Stella by Starlight
Stella by Starlight was one of Barry’s main examples against two-five thinking. He taught its opening as a movement (major, relative minor, minor with the sixth in the bass), insisted the original first chord is a diminished with a major seventh, and wanted the tune known well enough to play in any key.
- moments in class
- 30
- recordings
- 6
- Barry plays it
- 2
What he teaches through it
A song is not just chords strung together by twos and fives, and Stella was Barry’s example. Players who turn everything into two-fives start it on E half-diminished and A7, which sounds all right but, he said, is not right.
Stella by Starlight0:00Believe: a talk to musicians35:1735:5336:28
The original key is G, and the tune starts not with a two-five but with a single chord, a diminished with a major seventh, which he tied to the flat-three diminished that players too often ignore. That is how it sounds in the film The Uninvited, where it is the theme, and he said Bud Powell played it the way the film does.
11 March 2016: Stella by Starlight2:33Believe: a talk to musicians34:4036:2837:07Jazz theory, part 7: Monk and Stella by Starlight10:47
Where the half-diminished is used, he reaches it by movement: B♭ major, its relative minor G minor, then the minor with the sixth in the bass, which gives E half-diminished. Every half-diminished comes from a major, and you should know at once which one. His first workshop video applies this major, minor, minor-over-six movement to Stella.
Borrowed diminished notes on All the Things You Are14:4116:1516:46Stella by Starlight3:3510:3012:14Barry Harris (on video); Howard Rees (producer, The Barry Harris Workshop Video ¶19
Knowing that movement lets you find the first chord in any key without transposing chord symbols, and Stella is one of the songs Barry thought you should be able to play in any key. The same movement comes back later in the tune, and he heard it in other standards, such as I Love You and Like Someone in Love.
Stella by Starlight7:037:388:138:4712:49Borrowed diminished notes on All the Things You Are13:26
In Rome in 2016 he first asked for the original key, then tried the tune in another key himself, saying that if you know how the movement goes round the song you should be able to play it anywhere. He heard Stella as perfect: it goes all the way round and comes back to the beginning.
11 March 2016: Stella by Starlight0:000:407:30Believe: a talk to musicians34:05
Inside the tune he looked for the diminished that does the leading. At one spot he preferred a C♯ diminished to an A chord, because the A does not take you to the C, and compared it to a C7 going to C♯ diminished in Polka Dots and Moonbeams, mentioning how Bud Powell played that tune.
Stella was also his example of the sixth diminished scale at the piano: the diminished in one hand against the sixth in the other, then the other way round, with the diminished note going to the minor.
The sixth diminished scale on Stella by Starlight0:001:442:21
In the Hague class on Stella he tied all this to Coleman Hawkins, who said he played movements, not chords: we have to be movement players. In Rome he recalled playing Stella with a musician the captions call Chuck Israel, who was glad to hear a song he knew and afterwards admitted he had only thought he knew it.
Stella by Starlight14:0114:3411 March 2016: Stella by Starlight4:305:04
In his own words
There are two to five writers. There are string writers who are two to five writers, some famous writers, but they are two to five writers.
[G is] the original key. And it starts not with no two five. It starts with a single chord, the diminished with the major 7.
that’s one of those songs you should be able to play in any key as far as I’m concerned.
If you saw the movie, there’s a movie called The Uninvited. And Stella by Starlight is played all the way through it.
In class
Every moment he works on it, with the ideas of the method it shows.
Stella by Starlight
- 0:00
Hague class: a song is more than chords joined by two-fives; let’s look at Stella.
- 3:01
Doesn’t like the way Wes Montgomery and others play it (Wes is named in the old captions only); wants to hear it all the way.
- 3:35
- 4:09
Admires Chris Anderson’s way with the tune.
- 5:56
- 6:28
Compares a C7 going to C♯ diminished in Polka Dots and Moonbeams, mentioning Bud Powell.
- 7:03
- 7:38
- 8:13
Know it by movements, not by transposing; the opening movement comes back later.
- 10:30
Whenever you play a half-diminished, know at once which major it comes from.
- 12:49
- 14:34
11 March 2016: Stella by Starlight
- 0:00
- 2:12
First played it with an alto player who had just learned it in G.
- 2:33
It starts on a single chord, a diminished with a major seventh, not a two-five.
- 4:30
A musician the captions call Chuck Israel thought he knew the piece until they played it.
- 7:30
Know how the movement goes round the song and you can play it in any key.
- 9:14
- 11:00
The sixth diminished scale on Stella by Starlight
Believe: a talk to musicians
- 34:05
Almería: Stella goes all the way round and comes back to the beginning.
- 34:40
The first chord is a diminished with a major seventh, not a half-diminished.
- 35:53
Two-five thinking starts it on E half-diminished and A7: sounds all right, isn’t right.
- 36:28
In the film The Uninvited it is the theme, played in G.
- 37:07
The flat-three diminished matters, though players often ignore it.
Jazz theory, part 7: Monk and Stella by Starlight
Barry plays it
- Barry Harris Trio - 2003-06-13, Le Franc Pinot, Paris, France2023, 2.1 h YouTube
- Barry Harris Stella by Starlight Workshop Roma 2016Rome, 2010–19, 2 min YouTube
In the method
The ideas of the method these moments show, and how many moments each.
- 9.6Half-diminished = minor with the sixth in the bass; major -> relative minor -> minor/68
- 10.1Be a movement player5
- 14.2Every key, every degree, every way2
- 8.1Put the ii chord away2
- 10.7Movements classical pianists know1
- 12.2Know the song; learn many songs; find your key1
- 8.7The diminished as ‘ruler’1
- 9.4Playing the scale of chords (block chords up and down the 6th dim scale)1