Chris Parks · Stage 8: Thinking dominant
Charlie Parker Idea #3
Chris takes a Charlie Parker phrase from Star Eyes (Bird at the Apartment) and breaks it down Barry’s way, moving it to G. Its pieces are a note surrounded from a half step below, a third, and a descending five-note chord, plus a chord up from the third. He plays each piece from every degree of the scale so it becomes vocabulary rather than a copied lick.
Step by step
- 0:37Hear the phrase as Bird plays it on Star Eyes, then move it to G major (thinking D7).
- 1:16First piece: start on an upbeat, dip a half step below the note and back, then play a third, approaching it by a half step.
- 1:57Next, come down a five-note chord: play a note, skip a scale note, five times.
- 3:13Practise the first piece from every degree of G major.
- 4:21Add the five-note chord after it, again from every degree.
- 5:32Make up small endings after it to grow it into your own phrases.
- 6:07Another piece of the phrase: go up a chord from the third, then come down a scale step; do it on every degree.
- 8:24Barry’s way of learning from Bird: find what he does on the scale and do it on every degree.
Barry’s own words on this
In the course
The scale every way: up and down, thirds, triads, chordsNap backDissect the masters’ phrasesStar Eyes
Transcript
- 0:00Hello, and welcome to episode 33 of Things I’ve Learned from Bear Harris. And I thought we’d continue with the theme about Charlie Parker. So here’s another Charlie Parker idea that again, we won’t just learn Bird’s phrase, but we’ll try to learn the phrase, dissect it, see what he’s doing on the scale, and see if we can do it on the whole scale. So this one, this particular one comes from this recording called Bird at the Apartment. And it’s on Star Eyes.
- 0:37And he does it kind of when it goes to D-flat major. And I think it’s like, if I did it slow, it would be... So there’s a lot of things in there. So the first thing I notice about it, if we were going to take a look at it, and maybe we’ll do it, we just did our last episode in G,
- 1:16we’ll also think D7, but we’ll think G major. We’ll look at it in G instead. and we’ll say okay well he does a few interesting things one of them if we start we’ll say so we did a third but the way he did a third is he starts on the note but on an upbeat not on the beat but on the end comes down a half step below it and then goes back to it. Then does, before he does the third, you can either think a scale note or a half step. I like to think a half step because I think a half
- 1:57step is going to sound better later on. So let’s see, one, two, three, four, one, two, two, so that’s the run, two. Now what he does after that is he comes down a five note chord. So we did the chords before, if you’re not familiar with the chords, we’ve done episodes on how to play a chord up.
- 2:31And this is a five note chord. Basically what it means is that’s the first note, you’re going to skip the next note, that’s second note of the chord skip the next note that’s the third note so there’s a triad basically then you skip the next note there’s the fourth note of the chord skip another one and there’s the fifth note of the chord so it’s going to be this so you’re always skipping a scale note play a note skip a scale note play a note skip a scale note play a note skip a scale note play a note so it would be So that’s the first part of this phrase.
- 3:13So if we take that, let’s take just these first. And we should do them, that was from the sixth to the tonic. So now we should do fifth to the major seven. Let’s do the same thing from the fourth to the sixth. Third to the fifth. 2nd to the 4th Tonic to the 3rd 7 to the 6th I’m sorry 7 to the 2nd 6 to the tonic
- 3:485th to the 7th and then 4th to the 6th Oh, sorry. That’s the one funny one. But you could have played the scale note.
- 4:21But I still kind of like the half step. Next one. And then. So now, after doing that, we have to put that five note chord after it. So which would be this. So that’s the five note chord. Now we should try it again from the fifth. Which is a pretty phrase too. Now we should try it from the fourth.
- 4:56Also pretty. From the third. From the second. Oh, sorry. From the tonic. Seven. Six. And then back. So, you see all those? And then...
- 5:32But see, you come up with little things to play after it. Or even here. And then maybe... or but see this is how you start to develop these into something. So again, it’s taking a Charlie Parker phrase
- 6:07and being able to do it on every degree of the scale. And saying, oh, okay, that’s what he did. Okay, so now I have to be able to do that. The other thing he did with the phrase, if I could just point it out really fast, is he says, now I think this is right, but he says. So this is just coming up a chord. And then after you come up a chord, this would be F major. So it was coming up a chord from the third, and then coming down a scale tone.
- 6:43But it’s just the way he did it. So if we were going to think in G, we have to be able to do that in G. From the fifth. Six. Seven. And then the tonic again. See? They come out so great. This one. Six. Fifth. Fourth.
- 7:14Third. Second. Tonic. it’s really beautiful Bob leader let’s see how can we play a nice phrase with that let’s see that’s a nice phrase or if we just did like Let’s see.
- 7:49One, two, three. That’s nice too. I came down another chord. But do you see how many different ways you can look at it? You can go crazy just looking at it. Just a different way to play. And rhythmically hip. That’s the other thing about Charlie Parker that is probably the most, well, one of the hippest things about him is his rhythm is so great, so beautiful. Again, only things that I learned from Barry’s class. I probably could have learned them on my own.
- 8:24I’ve seen millions of videos and a lot of different professors talk about it, but I’ve never seen anybody break it down the way that Barry breaks it down, which is, okay, let’s take a thing, let’s see exactly what he’s doing on the scale, and let’s try it on every degree of the scale. And to me, that’s really trying to understand Charlie Parker. Again, I keep calling these bird phrases. I have no idea where he got them from. Maybe somebody else. He heard somebody else and he embellished on them. Maybe he got them from a classical book. I have no idea. But for me, these are phrases that I give him credit for because I heard him play it. So maybe people might know that there’s other places where he got it from.
- 9:04You can leave a comment down below and let me know. But anyway, these are just more little things to practice within a scale that I learned from Charlie Parker, but I learned him from Charlie Parker because Barry really showed me what Charlie Parker was doing. So anyway, I hope you enjoyed that, and enjoy these bird episodes. I’m having a lot of fun with them. I think I’m going to make a few more, too, because there’s a lot of, obviously, we could make them forever, because he’s, you know, the amount of phrases that he played, beautiful phrases are endless. I can make one from now
- 9:38until the end of time. So, anyway, Enjoy practicing. Thanks till next time