In plain words
Working with a trumpeter in one class, Barry kept asking for more legato, then explained why legato is the primary way of playing: to write a staccato note you first write a legato note and then put a dot over it, so the legato note came first. The same is true at the piano, he said: playing starts from legato.
The piano makes this harder. It is a percussive, naturally staccato instrument, and it is up to the player to make it sound otherwise. Barry’s advice was not to drive each key down to the key bed: find where the sound is in the key and roll, or float, on that point. Pressing harder gains nothing, because once a piano note is struck it starts to die however firmly you hold the key. Earlier in the same class he praised a student’s nice legato touch, which had power too.
Barry had no patience with the idea that technique means speed. Players admired for running up and down the keyboard he called Flash Gordons; for him the one with real technique is the one who knows how to deal with space, and Monk was its master. He also defended Monk’s facility: Monk could throw a hand to the top of the piano and never miss the note, and showed Barry runs that Barry still practised and could not play.
Interview: Bird, Hawkins, Monk and New York29:0929:41Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶416
Space is not emptiness. Barry compared a solo to speech, which is full of small pauses, and warned against playing a long string of notes, gulping a breath and diving straight back in; pianists, he reminded a class, have to breathe too. The quiet in between is what rules everything, he told a radio interviewer. A singer who studied with him recalled at his funeral that he taught them not always to fill the spaces with notes.
Student performances and coaching9:4010:1310:48Interview: Bird, Hawkins, Monk and New York12:56Barry Harris Spanish TV23:3724:10Barry Harris Funeral1:07:39
How he said to practise it
Aim for legato in your lines. Don’t press each key to the bottom; find where the note speaks and float from note to note on that point.
Leave a gap after each phrase and use it: in the space, imagine the next phrase and try to see at least its beginning before you play it.
Practise pausing. With a blues class Barry asked for a longer rest between statements of a phrase so that each stood apart, and he told a band playing the blues to breathe, so that breathing became part of the music.
Practising the blues with the horns, part 121:2922:15Student performances and coaching20:45
In Barry’s words
Each one plays from the moment he says it. Every other moment he teaches it is listed below.
The piano is a percussion instrument. It is staccato, and it’s up to us to make it not staccato.
One way you make it not [staccato] is you don’t worry about going down to the key bed. You find out where [the] sound is and you roll... around on it.
The only person that’s got real technique is a person who knows how to deal with space. Monk was the master at space.
Always believe in space, always believe, and it’s not emptiness... Piano players have to breathe, too.
Where this comes from
Everything above is drawn from these. Open any one to check it.
Every moment he teaches it12 moments in 5 recordings
Each time opens the transcript there; the video plays when you are online.
Feeling the ‘and’
- 36:34
Legato came before staccato: a staccato note is a legato note with a dot written over it.
- 37:06
The piano is percussive; don’t go down to the key bed, roll around on where the sound is.
- 37:42
A struck note dies however hard you hold it, so learn to float on where the sound is.
- 31:26
In the little spaces between phrases, imagine the next phrase and see it before you play it.
- 33:40
Praises a player’s nice legato touch, played with power.
Interview: Bird, Hawkins, Monk and New York
Student performances and coaching
Barry Harris Spanish TV
- 23:05
Spanish TV, in voice-over: asked about space and silence at the piano, ranks space with talking and breathing.
Interview: tap dance and bebop
- 34:51
Interview heard in translation: a pause is never empty but filled with thought; good speakers know when to pause.
From the lessons2 lessons, 10 points
Notes taken from Barry’s classes, each tied to the moment it comes from.
Real technique: space and a singing tone
- Idea
Barry rejects the idea that technique means racing up and down the keyboard; he calls the players who do that Flash Gordons. For him, the person with real technique is the one who knows how to deal with space, and Monk was the master of it.
Interview: Bird, Hawkins, Monk and New York29:09
- Idea
- Idea
Legato comes first. Working with a trumpeter, Barry points out that a staccato mark is a dot placed over a note that was first written legato, so legato is the primary way of playing. The piano is a percussive, staccato instrument, and it is up to the player to make it not staccato.
- Exercise
To play legato on the piano, don’t drive down to the key bed. Find the point in the key where the sound happens and roll or float around on it. Once a piano note sounds it starts dying, however hard you hold the key down, so pressing harder does not help.
Feeling the ‘and’37:06
Space and breath
- Idea
- Idea
A habit he warned against again and again: playing a long run of notes, gulping a breath, and diving straight back in to play some more. Space your phrases out instead. Barry pointed out that Bird, Fats Navarro and Dizzy did not play that way.
Interview: Bird, Hawkins, Monk and New York12:56Student performances and coaching9:5410:30Barry Harris Spanish TV23:37
- Idea
In a Spanish TV interview (heard in Spanish translation), Barry said space is as important as talking and breathing. If you never play with space and fill everything with sound, you will never understand music; great artists know when to pause and let things sink in, and a soloist has to learn the same. In a radio interview he went further: the space in between, the quiet, is what rules everything, in music as in the universe.
Barry Harris Spanish TV23:0523:37Interview: Bird, Hawkins, Monk and New York12:56
- Exercise
- Exercise
Working on a blues phrase with horn players, Barry asked for a longer pause between repetitions so that each statement of the phrase stands clearly apart. Try it with your own phrases: play one, rest, then play the next.
Practising the blues with the horns, part 121:29
- Idea
A singer who studied with Barry recalled at his funeral that he taught the importance of silence: not always filling the spaces with notes, because a pause can be your greatest asset, whether you are playing or singing.
The Great Pianist Barry Harris’ Funeral At Abyssinian Baptist Church In Harlem54:14
In writing4 notes
What his interviews, his students’ class notes and other teachers’ articles add.
Talking to Andrew Velez, Barry likened nonstop soloing to someone who never stops talking and only gulps air before starting again. Pauses in speech, he said, are not necessarily silence: they are there for emphasis. Players who cannot make a short poem, he added, will not manage a novel.
Andrew Velez, Barry Harris: A Thousand Percent Music Man ¶14Andrew Velez, Barry Harris: A Thousand Percent Music Man ¶15
Asked whether classical and jazz technique differ, Barry said technique is simply technique. He called the claim that Monk lacked technique false: Monk hit any note he aimed at, even flinging a hand to the top of the keyboard, played a run Barry tried and failed to copy, and came down a whole-tone scale in a way Barry doubted anyone had played before.
Barry credited his classical teachers with showing him how to play with such ease that he never felt anything in his fingers, and said that while most people end up with pain and carpal tunnel trouble, he never had any of that.
In his oral history Barry complained that players now think a great deal about technique and too little about the soul of the music, or about playing the melody beautifully.
How other teachers explain it1 series episode
Barry’s students, and their students, teaching it their way. A second opinion, not Barry.
In the teaching series
Episodes on this idea in the long series by other teachers. Each name opens that whole series in order.
Read further3 links
These open on the web.
Free to read
- Andrew Velez, Barry Harris: A Thousand Percent Music Man
— Barry on pauses as emphasis rather than silence, and on players who never stop talking.
- Barry Harris on WKCR-FM
— Barry’s answer on technique, and his first-hand account of Monk’s facility at the keyboard.
- Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program
— Barry on learning from his classical teachers to play with ease, and on soul over technique.