Chris Parks · Stage 6: Line devices

Pivots are pretty: the minor sixth diminished scale

Episode 105 · 12:15 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris builds Barry’s A minor sixth diminished scale from A minor 6 plus B diminished and practises it as a scale, in thirds, in triads and in four-note chords. He then applies the pivot to every chord of the scale, so the lines move between registers, and says pivots belong on major and dominant scales too.

Step by step

0:15Build the scale: A minor 6 (A, C, E, F sharp) plus B diminished (B, D, F, A flat), eight notes with both a flat 6th and a major 6th
1:07Play it up and down, tonic to tonic, since it has eight notes
1:41Play it in thirds (note, skip a note, note); E to F sharp is really a second but counts as a third
3:19Play it in triads by skipping one more note; they alternate minor and diminished
4:27Play four-note chords on each degree: they alternate inversions of A minor 6 and B diminished
5:35Drill it as up a minor 6, down the next diminished, up the next minor 6, and the reverse
6:11Pivot the first chord: keep the A, then play C, E and F sharp an octave lower
7:17Pivot the diminished chord the same way (B, then D, F, A flat an octave down), and continue on every degree
9:01Put a pivot inside a phrase in place of the plain chord up, e.g. from the 6th and from the 3rd, and compare the sound
10:18Learn pivots on the major and dominant scales as well, in every position on the neck

Chords and notes in this video

Tap a time to jump to it in the video.

Line0:00

A
C
E
F#
B
D
F
A♭

Am66:10

Line7:17

B
D
F
A♭

Barry’s own words on this

6.7 Pivoting 9.5 The minor 6th diminished scale and its diminished partner

In the course

The scale every way: up and down, thirds, triads, chords Pivots The minor 6 diminished scale

Transcript

0:00hello and welcome to episode 105 of things i’ve learned from bear harris and today i thought we would take just a simple idea of um pivoting and i thought we would do it on the minor six diminished scale barriers minor six diminished scale so the first two things we have to know is what is barry’s minor six diminished scale and i thought we would do it in a maybe we’ll do a minor so what it’s composed of this is what’s wonderful about barry’s four scales of chords this particular one is composed of an a minor six which would be a c
0:34e f sharp a minor six the second uh four notes that it’s composed of is this you could say it several ways but let’s just say it be diminished which would be b d f a flat so it composed of a c e f sharp and b when you put them together you have this beautiful eight note scale which
1:07has a if you notice a flat six and a major six which is really pretty it’s like a combination if you want to look at it of melodic minor and harmonic minor which i i think is beautiful but more important it’s an a minor six and a b diminished put together so there’s a lot of ways to practice this scale so the first thing you do obviously is practice scale up and down and in this case you can go to tonic because it’s not seven notes it’s eight notes [Music] then you have to know the scale in
1:41thirds which is play another given play now so now the first third is going to be part of this minor six next one is going to be diminished next one is going to be part of minor six diminished minor six and what’s nice is a third is play note skip a note player now this is play note which is the e you’re going to skip the f and play the f sharp so even though it’s a third it’s a second really that’s actually a third when we’re thinking about doing thirds on the scale i think once some place barry calls it a diminished third or something like that
2:13but i don’t know so we got this thirds there’s our second still thirds still thirds so thirds so if you look at it it’s kind of interesting is that it’s only you got a minor third another minor third a major third the c to the e and that’s the only major third in it because now you got d to f is a minor third uh e to f sharp is a second uh f to a flat is a minor third f sharp to
2:47uh a is a minor third and then uh a flat two b is a minor third then back to the first one minor third so it’s only one major third all the rest of the minor thirds except for the second which is really interesting and you also you should know how to play them like this too if you’re a guitar player together but this is nice to do scale wise [Music] same thing that’s thirds then you have to know triads which is just skip another note and add another note
3:19to what the thirds were so thirds were a c now skip d and play e there’s your triad now it’s always going to be because this beautifully perfect scale it’s going to be there’s a minor the second one there’s a diminished [Music] there’s a minor six next one’s diminished next one’s minor six next one’s diminished minor six diminished minor six the same thing coming down minor six and so on
3:55i like to practice these sometimes instead of sometimes you can repeat this the middle note so he got a c e so the middle note is c so go back and repeat that so sometimes you’ll hear people play [Music] sorry so there’s your triads now here’s the the one i’m trying to get to which is a
4:27chord so let’s play it out skipping off playing let’s give it a play don’t like a triad now you’re going to skip another note which in this case would be f and play the f sharp so there’s our first chord second one and of course this is going to be a minor six b diminished an inversion of a minor six an inversion of b diminished another inversion a minor six diminished uh a minor six diminished a minor six diminished it’s it’s so perfect it’s name is what the scale is
5:02composed of which is why i feel like these are the greatest scales in the world because they actually tell you what’s in it a harmonic minor doesn’t tell you what’s in it by the name you have to know what that means an egyptian minor or whatever it doesn’t tell you what’s in it this tells you what’s in it that’s what i love about it let’s zoom down chords down [Music] minor six diminish see every other one is a minor six every other one is a diminished they’re really
5:35pretty and come up with different ways to practice them like i like if you go up the first one then go up the next scale note now that’s diminished so you’re going to come down the diminished so it’s up minor six down diminished up minor six down diminished up minor six down diminished same thing coming down you could say uh go down minor six go down a scale no come up a diminished so it’s going to be down minus six up diminished down [Music]
6:10now these are not just exercises you’re going to use these when you’re soloing for sure especially on minor tunes something in minor for sure now the thing i was trying to get at is this is the idea of a pivot here’s the first chord chord up would be a c so it’s a skip b c skip d e skip f f so here’s our chord a c e f so now uh the idea of a pivot is this if i say a c e f sharp those are my four notes but now i’m going to keep the a
6:45where it is but now the next three notes of the chord which is c e f sharp i have to play these an octave lower so instead of playing i have to play and isn’t that pretty so look if i said if i was doing a phrase and i said um pretty right so [Music] that was just like came up the chord but now i’m going to play the same phrase when i get to here i’m going to pivot so i’m going to say
7:17[Music] now i know it’s a minor thing it’s a minor meaning as a small but it’s not insignificant so it’s okay that’s the first one the next one is going to be diminished [Music] so same idea the four notes of the diminished which is the b the d the f and the a flat but instead you’re going to play the b here and now the d f a flat you have to play down an octave lower
7:50so it’s going to be this so here’s our first one [Music] second one uh second one [Music] third one [Music] fourth one fifth one [Music] six one [Music] uh from the from the major six
8:27from the diminish [Music] and then you back to the first one again but these are so pretty so like if i get used to doing this so there’s the chord up from but watch if i do the instead of doing if i do this that’s a pretty phrase or those are so pretty if i did from the
9:01six [Music] i mean that’s a totally different thing [Music] those are totally different things but i love them both [Music] [Applause] both beautiful let’s do it from the third so we’ll say that’s a pretty one so then we’ll do it from the third here
9:38really pretty the one from the third is beautiful also and the one from the tonic we already did let’s see that’s a nice phrase one two three four [Music] we could do that
10:18let’s see how pretty these are [Music] that’s a pretty phrase [Music] so you see how these get thrown in different ways you do sometimes you can do pivots and sometimes you can’t but they’re such an incredible tool a pivot and again we should know these for everything we should know these for um a regular or for if we were just doing a
10:50major scale you got to know these pivots [Music] that’s a pivot all these instead of saying all those are pivots you should know them for dominant scales and we do this one a lot we do those all the time but we need to do all of them [Music] that’s a pretty one [Music] these are pretty
11:30these are so pretty and that’s on dominant scale so pivots are one i i’ve been talking to my students about these this is like this is such a gem pivots and when you get them in your fingers and you’re able to play them um consistently especially for guitar players in any position they are so helpful it’s like a neat little hack almost to be able to um uh change the placement of where your scale tones are or where your chord uh yeah whether your scale tones are so
12:02it’s really wonderful so anyway it’s something to look into i hope this was uh helpful and uh enjoy practicing your minor six diminished until next time thanks