Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 8: Thinking dominant

Charlie Parker Idea #2

Episode 32 · 14:10 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Instead of copying a Bird lick onto every dominant, Chris dissects a Charlie Parker phrase on D7 in G the way Barry does: a chromatic slide down a third, and a five-note chord approached from a half step below with its fourth note skipped. Each piece is practised on every degree of the scale, so you learn from the master rather than just repeating him.

Step by step

  1. 0:37Don’t just reuse a Bird lick on every V chord; break it down and do it on the whole scale.
  2. 2:01The end of the phrase, in G major: 5 chromatically down to 3.
  3. 2:35Do the chromatic third from every degree: 4 to 2, 3 to 1 (both half steps), 2 to 7 and on down, then going up.
  4. 4:25Know thirds, triads, four-note chords and five-note chords up the scale.
  5. 6:05Put a half step before the first note of each chord.
  6. 6:46Go up the five-note chord but skip its fourth note, on every degree.
  7. 7:38Bird’s phrase: from the fourth, a half step below, up the five-note chord without its fourth note, then slide down a third chromatically; do it from every degree.
  8. 9:50Variation: go up a four-note chord from a half step below, then slide chromatically down a third from its top note.
  9. 11:56Take phrases from the masters, take them apart and rebuild them your own way.
  10. 12:34On guitar this covers roughly frets 2 to 10, so know the major scale in every position.

Chords and notes in this video

Tap a time to jump to it in the video.

Line2:01
𝄞♯
C3BCDD♭
  1. D
  2. C#
  3. C
  4. B

Barry’s own words on this

8.9 Bird’s devices14.3 Learn from the masters by ear; study the small things6.6 Chromatic pickups and the well-placed half step6.3 Chords as lines

In the course

The scale every way: up and down, thirds, triads, chordsKnow it everywhere on the guitarHalf step belowFive chromatically to threeDissect the masters’ phrases

Transcript

  1. 0:00Hello, and welcome to episode 32 of Things I’ve Learned from Barry Harris. Today I want to stay with the theme that we started with yesterday, which is ideas from Charlie Parker. Another reason why I bring this up in the Barry Harris episodes is because Barry was really the one that besides learning how to transcribe, which you kind of have to do on your own, but figuring out what to do with all these beautiful phrases that you’re transcribing.
  2. 0:37You know, you can learn a phrase and then you can use that phrase over and over again. So you could take a Charlie Parker lick, figure out, oh, okay, you do this on a five chord, so then that’s the lick I’m going to play. Which is great, but then that’s really just taking a Charlie Parker lick. Which is fine, but you don’t want to really do that. There’s enough people that, you know, take all Charlie Parker phrases. That’s not really moving the ball forward, so to speak. And it’s also not learning from Bird. And the thing that Barry taught us all is how to really learn from these masters, including himself.
  3. 1:17So what he’ll do is he’ll take a phrase of Charlie Parker and he’ll break it down into things and then he’ll have you do it on the entire scale. For instance, there’s this great phrase that Byrd plays. I guess it would be on, let’s say, if we were playing D7 in the key of G. So he plays, which is really nice. So now you can say to yourself, well, every time I have a dominant chord, I can play that, which is great. So if I play E7, E flat 7, same thing, which is fine.
  4. 2:01or you could say let me take that phrase and dissect it which is exactly what Barry does. So the first thing you have to decide is let’s take the back end of it first which is this. Nice. If we’re thinking G major or if we think D7 scale which is the same scale you’re thinking five chromatically to three. So if you could do five chromatically to three you have to be able to do that on the whole scale. So you’ll have to say, let’s do the next one. So that would be five to three.
  5. 2:35The next one would be, and I’m thinking just G major. So fifth of G major to three of G major. Now the next one I’m thinking is four to two. So that’s easy, because those are both minor thirds. So I’m just putting all the notes in between, to the one note in between. Now the next one that gets a little bit tricky is the third to the one, because that’s a major third. So there’s different ways to tackle this. You can just play the first half step. I like to play both half steps so I do this. So now we have from the fifth to the third, fourth to the second, third to the first, next one, second to the seventh.
  6. 3:19Now here I would probably change and do tonic to six. So now I change strings. seven to five I’d probably change here again maybe and do six to six to four now five to three I’ll keep going sorry so if we did them all it would be So if you can do them down, you should also be able to do them up.
  7. 4:25and those are all beautiful now he does something interesting he puts it another thing you have to know to break down this this thing we’ve talked about these before is doing a chord up so thirds up or just if we’re thinking G major now thirds up are just play a note, skip a note, play a note. We go up the scale like that. Triads are add another note.
  8. 4:58So you play a note, skip a note, play a note, skip another note, play a note. Those are triads. Then Barry calls this a chord, which is when you do four notes. So you start a note, skip a note, play a note, skip a note, play a note. There’s your triad. But now you’re going to skip another note and play another note. So there’s our four note chord. There’s also a five note chord. So you can say, play a note, skip a note, play a note, that’s your third. Skip another note, play a note, there’s your triad.
  9. 5:32Skip another note, play a note, there’s your four note chord. And then skip another note, play a note, that’s your five note chord. So now, you do that up the scale. Now, get really comfortable with that. Next thing you can do is say,
  10. 6:05I’m going to put half a step before the first note. That’s the next step. The next step to this one is he plays... So now what I did in that one was I did the half step, coming up.
  11. 6:46Now I’m going to come up with the five note chord, but I’m going to skip the fourth note of the chord. So here’s the first note, second note, third note. I’m skipping the fourth note and playing the fifth note. So I’m just going to skip one going up. So it would be this. Next one. Oh, sorry. Next one. Sorry. Sorry. Next one. Next one. And the last one. Now what Bird does with this phrase, that’s really starting from the fourth coming a half
  12. 7:38step below but instead of playing that he’s going to go up to this note which is that playing up playing a half step below going up a five note chord but skipping that fourth note but that’s when he’s going to introduce that sliding down the third so there’s this phrase so knowing that using those two things you should say to yourself okay uh-huh so now I have to be able to do that from every degree of the scale so if this is the first one the one from the
  13. 8:22third is probably gonna sound That’s from the third. From the second. From the tonic. From the seven. So. See how that’s beautiful? do the one from the six that’s a pretty one to do the one from so those six so
  14. 9:07let’s do the one from the five that’s a nice one too let’s do the one from the four, oh let’s see, that’s a nice one, let me find a different way to finger that. Back to the first one again. Now, again, doing it from every degree, sounding what it, seeing what it sounds like. You could also say, okay, what if he did this instead? That’s good. That’s
  15. 9:50this to this. But now suppose he did the chord up with the half step below and did that, which I think he does do in some tunes. He’ll say. So those are different ways to use that little one little thing. So that’s a nice one. So wait, let’s see. Let’s do just that much. So that’s again, going up a chord, and then when you get to the top note of the four note chord, you’re going to do your, the thing that we did in thirds all the way up chromatically. So, and we’re going to put a half step below the note. So this would be this one from the fourth. Let’s do the next one from the third.
  16. 10:36Let’s do from the second. Let’s do from the tonic. Let’s do from the seven. Let’s do from the six. Let’s do from the five. From the five. Let’s do from the four again. So, again, that’s taking a Charlie Parker line or phrase, an idea, and instead of just playing it exactly the way he played it, which is perfect, you want to take the concept and
  17. 11:22say, okay, let me see how I can get inside his mind and see how maybe he was thinking about it. I don’t know necessarily if that’s how he was thinking about it, but it sure seems to me that that’s what he’s doing on the scale. And this is the thing that Barry shows you. He’ll take everybody’s transcription or things that people have learned from Bud Powell or from Charlie Parker or from Dizzy or from Monk, or from Coleman Hawkins, for instance, and he’ll say, look at this beautiful thing he did on the scale. And then he’ll say, let’s try to do that up or down the whole scale.
  18. 11:56and that is the way we’re supposed to look at music we’re not supposed to just take obviously bird phrases and then just copy them and put them in the same places all the time that’s not anything that doesn’t mean anything what we have to do is take from these great masters and dissect it and build it back up and realize what they’re doing and then use it for yourself figure out ways to use it yourself. To me, this is the only way of progressing. And to me, that’s true progression. That is truly progress, if we’re able to do that. Because the music is all laid out for us already.
  19. 12:34That’s what Barry says all the time. It’s already laid out for us. It’s already there. It’s who can come up with the most pretty ways to do those type of things. Or even interesting, it doesn’t always have to be pretty. I mean it doesn’t hurt but it doesn’t always have to be pretty. But that’s an example of a Charlie Parker phrase that you can really work on your instrument. And the interesting thing on guitar is if you noticed I’m using about this much of the fretboard. So I don’t I don’t know I guess that would be one two maybe three maybe four positions. Just I don’t know how people refer to as positions but this much from basically the second fret to the tenth fret. So that’s
  20. 13:16That’s why just knowing your major scale, you have to, you know, we have the boxes that we play in as guitar players. We have to know all this, you know. All these from here to here. And you see if I’m, because if I want to do this, I have to jump up. And then depending on where I am, I have to, or, see, depends on where you are. Anyway, I hope that lesson was helpful.
  21. 13:55And I’m going to make another couple of videos about Charlie Parker phrases and dissecting them. And I hope you’re enjoying these. Okay, until next time. Thanks.