Confirmation
Barry used Charlie Parker’s Confirmation in one filmed band class at The Hague to build lines a few bars at a time: pieces of line over the changes, a pickup, a triplet where the rhythm needs one, and a pivot to keep a horn line in range. The bass player had to learn the phrases too.
- moments in class
- 20
- recordings
- 1
- Barry plays it
- 4
What he teaches through it
Barry built the line a few bars at a time, calling each piece in words and counting the band in. It began with three notes of an E♭ triad going straight into D, with the rest of the notes in D. That D falls on the G7, so he asked for something different there: run down from G7’s fifth to its third.
Over C7 he called for a quick sixteenth-note triplet on the fifth and sixth with the fourth, then the third (E) and the tonic, then a triad coming down from D. The phrase’s last note lands on F major. He then had the players put a D in front of it as a pickup and liked it better that way.
Bass players learn the phrases as well. Barry told the bassist that walking was fine for now, but that from then on, whenever the band got a phrase, he had to play it too.
Over F7 into B♭: play the chord on the seventh of F7, approached from a half step below its first note and started on the ‘and’ of one with a triplet. Then come down chromatically to the tonic of B♭ and play the fifth, sixth and seventh of B♭7.
Pivot to stay in range. A horn player played the line low and then had to grab a high E♭, which Barry disliked. He had him play the E♭ triad low and take the part from E♭ to D up an octave, so the line sounds connected. A pivot, he said, is all you need, and what you have to learn is when to do it.
Over the F major, the run is really the C7 scale, carried on down to the third of A. Started on the beat, it comes out right. Started on the ‘and’, it needs a triplet on F and G, at that one spot only. Barry called this really important, said it will happen a lot, and wanted players to feel when it is needed.
In his own words
If you play it down low and then all of a sudden you jump up high, it ... sounds sort of funny. We don’t want you to solo like that, so you learn to pivot.
The minute you do that F major, you really doing the C7, and I want you to run it on down to the third of the A.
This is something really important. If you start on the beat, you come right down... it goes perfect... Now, that’s going to happen a lot.
I should be making you learn these phrases, too... But from now on, if we get a phrase, you got to do it too.
In class
Every moment he works on it, with the ideas of the method it shows.
Confirmation
- 0:03
- 0:38
The D lands on the G7: do something different there.
- 1:11
- 1:46
- 2:28
- 3:01
The last note is F major; the band plays the phrase through.
- 4:17
- 4:53
- 5:27
The chord on F7’s seventh from a half step below, started on the ‘and’ with a triplet.
- 6:05
- 7:22
- 7:57
- 8:31
- 9:39
- 11:02
- 11:35
- 12:10
- 12:46
Straight eighths until that one spot; feel when the triplet is needed.
- 13:21
- 13:57
Barry plays it
In the method
The ideas of the method these moments show, and how many moments each.