 2, tenor 3, bass 4. On a C diminished seventh, try drop 2, drop 3, drop 2 and 4, and even drop 2 and 3. Run each voicing up from the bottom, one note at a time, and you can make up a whole song with it. He says this is why jazz is the continuation of classical theory.

Jazz theory, part 2: drop voicings5:316:077:107:54

You play with your family first, Barry says. For a C seven he puts the E-flat triad above it (E-flat is in C’s minor-third family), then adds E natural right next to the E-flat. The E is what makes it sound like a dominant; without it you hear a minor seventh. Then let the voices move and resolve to F major.

Jazz theory, part 3, with score9:169:5010:30

Two sixth chords work against E-flat major: E-flat six, on the tonic, and B-flat six, on the fifth. The B-flat six gives the major seventh and the ninth; the E-flat six gives the sixth and the tonic. For pretty chords, play one and add a single note from the other; adding a C struck Barry as almost unbelievably pretty. He adds that Bud Powell went further, using other sixes such as F six against the chord. You have to know the scale.

Two sixth chords against a major key0:040:382:203:59

While a pianist was comping on Misty, Barry stopped the playing: he wanted a plain D minor, not the augmented-ninth sound players habitually add to it. In a D minor you may put the E next to the F, but otherwise keep it simple. He also asked for an A7 with B-flat and E-flat added. The message is to choose each chord sound deliberately instead of reaching for the same altered voicing every time.

Feeling the ‘and’5:205:56

A pretty trick: play two tritones together, for example C, F, F-sharp, B, then move into the sus sound. Barry stresses that you must know the scale, not just the shape. To practise, move only the top and bottom voices, and also try it from the diminished.

The C7♭5 scale in drop 2, and a tritone trick0:000:421:241:59

Play a diminished seventh chord and lower any one note by a half step, leaving the other three alone. The result is a dominant seventh whose root is the note you lowered. From C diminished: lower C to get B7, E-flat to get D7, F-sharp to get F7, and A to get A-flat 7. From B-flat diminished you get A7, C7, E-flat 7 and F-sharp 7 (the captions say F7 here, but lowering the G of B-flat diminished gives F-sharp 7, and F7 already belongs to the C diminished family). Barry credited the idea to Schoenberg.

Jazz theory, part 3: four dominants from one diminished8:36Student performances and coaching33:2934:02A word to guitar players1:08

Barry called these four dominants brothers and sisters, one family, and asked who you play with first: your brother and your sister. So the four dominants of a diminished chord are the first ones to use together. He said the average horn or guitar player thinks only in half steps and whole steps without knowing that four dominants come from every diminished chord, and that you really should know what the diminished is. He also called the guitar the best instrument, one we should learn from.

Jazz theory, part 3: four dominants from one diminished9:10A word to guitar players0:34Believe: a talk to musicians19:41Jazz theory, part 3, with score9:16

Barry rejected the usual definition of the diminished scale as an alternating half-step/whole-step pattern: if that’s all you know, he said, you miss most of the music, because so much of it comes from the diminished. For him the scale is the diminished chord plus the four roots of its dominants, and those four roots form a second diminished chord, so the scale is two diminished chords put together. Start on the root of one of the dominants and you get the half-step/whole-step pattern; start on a note of the diminished chord and you get whole-step/half-step.

Believe: a talk to musicians5:10Jazz theory, part 5: the sixth diminished scale3:133:50Student performances and coaching34:42

Barry had a student hold a C7 with just two notes and place major triads from its family above it: an A triad, a C triad, an E-flat triad. The chord has to sound pretty. With the E-flat triad on top, add the E natural next to the E-flat; without it the sound reads as a minor 7th rather than a dominant.

Jazz theory, part 3: four dominants from one diminished9:109:4410:15