Frederic Chopin
composer (classical)
Polish Romantic composer and pianist whom Barry counted among the classical improvisers that jazz continues, and whose music he used to show his scales; Barry once played Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude at a recital he shared with Tommy Flanagan, when both studied with the same teacher.
- mentions
- 40
- recordings
- 28
- Barry speaking
- 33
What Barry says
Barry pictures Chopin and Liszt (captioned ‘Lis’) at a jam session: Chopin invites Liszt to the salon to jam, and they play from music with chord symbols, just as jazz players do today, and have a ball. On stage at North Sea in 2005 he tells it again, with Chopin wanting to play a song he wrote.
Student performances and coaching23:00Barry Harris Trio - 2005-07-08, North Sea Jazz Festival, Netherlands43:15
Europe’s mistake, Barry says, was to stop improvising, and improvising then started in America. If Chopin, Bach and Beethoven were alive, they would not be heard in concert halls, which play only dead people’s music; they would be playing their own music in a corner bar, like jazz musicians.
Student performances and coaching23:3724:15Barry Harris Trio - 2005-07-08, North Sea Jazz Festival, Netherlands43:15
He calls jazz the continuation of classical theory: Chopin, Bach, Liszt and Beethoven all learned to improvise, so there must be a system to it, and he thinks he comes closest to knowing it. He lets people call him a jazz musician but knows he is a classical one, and says Chopin would be glad to have him around.
Interview on Italian television6:12The last train to Monk: an interview30:17Interview: Detroit, Bud Powell and the shuffle2:21Jazz theory, part 3: four dominants from one diminished5:43Ep.1 | Everything no one has ever told you about jazz | Barry Harris0:54
He hears his own scales in Chopin. Minor sixth chords moving to their diminished chords make a sound Chopin used at times; a passage in a Chopin piece tells him Chopin must have known about the diminished; and a piece Barry built from borrowed diminished notes sounds like Chopin to listeners, though he made it up.
Practising the sixth diminished scales3:36Chopin, part 13:11Jazz theory, part 4: borrowing diminished notes0:33The 23 May Zoom class, part 122:07
Asked on Italian television how much Chopin is in his work, Barry says people think he is playing Chopin when he is really playing himself. Later in the interview he says his whole idea is to make people feel, and links this to the way Chopin made people feel (the caption is unclear here).
Listening to a pianist play Chopin, Barry points out that Chopin knew his scales, that the passages are the major scale found in many ways, and that this is how pieces should really be learned. You learn all this from Chopin, he says, calling himself a street musician who learns by watching others play.
Barry also faults Chopin and Bach for handing down only the major scale, which he calls wrong from the start because, by his count, it has eight degrees where it should have nine. Musicians who have studied act as if Chopin and his peers played everything, he says, but nobody has played everything: music, like math, has no end.
Believe: a talk to musicians54:5355:30Jazz schools and the basics5:03Music is like math0:371:121:47
In a class he asks who knows the weird chord in Chopin’s first Ballade, which he describes as an E-flat chord made with a diminished note. He says the classical musicians knew the scales, and that what theory calls leading tones and appoggiaturas are really borrowed notes.
In his own words
And so they went to the salon and jammed a while. They had their music. They had music with chord symbols, just like we have today.
I let them get away calling me jazz musicians ... I know that I’m a classical musician ... See, [Chopin] would be glad to have me around.
Here’s F minor 6. Here’s the diminish. Here’s G minor 6. Here’s the diminish. So this kind of sound, see, [Chopin] used that sound sometime.
And so I made up a whole piece borrowing diminished notes... And when somebody hears it they’ll say, well, that sounds like Chopin. But it’s not Chopin, it’s something I made up.
I have so many secrets to tell them about the music, stuff that Chopin and them didn’t say, they should have said.
Every mention
40 moments in the recordings, 33 of them Barry speaking. Each says who is talking.
Student performances and coaching
Barry Harris Trio - 2005-07-08, North Sea Jazz Festival, Netherlands
- 43:15
On stage at North Sea, 2005: Chopin would jam at the salon and want to play his own song.
Practising the sixth diminished scales
- 3:36
Shows minor sixth chords moving to their diminished chords and says Chopin used that sound at times.
Chopin, part 1
- 3:11
Hearing a Chopin passage played, says it shows Chopin must have known about the diminished.
- 5:53
After tracing a passage as a major scale, says you learn all this from Chopin.
- 0:43
Says the composer knew his scales: it is all the major scale, found in different ways.
- 1:18
Speaker unclear
Someone, perhaps the pianist, notes Chopin using the chords jazz players use and resolving them (caption garbled).
Jazz theory, part 4: borrowing diminished notes
- 0:33
A piece he made from borrowed diminished notes sounds like Chopin to listeners, but it is his own.
Jazz theory, part 3: four dominants from one diminished
- 5:43
Calls himself a classical musician, not just a jazz one; Chopin would be glad to have him around.
Interview on Italian television
- 6:12
Chopin, Bach, Liszt and Beethoven all learned to improvise; jazz musicians are today’s classical theorists.
- 6:46
Interviewer
The Italian television interviewer asks how much Chopin there is in Barry’s own work.
- 6:46
People think he is playing Chopin when he is really playing himself.
- 7:19
Repeats that what sounds like Chopin is really him (caption garbled).
- 12:29
His whole idea is to make people feel, as Chopin made people feel (caption partly unclear).
The last train to Monk: an interview
- 30:17
Bach, Liszt, Chopin and Beethoven learned to improvise, so there is a system; he comes closest to knowing it.
Interview: Detroit, Bud Powell and the shuffle
- 2:21
Jazz continues classical theory; Bach, Chopin and Beethoven had a way of learning to improvise.
Ep.1 | Everything no one has ever told you about jazz | Barry Harris
- 0:54
Jazz musicians are trying to learn to improvise as Chopin, Bach, Brahms and Liszt did.
Believe: a talk to musicians
- 4:01
Mocks beginner books that keep both hands in the treble clef; Chopin and the others never learned like that.
- 4:34
Chopin has a mazurka (caption ‘mooka’) that could be a jazz standard; it is really beautiful.
- 14:22
Europe gave us beautiful music from Bach (caption ‘B’) and Chopin, then stopped teaching improvisation.
- 54:53
He has found that Chopin and Bach misled us by handing down only the major scale.
- 9:49
Real classical music has melodies you can hum all day, like the Revolutionary; much new music has none.
‘I am jazz’, set to animation
- 2:58
The same remark in another recording of the talk: beautiful music from Bach and Chopin, then no improvisation.
Jazz schools and the basics
- 5:03
Chopin and the rest misled us with the major scale: eight degrees where there should be nine.
Music is like math
- 0:37
Trained musicians act as if Chopin and his peers played everything; nobody has played everything.
The C7♭5 scale in drop 2, and a tritone trick
- 3:16
Asks the class about a weird chord in Chopin’s first Ballade, an E-flat chord with a diminished note.
The 23 May Zoom class, part 1
- 22:07
Something Chopin did, perhaps with a B major sixth diminished scale, shows he knew it (caption garbled).
Jazz theory, part 7: Monk and Stella by Starlight
- 6:52
Playing a diminished-based piece of his, notes Chopin had one like it; it is not haphazard (caption garbled).
Chords and the diminished, in The Hague
- 2:48
Tells students from Europe, where the music was written, to know better; cites Chopin; says Europe stopped improvising.
Jazz theory, part 2: drop voicings
- 0:00
Chopin (caption ‘shop’), Bach, Beethoven and Liszt goofed by no longer showing how to improvise.
Interview: Detroit and after
- 4:37
Recalls playing ‘a revolutionary’ (Chopin’s etude) at a recital shared with Tommy Flanagan, who played better.
Barry Harris Live In Rennes
- 40:22
At a Rennes concert: symphony halls play Beethoven, Bach, Brahms and Chopin, so he plays Bud, Bird, Monk.
Classical pianists should know the changes
- 0:00
In a clip titled ‘Chopin changes’, says ‘he’ just played changes his own way; pianists should know changes.
Chopin’s changes
- 0:00
The same ‘Chopin changes’ clip, posted separately.
My Chat With Chris Parks From Things I Learned From Barry Harris
- 25:59
A teacher
Chris Parks recalls Barry playing part of a Chopin piece to show it used the eight-note scale.
TILF Barry Harris EP 52 A Very Important Arpeggio
- 11:55
A teacher
Chris Parks says Barry often argued Bach and Chopin, alive today, would be improvising at a corner bar.
Jazz GUITAR Reflections on BARRY HARRIS
- 18:03
A student
A former student says Barry felt jazz concerts should offer Monk and Bud, as classical ones offer Chopin.
The whole-tone scale, part 1
- 1:49
Someone else
Against textbook fingerings, the Spanish interpreter relays Barry: Chopin’s etude in thirds has the thumb move between notes.
Piano workshop: upper structures and drop 2
- 20:55
Someone else
The Japanese interpreter, relaying Barry’s call to think more rationally, cites Chopin’s etude in thirds.
In the interviews and notes
Barry recalls studying with a Mrs. Dillard alongside Tommy Flanagan. At a recital the two gave, Barry played Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude; he has forgotten what Tommy played but says Tommy played better.
Barry lists Chopin first among the composers, with Bach, Beethoven, Liszt, Scriabin, Schubert and Schumann, who would be playing in a corner bar if alive today, since concert halls only play the music of the dead. Jazz musicians, he says, carry on their improvisation.
Saying he should be teaching teachers rather than students, Barry claims he has many secrets about music that Chopin and his peers ought to have told and never did.
Insisting that jazz is classical music and must survive, Barry asks what Beethoven and Chopin would play if they were alive: symphony halls, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center play dead people’s music and seldom anything by the living.
Barry told Allen Morrison that he does believe in scales, but in scales most people do not know, which he was sure Chopin used; the music, he said, extends classical theory, and he knows he is a classical musician.
García-Valdecasas notes that Barry kept up classical playing, Chopin above all: the 1986 film Passing It On shows him playing a Chopin étude and a prelude with Sophia Rosoff, and he used the opening of an Op. 25 étude to show students how to use the arm.
García-Valdecasas says Barry’s workshops (Bilbao, 2016, among them) usually drew on two Chopin pieces: the Étude Op. 10 No. 4, where he hears the sixth diminished scale, and the Nocturne Op. 37 No. 2, where he gets dominants by lowering one note of a diminished seventh, explaining a shift from G to B-flat.
Guillermo García-Valdecasas Vaticón (Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid), The Barry Harris harmonic theory in Chopin’s work ¶101Guillermo García-Valdecasas Vaticón (Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid), The Barry Harris harmonic theory in Chopin’s work ¶103Guillermo García-Valdecasas Vaticón (Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid), The Barry Harris harmonic theory in Chopin’s work ¶107Guillermo García-Valdecasas Vaticón (Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid), The Barry Harris harmonic theory in Chopin’s work ¶127
He concludes that his readings of these and other Chopin pieces show Barry’s theory and Chopin’s harmony meeting: appoggiaturas heard as diminished chords, dominants drawn from diminished chords to reach distant keys, and sixth chords used ever more openly in place of plain triads.
Guillermo García-Valdecasas Vaticón (Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid), The Barry Harris harmonic theory in Chopin’s work ¶170Guillermo García-Valdecasas Vaticón (Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid), The Barry Harris harmonic theory in Chopin’s work ¶171
A forum member reports that Barry would ask where Bach, Beethoven and Chopin would play if alive, answering the corner bar, and that he once used a Chopin piece, possibly a prelude, to show how to move at the piano, which he called a horizontal instrument.
A forum member says Barry never took credit for the sixth diminished scale, only for naming it, and that he often heard Barry credit Bach, Beethoven and Chopin with using it.
Recordings that name them
Barry’s performances and records in the archive that credit or name them.
Method ideas nearby
Ideas of the method taught in the classes where they come up, with how many mentions fall in each.
- 2.2The two whole-tone scales (‘man and woman’)8
- 2.3The three diminished seventh chords (‘the children’)8
- 1.4Triplets and thinking in six7
- 15.1Jazz as the continuation of classical improvisation7
- 15.4The lineage7
- 8.3Four dominants from every diminished chord7
- 11.1Two hands together6
- 9.8The 7th diminished and 7th flat 5 diminished scales6