Barry HarrisThe method

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

Using Barry’s scales of chords

Episode 108 · 13:57 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris takes a ii-V-I in C and shows which scales of chords lie behind each chord. D minor 7 is played as F6 diminished, and G7 is traced back to the diminished chord it comes from, which also yields D flat 7, D minor 6 and A flat minor 6 diminished scales. He argues that this one diminished explains every alteration of G7, and that the scale comes before the chord.

Step by step

  1. 0:36D minor 7 is the same as F6 (every minor 7 is a major 6 a minor third higher), so think of the F6 diminished scale over it.
  2. 1:50Use all the F6 material over D minor 7: drop 2s and contrary, oblique and parallel motion. Chris credits guitarist Thomas Eccles for this view.
  3. 3:01Ask where G7 comes from: in Barry’s theory it comes from one diminished chord, here called A flat diminished.
  4. 3:34Play the G7 diminished scale: the four notes of G7 alternating with the four notes of A diminished.
  5. 4:47Lower the D of A flat diminished to D flat and you get D flat 7, a family member; play its scale, D flat 7 with E flat diminished.
  6. 6:06Raise the A flat to A and you get D minor 6, the same as B minor 7 flat 5; over a G bass it is the familiar G9 shape.
  7. 6:50Move from F6 to D minor 6 over the ii-V: only one note moves.
  8. 7:33Play the D minor 6 diminished scale (D minor 6 with E diminished) and borrow notes; labels like flat 9 or 13 are an afterthought.
  9. 9:20Raise the D to E flat to get A flat minor 6; its scale with B flat diminished gives the sharp 5, flat 9 sounds over G7.
  10. 10:34Play contrary motion on A flat minor 6 diminished over G7: all these chords come from the same diminished, so think scales, not chords.

Barry’s own words on this

9.7 The important minor and the tritone’s minor (minor 6 dim over a dominant)9.1 Sixth chords rule9.8 The 7th diminished and 7th flat 5 diminished scales8.3 Four dominants from every diminished chord

In the course

Barry’s creation theoryThe family of dominantsMinor 6 chords from the diminishedThe tritone’s minorTwo prongs: the piano class and the horn classSixth chords rule: minor 7 is major 6, half-diminished is minor 6The major 6 diminished scaleThe dominant 7 diminished scaleEvery chord belongs to a scale of chordsThe minor 6 on the fifth: don’t think C9Scales of chords for a dominantParallel, oblique and contrary motionBorrowing

Transcript

  1. 0:00Hello and welcome to episode 108 of Things I Learned from Barry Harris. And today I thought we would continue what we were continuing with on episode 106, which is discussing which scales of chords we use over diatonic chords. So for instance, today I think what we would do is just take a basic 2-5 in the key of C, which would be D minor 7 to G7 and then to C major. So let’s take a look at all the different things we could do.
  2. 0:36The first chord we’ll tackle is D minor 7. And again, the point of this is to be able to say, by the end of this, or by the end of our studies, which is Never Ends, but by continuing with our studies, what we need to do is transform our thinking from chord to scale. Because scale is bigger than chord, and scale is more important than chord. So, Barry likes to think of this D minor 7 as the four notes that happen to be in the F6 diminished scale. So the first thing we learn is that every minor 7 is a major 6. So we do every
  3. 1:16minor 7 is a major 6, a flat, a minor 3rd higher. Okay? So D minor 7 and F6 are exactly the same. But the important part that you have to know is that this D minor 7 comes from this scale, this F major 6 diminished scale. That comes from that scale. Which means when we see this D minor 7, we have to think all the beautiful things that we know in F minor, I mean F6, all the beautiful things that we know in F6. These are all important.
  4. 1:50When a piece of sheet music says D minor 7, we know that we can do all this F6 stuff. Now, that was just some drop twos, but that’s everything that you could do with the scale, which includes contrary motion, which includes oblique motion, which includes parallel motion, which is what I’m doing with drop two. And just as an aside, and a very important aside, in my heart, the person that sees this the best on our instrument, on guitar, is Thomas Eccles. He sees it the best.
  5. 2:24I’ve never seen anybody else see it the best. I have friends that are wonderful guitar players and all the usual suspects that we all know that are great guitar players. And I think he sees it the best. I think he sees it the fastest. I think he understands the logic behind it. So definitely check out Thomas Eccles and Labyrinth of Limitations. He’s taught me a lot about this. So in a way I’m just repeating a lot of the things that he taught me. So we got this F6 diminished. which is beautiful for the D minor 7. Now comes the G7, and the G7 is beautiful.
  6. 3:01So the G7 we need to think of like this. Where does the dominant come from? So if we take Barry’s theory, which starts off with the chromatic scale, it’s a universe, then man and woman, which are the two whole-tone scales, and then the man and woman have babies, which are the diminishes, the three diminishes. So this G7 comes from a particular diminished. Let’s just call it A-flat diminished, just for a second. We’ll call it A-flat diminished. So this G7 comes from A-flat diminished.
  7. 3:34But that means there are some other things attached to this A-flat diminished. For instance, let’s play G7. So we think, okay, G7 diminished scale. That’s something we can play. And what a G7 diminished scale is, is the four notes of G7 and the four notes of A diminished. So the four notes of G7 and the four notes of A diminished come together and form this beautiful eight note scale that is going to give you G7, A diminished. Now another G7, another A diminished, another G7, A diminished, and so on.
  8. 4:14So that scale we can use on G7. So here’s our D minor. or F6. Now here’s our G7. Really pretty. G7 diminished works. Now let’s go back to the original A-flat diminished where the G7 came from. Now, also, when we lower each note, we’re going to get a couple others. So like, if I lower the D to D-flat,
  9. 4:47now I’m going to get D-flat 7. So Db7 and G7 are family members. They come out of the same diminished. So now we think Db7 and its diminished that we do for various scales. It’s going to be four notes of the Db7, four notes of Eb diminished. You put them together. Here’s our eight note scale. The Db7 diminished. Isn’t that beautiful? Now that’s another scale that we can use. So let’s try to use that. So here’s F6 for Dm7.
  10. 5:25Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Here’s F6. Beautiful movement. You see? I’m not just thinking one chord as G7 or Db7. I’m thinking that four notes series of notes comes from an eight note scale. One of them was G7 diminished, one of them was Db7 diminished. Now let’s go back to the original Ab diminished where these dominants come from. Another thing that Barry says which is interesting is he says, and I hadn’t heard
  11. 6:06people talk like this, I know people talk about the four notes of the dominant, but on this same diminished. If you raise a note a half step you’re going to get, let’s say if we raise the A flat to A, we’re going to get a D minor 6. So wait a second, that means G7, D flat 7, and D minor 6 are all family because they come from the A flat diminished. So I should be able to play D minor 6 diminished. And isn’t this funny that here’s our D minor 6 with a G in the bass. As guitar players, we play this all the time. That’s G9. We play that all the time. But what we didn’t realize was this
  12. 6:50four notes of the B minor 7 flat 5. A minor 7 flat 5 is the same as a minor 7 in this sense. Every minor 7 is a major 6. Every minor 7 flat 5 is a minor 6. So this B minor 7 flat 5 is D minor 6. So that means really we could play F6 which is D minor 7 to D minor 6. So we got just this little movement. Isn’t that pretty? Just one note moves. Listen. Beautiful, right? It’s just such a pretty little movement but it’s so important to know this. Now when you think D minor 6 and it’s diminished which is E diminished.
  13. 7:33The four notes of D minor 6 and the four notes of E diminished you put them together you have your scales and chords there you go there’s your D minor 6. It also means not only doing these drums too parallels it means borrowing which is where you come up with all these beautiful So here’s Dm7 or F6. It’s really pretty stuff. And this chord, see, if I had somebody look at this chord, they would say, oh, well, that is, compared to G,
  14. 8:09that is a b5, a b7, the 9th, and the 13th. So they would say that’s a b9, 13. And I would say that that is true, but what’s more important is it’s from this scale of chords. See, it almost makes the fact that it’s flat 5-9 insignificant, because it could be anything. It doesn’t matter. I could borrow any notes and it’s going to sound beautiful. I can play this. It’s beautiful because I know I’m borrowing notes. This is pretty stuff to play.
  15. 8:46All that stuff is pretty. Now, and it’s all going to have an attachment to it. You could say, oh, it’s this note. It’s a flat 9. It’s a sharp 5. It’s a 13. It’s a flat 13. It’s this and that. But that is irrelevant. That’s nice to go back and look at afterwards. But this is where all this stuff comes from. This is more important than labeling what it is. Labeling what it is is an afterthought. This is the first thought. So okay now we have G7 because it came from the Ab-Diminished, Db7 because it came from the Ab-Diminished, Dm6 because it came from the Ab-Diminished.
  16. 9:20Let’s do another one. So let’s raise his Ab-Diminished, we’ll raise, let’s say the D to Eb. That gives us Ab-minor, Ab-minor 6. That Ab-minor 6 comes from the Ab-minor 6 diminished scale, which is a coupling of the four notes of Ab-minor 6, Four notes of Bb diminished, you put them together, you have your scale. The scale is more important. Now, if I put this A-flat-mino-6 over G7, as guitar players and piano players, I’m sure, we’ve played this chord a million times. We would call this a sharp 5-flat 9.
  17. 10:00And we’d be done with it. But what Barry introduces us to is that we’re not going to be done with this at all. This comes from this scale of chorus. And I’m just playing them with drop twos. But that means you can borrow... People play this chord all the time. Which is just basically the sharp 5 and the flat 9, but then they do raise 9 first. But they never do this. And that you can do if you do your scales of chords. Because now I’m borrowing two notes.
  18. 10:34So listen, here’s D minor 7. How beautiful that is. So now that’s A flat minor 6 diminished. And all the things we know. Suppose I did. I want to do some contrary motion. So what? Isn’t that beautiful? That’s contrary motion on the A flat minor 6 diminished. I’m not even thinking G7. I’m thinking Ab minor 6 diminished. Why? Because Ab minor 6, D minor 6, G7, Db7, they all are the same family. They all come from the same diminished. This explains every, I think it explains every possible alteration to the G7 chord you’re ever going to make.
  19. 11:30Ever. It’s going to be from that diminished. You see why the diminished is the most important thing? The diminished. Because all G7 is not even the most important thing. The diminished that G7 comes from is the most important thing. Which is why we know G7, Db7, and we did D-minor 6, and we did A-flat-minor 6. Now there’s two more dominants and there’s two more minor sixes, obviously. But I just want to show you just that that’s what I would do for these. And if you notice, it’s going to give you so many different variations. So limitless amounts of things to do.
  20. 12:04So the most important thing that you could take from this lesson is no more thinking about things as chords. Think scales. Scales are more important than chords. Scales are way more important than chords. and Barry used to teach about that all the time. Scales, he plays scales not chords. Now again, this is thinking harmonically. He has a system that he thinks about single note lines, which is in a way much easier, but still really in depth. Okay, so that’s another aspect. So don’t, you know, don’t think like this is the way we’re also going to solo over it. We got, he has a whole different
  21. 12:43thing which is like I said in a way it’s it’s a simpler but in depth way in depth so so I hope this was useful and I really hope we start to look at things these way because I’ve never seen a system that explains everything this system explains everything I’ve heard I’ve seen a lot of other systems where they talk about they put a different scale on top of this and then if you ask why they can’t tell you why you can’t they can’t tell you why Barry’s system also tells you why see it tells you why that so to me that’s greater than
  22. 13:21anything else at least anything that I know so I hope you enjoyed this and please check out my friend Thomas’s Thomas Eccles channel labyrinth of limitations because I think besides Barry he’s really shown me the most about this stuff especially on our instrument and I’m really forever indebted to him for that because it’s made me a better player and like I said I think he really knows the most about this stuff on this instrument so enjoy practicing your scales not your chords until next time