Playing the scale of chords (block chords up and down the 6th dim scale)

Voice a C chord with C in the left hand and G, B and E in the right. First move it up the ordinary C major scale, then up the sixth diminished scale. The rule students keep forgetting: after G comes A-flat, every time, and after A-flat comes A. When a student got the order wrong or failed to move a voice, Barry stopped them and made them go back to the first chord.

Introducing the sixth diminished scale3:325:156:307:04

Try harmonising a melody with the scale of chords. Barry had a student harmonise a phrase of My Funny Valentine with chords from the sixth diminished scale, starting from the fourth degree and moving down the scale. The chords are pretty and quite different from what you get from the major scale, and intervals of a fourth appear in the voicings, which he called hip.

Introducing the sixth diminished scale8:589:3310:10

Once you know the sixth diminished scale, Barry says, you can do things you never did before without worrying. Working in E-flat six diminished, he says he can do anything he wants: he points out diminished notes and makes notes catch up, and it works as long as he ends it properly.

Practising the sixth diminished scales2:263:01

Take a chord and practise moving its notes in every possible way: move the top and the bottom, or only the left hand. Barry says that when he hits a chord he wants to know how to move everything, and he relates this to knowing the diminished around it. Sometimes simply leaving one note where it is sounds pretty.

Chording as a scale0:451:203:48Chords become scales3:48

Barry demonstrated simply going up one of these scales on E-flat in chords and letting his ear tell him where to go. For him a chord becomes a scale: chording, he says, has to be learned as scales, and that is the only way to real creativity. On F6, for example, he notes that he has the C and also the D-flat to work with.

Chording as a scale5:259:00Chords become scales5:188:59

Everybody should know these scales, Barry says, in tenths as well, and you can practise them in all kinds of ways, even as stride.

Chording as a scale8:16Chords become scales8:16

A pianist may play decent chords yet not know that each chord belongs to a scale of chords. Once you know which scale a chord belongs to, Barry says, you know where you can move it, and that is when it becomes fun.

Jazz theory, part 4: borrowing diminished notes6:537:27

Barry said that even good guitar players do not know the scale of chords unless they have been in his class, and that he never heard any of them use the dominant seventh with a flat five, a chord he clearly loves. There are four scales of chords you should know; once you learn them your instrument becomes connected, and you move horizontally through a scale of chords instead of going chord to chord vertically. He said a guitar player is supposed to know everything, and that the instrument is, in his view, perfect.

Believe: a talk to musicians27:4451:3052:3856:03

Barry’s advice is to practise a scale any kind of way. Among his examples: play it in contrary motion and then fill it in; practise the whole-tone scale starting from D-flat, then in thirds; play mirror image, doing the same thing in each hand. Try anything, without worrying at first about how it sounds. Finding many ways to practise one thing is how you learn it.

Practising the sixth diminished scales4:106:207:037:36

Put both thumbs on middle C and play the C major sixth diminished scale in contrary motion, out and back; then make it minor by flattening the third. Barry said a guitarist can do the same thing on the guitar, and he didn’t tell young pianists to worry about fingering at this stage. In class he then called pianists up to do the same in other keys, such as D-flat.

Introducing the sixth diminished scale4:0622:35Jazz theory, part 5: the sixth diminished scale9:3110:07

Barry quizzed a pianist in D: play D6, then the diminished chord that goes with it. He corrected the student to E diminished, not another one. Alternate D6 and the diminished chord up the scale, inversion by inversion (along the way he named the diminished as B-flat, C-sharp and G diminished), then make it minor by flattening the third, without cheating. The point is that the scale is composed of the sixth chord and the diminished chord. His assignment: by the next day, know all twelve sixth diminished scales.

Introducing the sixth diminished scale22:0225:2726:0326:40

Another way Barry filled in the scale: play the notes of the major sixth chord, then all four notes of the diminished chord, moving through the scale in chords. Doing these scale things, he said, is what music is about.

Jazz theory, part 5: the sixth diminished scale13:0713:45

Play the sixth diminished scale in thirds as well. Barry noted that one of the intervals this produces is what his classical piano teacher called a diminished third, and said everything in the scale is logic. He told a guitarist to practise drop 2 voicings and to run the scales in drop 2.

Jazz theory, part 6: every major sixth is a minor seventh1:412:162:49