Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 9: Sixth chords and the scales of chords

Blues Comping Using All 4 Scales of Chords

Episode 71 · 14:04 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris comps the first bars of a B flat blues by seeing the usual guitar chords as members of Barry’s four scales of chords: the Bb9 shape is really Fm6 and the Eb9 shape is Bbm6. From there he strings together small movements through minor 6th, dominant 7th, 7th flat 5 and major 6th sounds, all in drop-2 voicings, and explains why these movements help rather than clash with a soloist.

Step by step

  1. 0:41See the usual Bb9 shape the way Barry does: its top four notes are simply Fm6.
  2. 1:20Hear the Eb9 shape as Bbm6, so the first two bars become Fm6 to Bbm6.
  3. 2:38In bar 3 switch Fm6 to Bm6 (the tritone E7), then slide down a half step to Bbm6 for the IV chord.
  4. 3:56Practise each move in drop-2 voicings on four adjacent strings, in every inversion.
  5. 5:22Try Bb7 into Bm6, and see the ‘Eb7 with 9 and 13’ shape as Bm6 borrowing a diminished note on top.
  6. 6:02Use the 7th flat 5 scale: start the blues on Bb7 flat 5 and move to a plain Eb7.
  7. 7:18After the Eb7, play E diminished to lead back to Bb6.
  8. 9:09Learn every E7 into Bbm6, standing in for the usual Eb9.
  9. 11:04From Bb6, practise several routes to the IV: via Bb7, E7, Fm6 or straight to Bbm6.
  10. 11:43Behind a soloist, don’t plan chords in advance; small movements make the soloist sound better.

Barry’s own words on this

9.8 The 7th diminished and 7th flat 5 diminished scales11.6 Comping13.1 The blues the Barry way10.4 Borrowing

In the course

The tritone’s minorBe a movement playerIV6, raised IV diminished, ISixth chords rule: minor 7 is major 6, half-diminished is minor 6Barry’s four scales of chordsEvery chord belongs to a scale of chordsBorrowingBlues comping with the four scales of chords

Transcript

  1. 0:00Hello and welcome to episode 71 of Things I’ve Learned from Barry Harris. And today I thought we would discuss again Barry’s four scales of chords and ways that we can use them when comping. And I thought we would use as the example a blues and B flat. So let’s start right away. Generally our first chord, especially for guitar players in a blues and B flat, is that we can use a blues and B flat. B flat, we’ll play this chord, which most people think of as a B flat 9. So they’ll say...
  2. 0:41If you want to get fancy, which is fine. But all of these come from the scales of chords. So I’ll show you for instance, this first chord is, yes it’s Bb9 if you want to look at it that way, but you know, Barry doesn’t really look things numerically, so he sees this as just Fm6. So now you have the first chord being Fm6.
  3. 1:20The second chord is this, which a lot of people would say is Eb9. But if you look at the four notes on top, it spells out a Bbm6. So that means you could really look at the first part of the blues as Fm6 to Bbm6. So think about that for a second. You got a Bb7 blues or Bb blues, and you could think while you’re chording Fm6 to Bbm6 for the first part, for the first two bars, let’s say.
  4. 1:57So how would we do that? So let’s say if we started... I just messed around with a few variations of those, but these were all B flat F minor six and these were all that’s nice we said and then maybe okay so now at that point we’re going back to e-flat so we played
  5. 2:38uh f minor six for the first measure b-flat minor six for the second measure now we played f minor six for the third measure, but then I quickly went into B flat seven tritone is E7. So that would be this E9 chord, people call it E9 chord, but really it’s B minor six. So I changed my F minor six to B minor six. So there’s all these little interesting things that happen. So there’s Fm6, and then I changed it to Bm6, and then went down a half-step to Bbm6, which
  6. 3:17is the Eb7 chord, which is the 4 chord. So I said, which is nice, so I should be able to do that in every inversion. Here’s another one. So let’s see if I said... There it was right there. F minor 6, B minor 6, to B flat minor 6. So Barry emphasizes all the time playing little tiny movements.
  7. 3:56And I guess that would fall into the category of a little tiny movement, of playing F minor 6 to B minor 6, and then a half step down to B flat minor 6. So just from that little bit of information, and I’m just doing drop twos, so I’ll just stay primarily with drop twos, which is four consecutive strings on my guitar. So that’s really pretty. Now, you could also do, we’re playing again, F minor 6, but I could play B flat 7. So now if I play Bb7 into Bb7 into Bb7 into Bb7 into Bb6.
  8. 4:44So there’s our next little movement. Bb7 into Bm6. So here’s our Bb7. Here’s our Bb6. Here’s our Bb7. Here’s our Bm6. Here’s our Bb7. Here’s our Bm6. Here’s our Bb7. Here’s our Bm6. So now if I played the blues and I said one, two, three. And maybe.
  9. 5:22That was Bb7. Bm6. I could have done it anywhere. And even, you know, when people do this, see, a lot of guitar players do this, but look what this is. Here’s the B minor 6. People play this all the time and they’ll say, oh, well, that’s the Eb7 with a 9 and a 13. And Barry would say, no, it’s not. You’re just messing around with the B minor 6 scale, because here’s the B minor 6, here’s diminished so you’re just borrowing the top note. So we could have said which is
  10. 6:02nice. Now I borrowed the lowest note and the highest note which is nice. Let’s see what that sounds like. Two three. There it was. Really pretty. Now we used already the minor 6, the dominant 7, we should also be able to use the dominant 7 flat 5. So if I use dominant 7 flat 5 like Bb7 flat 5, so here’s another little movement. Let’s say
  11. 6:39if I play the beginning chords, it would be Bb7, Eb7, then back to Bb7. So what if I made the first part Bb7 with a b5 let’s say and then to just a plain Eb7. So that’s a good thing to have to practice. So here’s a Bb7 with a b5 to Eb7. That’s a nice movement. So if I started off the blues and I said...
  12. 7:18That’s a pretty movement. Really beautiful movement. So if I said... And after the E-flat 7, I’m playing E-diminished to take us back to B-flat 6. So there’s our 6th chord. So, so far, we used the minor 6th chord. We used a major 6th chord just there.
  13. 7:55We used dominant 7, and we also used dominant 7b5. So let’s see what this sounds like. We said, there’s dominant 7b5, bb7. So if we said... That’s a nice one. That’s a pretty one. That’s a nice one. So one, two, three.
  14. 8:32It’s beautiful. And then maybe... Oh, wait. That’s pretty. Or we’ll just use a regular... That’s a nice one, too. So now I’m just playing a plain E7. Because this is normally what we play to E7. So now we’ll say... Plain E7. Instead of playing Bm6, I’ll just play a plain E7.
  15. 9:09So now you have to learn how to play all the E7s to, let’s say, Bbm6, because that’s what we’re playing instead of the Eb7, where you normally play that Eb9. We think of that as Bbm6. So now there’s another movement you have to think of. E7 to Bbm6. So now you should be able to play every one of those. Here’s E7, here’s Bbm6, here’s E7, here’s Bbm6. So that’s a nice one. So let’s try it, we’ll see.
  16. 9:44That’s nice. We could have gone up the scale. That’s pretty too. That’s nice. So let’s try that. That’s really pretty. So you see all the little tiny movements that you can use going from the I chord to the IV
  17. 10:22chord, as we would see it. And that’s just in the first couple of bars. So, again, to reiterate, already in that first couple of bars we used a minor 6 diminished scale, we used dominant 7 diminished scale, we used dominant 7 plus 5 diminished scale, and we used a major 6 diminished scale. Because instead of playing this, now we end up with Bb6, which is pretty good. Now, even you have to be able to learn how to to go from Bb6, let’s say if we said 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, there’s Bb6. Now from Bb6, we have to
  18. 11:04learn to go to all these other things to get to Eb7. So we could learn how to play Bb6 to Bb7 to Eb, Or we could learn how to play Bb6 to E7 to E7. Or we could learn how to play Bb6 to Fm6 to Bbm6 or E7. We could learn how to play Bb6 to Bbm6. That’s a nice one. So we’ll say... And then...
  19. 11:43That’s pretty. Little tiny movement. Look, here’s... There’s that movement here. That would be Bb6 to Bbm6 to Bbm6. So it’s these little tiny things that sound so good that bring your playing to life. Also, a question that comes up a lot is, well, what about if you’re playing with a soloist, you know, don’t you have to kind of prepare beforehand what type of chords you’re going to use? No, absolutely not.
  20. 12:18As a matter of fact, most of the time if you play little movements like that, regardless of what the soloist is playing, you’re going to make them sound better. And a really good soloist will hear some of the changes you’re playing and they’ll start to solo some of those things also. Almost that’s perfectly compatible with it. So this is just to show you, we’re just starting to scratch the surface on a lot of these little movements. So again, you have to know how to do things like Fm6 to Bm6 to Bbm6, or just straight Fm6 to Bbm6, or Fm6 to Eb7, which is pretty, or Fm6 to Bb7, which is pretty.
  21. 13:09That’s pretty too. That’s pretty. Or Fm6 to Eb7. That’s pretty too, so. And then Yeah That’s pretty Okay, anyway, that was episode 71.
  22. 13:54Hope you enjoyed it. And enjoy practicing your first couple of bars of blues with various four scales of chords. Thanks again. Until next time.