Indiana
Barry used Indiana, in A♭, to drill scale outlines and to show that a half-diminished chord means the dominant whose third it is. He also used it to show a Charlie Parker tritone line, a whole D7 played against E♭ minor to A♭7.
- moments in class
- 17
- recordings
- 4
- Barry plays it
- 2
What he teaches through it
In a Hague class he called the last sixteen bars of Indiana in A♭ as a chain of scales, each up, down, or up and down, several landing on the third of the next chord, with A♭ major and E♭7 up for the last four bars. The class played it in time; in a second clip he called more scales, E♭7, A♭7, D♭ major and G♭7 among them.
Scales on Indiana in A-flat, part 10:000:351:071:51Scales on Indiana in A-flat, part 20:141:25
Horn players should have stands and manuscript books and write such outlines out themselves. Any piece you want to learn, you can at least learn its scales.
Where a G half-diminished goes to C7, he had the class play E♭7 up and down to the third of C. A half-diminished chord is the chord on the third of a dominant, so G half-diminished means E♭7; he then quizzed the class on other half-diminished chords.
Behind this is his habit of thinking in dominants: if he is going to believe in sevenths, he has to find a way to play everything with them.
Scales on Indiana in A-flat, part 15:51
On Indiana, Charlie Parker played a whole tritone against the rhythm section: a D7 line while the piano played E♭ minor to A♭7. Barry played it for the class and said they should write it out.
Bird’s D7 line on Indiana0:341:11Tritone lines on Indiana and Embraceable You0:000:35
So horn players should practise dominants into tritones: A♭7 into D7, or D7 right against E♭ minor to A♭7, and E7 into E♭ major as if the E7 were the important chord. A pianist can hear the outside sound at the keyboard; a horn player has to practise it without hearing it.
Tritone lines on Indiana and Embraceable You1:10Bird’s D7 line on Indiana2:544:375:135:47
His first workshop video applies scale ideas to Indiana, and its workbook gives a scale outline of the tune.
Barry Harris (on video); Howard Rees (producer, The Barry Harris Workshop Video ¶6Barry Harris (on video); Howard Rees (producer, The Barry Harris Workshop Video ¶17
In his own words
We can take any piece and say, any piece and we say, okay, we want to learn that piece, even just the scales, we can learn scales from the pieces.
Remember that a half diminished is found on the third of the dominant.
It’s almost like if you were playing Indiana. I want to show you where Bird played a whole tritone against, like, E flat minor to A flat seven. He played a whole D seven against E flat minor to A flat seven.
While some of the horn players are... practicing E flat minor 7 into A flat 7, they should be practicing A flat 7 into D7.
In class
Every moment he works on it, with the ideas of the method it shows.
Scales on Indiana in A-flat, part 1
- 0:00
Hague class: the last sixteen bars in A♭ called as scales, several landing on a third.
- 0:35
Last four bars; horn players should write the scales out in manuscript books.
- 1:07
- 1:51
- 3:24
Why E♭7 to the third of C? G half-diminished to C7 is what will be written there.
- 4:02
- 4:34
- 5:14
Quizzes the class on which seventh goes with other half-diminished chords.
- 5:51
Scales on Indiana in A-flat, part 2
Tritone lines on Indiana and Embraceable You
Barry plays it
In the method
The ideas of the method these moments show, and how many moments each.