Chris Parks · Stage 5: The added-note rules

Let’s practise together: dominant half-step rules on F7

Episode 116 · 12:41 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris practises Barry’s descending half-step rules for a dominant scale on F7 with a metronome, degree by degree, until they come out without thinking. He then shows which rule applies after you run up the scale, jump a third, or go up a triad or a chord before coming down, and says to repeat it all in every position on the neck.

Step by step

0:32From an odd degree (1, 3, 5, 7) descending on F7: one half step between the tonic and flat 7th, or three half steps chromatically from the 3rd down to the flat 7th
1:08From an even degree (2, 4, 6): no half steps, or two half steps, chromatic from the 2nd down to the flat 7th
2:14With the metronome at 120, play each degree with its first rule, then its second rule, all the way up
5:02Run up from your starting note to any other note and come back down using the rule of the note you started on
7:28Jump up a third first (F to A): the next note down (G, an even degree) sets the rule
9:29Go up a triad (F, A, C): the last note lands on the beat, so use its rule (the 5th, an odd degree)
11:11Go up a chord (F, A, C, E flat): the next note down, the 6th, sets the rule
11:45Repeat everything in each position on the neck, e.g. starting from the pinky, until it is in your hands

Barry’s own words on this

5.3 Dominant 7th scale descending 5.4 Off the beat, pickups and triplets 14.1 Start with the basics; practise slowly, exactly, in time; repeat until it is yours

In the course

Know it everywhere on the guitar The descending half-step rules for the dominant Which rule applies after a run or a leap

Transcript

0:00hello and welcome to episode 116 of things i’ve learned from barry harris and today i thought we would do something i don’t know if i’ve done this before but i thought we could practice together or i could show you like how you can practice some of barry’s ideas his concepts and maybe it’ll be helpful to you and how to put it on your instrument so i thought we would practice today his descending half step rules for a dominant scale and i guess we’ll use f7 we’ll use f7 as the scale that we’re talking about and um
0:32to briefly talk about what the rules are so the rules for the uh dominant half steps descending are as follows you have two sets of rules for when you’re starting on odd numbers and two sets of rules when you’re starting on even numbers so for instance if i’m starting on the one the three the five or the seven i’m going to have either one half step between tonic and seven or three half steps between three and two two and one tonic and seven
1:08that’s them so there’s your half steps now i had to put it higher but normally on time it could do this i put it below it but normally you’re gonna hit the three first the three two two and one tonic at seven so basically it’s one half step between tonic and flat seven or totally chromatically from the third to the flat seventh that’s for the odd numbers now we got even numbers so let’s say two four and six so two four and six are going to also have two rules the first rule is no half steps [Music] or the second rule for two four and six
1:42this is four and here’s six or there’s going to be two half steps between the second and tonic and the tonic and the flat seventh or from the second totally chromatic to the flat seventh so it would be this from the second or from the fourth or from the sixth okay so those are your basic rules i didn’t want to spend a lot of time on that but that’s the basic rules now let’s practice them okay so here’s here’s going to be practice i’ll put a
2:14metronome on 120 and we’re going to do everything once so when we have an odd number we’re going to do the first rule and then we’ll do the second rule same thing with the even number we’ll do the first rule and then the second rule so for the odd number first rule is one half step second rule is three half steps for the even number the first rule is no half steps the second rule is two half steps so let’s try it f7 starting from f one two three four [Music] now we’ll start on the second let’s say
2:46no half [Music] now we’ll steps second two half steps [Music] three one [Music] three three [Music] four none four two [Music] five one [Music] five three [Music] six none
3:19[Music] six two [Music] seven one seven three okay so now we’ll do it without me talking through here we go one two three four [Music] do
4:08[Music] do [Music] sorry about that last one i messed up on the seventh so that’s that’s the first rules of the half step which are great now you got to get those
4:40in your fingers because obviously when you’re playing it has to just come out naturally so the only way to do it is to practice it like that as far as i can see is to practice it like that till it really becomes part of you where you’re just feeling it okay because when you’re playing you don’t have to say oh i’m on the second so i can either use no half steps or two you don’t have time for that you have to be able to just do it the second rule of these which is great is if you start on one of the descending notes and run up to any other note of the scale you’re going to use the rule for the note you started on
5:12so for example if i’m on f which is the tonic and i run up to the second i’m still going to use when i descend back down i’m still going to use the rule for the tonic so one half step really pretty now if i run up to the third and come back down i can use still one half step or in this instance i can use three half steps because that’s still one of the rules for one now if i start on second let’s start on the second and i’ll say no half steps so now i’ll start the second one up to the
5:43third still no half steps rub to the fourth now i’ll do two half steps so i’ll start on the second two half steps [Music] now start and run up to the third and run back down and still use two half steps which is really pretty well maybe i’ll run up to the fourth maybe i’ll run to the fifth sixth but do you see how each time i’m still putting in the two half steps so you can
6:16come up with look pretty phrase right and i’m just starting on the second and running up two different degrees so this stuff has to be practiced so let’s practice that i’ll start on tonic let’s say i’ll run to the second [Music] run to the third run to the fourth fifth
6:52six seven see how nice that is now i’ll start on the second and i’ll do let’s go right to two half steps let’s see [Music] two half steps [Music] really pretty stuff
7:28now you do that from every degree second third fourth keep going you start on every degree you can run up you come up with a million different phrases the next rule for the half steps is if you start on a note and you go up a third so directly at the third so like if we start on f you went up to a that’s going to be one and which means the next note you hit usually descending will be the note of the rule that you follow so if we said now the next note is going to be g which is the second which we know already is no half steps or two half steps so now
8:02you got this pretty or maybe we’ll do two half steps pretty stuff [Music] now if we start on the second and we jump up a third to the fourth the next note descending is the third which is going to get either one half step or three half steps or three [Music] so let’s do a couple of those let’s see [Music]
8:57do [Music] do [Music] see how pretty that is again those are things that you would never think to practice unless you were
9:29just specifically working on half step rules and all those are perfect in creating lines think about all the options you have it’s limitless now that’s if you go up a third there’s another rule if you go up a triad so let’s take a triad from the ffac now it’s going to be one and two so that last note is going to be on a downbeat which means we’re going to follow the rule for that last note which happens to be the fifth so that means we’re going to say okay that’s one that’s one half step so we’ll say or we can say three half steps
10:04also beautiful so let’s try those so again on each triad i’m going to do i’m going to do try it out from each degree you know and we’re going to see what happens again so the first one is going to be uh ends on an odd the second one ends on even the third one ends on odd fourth one ends uneven so we’re going to have all these different variations let’s try it let’s just try a couple one two three four or
10:35[Music] four [Music] i’m sorry or [Music] so you see and so on [Music] [Applause] so all those are gonna you’re gonna use
11:11all those all those you’re gonna use now let’s do a chord up if you go up a chord [Music] one and two and it’s the same as the third where you where you’re ending on and so the next note you hit descending or ascending but let’s do descending would be the sixth which means you’re going to follow the rule for that note [Music] that was two half steps or i could have done none and so on so see then you practice those do the same thing put the click on and then just practice them these are so
11:45fantastic to look at but and then as guitar players you know you look at f7 here but you also have to look at it here starting on the pinky so you do your half step rules second no half steps second two half steps three one see now i’m doing it in this position but then you do the same thing in this position and you do the same thing in this position and you just get comfortable with them and these are really like totally by brute force you just say okay i have to just
12:18practice these and get them really comfortable in my hand i think i’m going to make a couple of these where we just practice together not necessarily creating lines as much as um just thinking about uh practicing the nuts and bolts of a lot of this stuff because i think it’s helpful anyway until next time i enjoyed our practice session get on it