Barry HarrisThe method

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

Half step below is beautiful: C minor 6 diminished

Episode 134 · 11:43 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris applies a half step below to Barry’s C minor sixth diminished scale, one level at a time: single notes, thirds, triads, then three-note broken drop 2 voicings. At each level the half step can go below the top note, the bottom note, a middle note, several notes or all of them, and a single idea turns into dozens of sounds for minor tunes and minor ii-Vs.

Step by step

  1. 0:00Build the scale: C minor 6 (C, E flat, G, A) plus D diminished (D, F, A flat, B), eight notes
  2. 1:10Single notes: on each scale note go a half step below it and back, up the scale and down
  3. 2:06Thirds: note they are all minor thirds except one major third (from E flat) and one second (from G)
  4. 2:57Put the half step below the top note of each third, then try it below the bottom note
  5. 4:08Use it where A minor 7 flat 5 (same notes as C minor 6) goes to D7 and G minor
  6. 4:42Put the half step below both notes of the third at once
  7. 5:51Combine it with other moves, e.g. a jump up a fourth, and make phrases in C minor and F minor 6
  8. 7:53Triads: put the half step below the top, the bottom or the middle note, or all three, fingering them so you can barre
  9. 9:11Three-note broken drop 2s from the A string: half step below the highest, lowest or middle note, any two, or all three
  10. 9:50Reverse the order: start on the half step below, then resolve into the third

Barry’s own words on this

9.5 The minor 6th diminished scale and its diminished partner6.6 Chromatic pickups and the well-placed half step9.1 Sixth chords rule

In the course

Know it everywhere on the guitarHalf step belowThe elevator: Thomas Eccles’ floorsBroken drop 2Learning together

Transcript

  1. 0:00hello and welcome to episode 134 of things I’ve learned from Barry Harris and today I thought uh we would talk about this beautiful halfstep below idea um using berries well maybe like a combination of berries six diminish or minor six diminish maybe in this case and thinking about uh Thomas eckel’s um elevator so here’s the concept we have let’s say C minor 6 diminished scale and a C minor 6 diminish scale has two things it has c e flat G which is a C
  2. 0:35minor 6 and it has DFA flat and B which is a d diminished so here’s our C minor 6 here’s our D diminished when you put the two things together you are going to have an eight note scale a beautiful eight note scale which is going to be this there’s your beautiful eight note scale now the idea about the half step below is really interesting I never heard Barry talk about half step above and for some reason the half Step Above each note it doesn’t I I don’t I’m not I’m either not used to the sound or
  3. 1:10I don’t like the sound as much but the half step below I really find beautiful so let’s take the first thing there’s our single notes up right so now let’s take that that’s the first floor of Thomas’s elevator for guitar players right or pianists also the same thing so let’s take that let’s do half step below so we start in the first note we go a half step below it and back every note of the scale we’re going to take it and do a half step below it and back so we’s start on C D E flat F G G Shar or a flat a b c so here was
  4. 1:50what it would sound like that’s beautiful and even down is also pretty really pretty so now the second floor of Thomas’s elevator is thirds so our what’s interesting about the thirds and the minor 6 diminish scale is if we just do the thirds we have the first thing is a minor third then another minor third then a major third and the next one from
  5. 2:24the f is a minor third the next one from the G is going to be a second or a diminished third sometimes Barry refers to it from the a flat is a minor 3D a is a minor 3D B is a minor 3 back to another one so if you take a look at it it’s all minor3 except for one major thir right there on the third then again a minor 3D there’s your second that’s on the fifth minor 3rd minor 3rd minor 3rd minor 3rd so now if we take the same idea of half step below let’s do now you have two
  6. 2:57options though you have actually I shouldn’t say that you have three options because one of my other guitar player friends Jerry decided to do this other thing and I’ll show you what I mean so we got this here’s our first two notes let’s do the top note that we’re going to do half step below so that’s the first one second one third one oh um third one
  7. 3:31aren’t those pretty so you got [Music] this same thing back down is pretty uh sorry now that was the top note of the thirds but now you have the bottom note of the thirds isn’t that pretty stuff listen to
  8. 4:08[Music] that that’s really pretty so in in one of the places where you can use a C minor 6 diminished or C minor 6 is obviously a minor 7 flat 5 and C minor 6 are the same four notes so now if I have something let’s say A Minor 7 flat 5 going to D7 going to G minor I can [Music] say it’s really beautiful [Music]
  9. 4:42stuff it’s so there’s so many little pretty things now that was the bottom note and then it was the it was the top note I’m sorry then the bottom note but a friend of mine Jerry said oh you could just do both notes then and of course I hadn’t thought of that and again this is the brilliant of when you share these ideas with people they’re going to come back with something you never thought of because it’s music is such a beautiful huge endless field that just people’s ideas and again that’s what happens over at
  10. 5:15Open studio during the classes I can’t even tell you I I probably learn I learn way more than anybody else does because everybody’s examples over there are just like it’s like one beautiful example after another of things I never thought of I never thought of so uh but let’s take these half steps below the third so you got the two notes both of them I like this one I like that one though same thing going
  11. 5:51[Music] down uh oh sorry so again and that’s just going up the scale but then if we do like half step below and then do those in thirds you know I mean you see that you see all these little different all these different little things how about if you do the first one go up a fourth so let’s
  12. 6:24[Music] see I I mean there’s just so many beautiful things you could start off a song you could say let’s [Music] see or let’s do it actually really in c minor so let’s say maybe something [Music] like or no how do I want to say let’s do
  13. 6:58it let’s see let’s say [Music] say and let’s do the same thing in F minor maybe was like oh that was pretty so wait let’s do C [Music] minor oh not not not A7 [Music] sorry and now we’ll go to uh
  14. 7:30F minor 6 which is the two going to the five of the C minor and we’ll do the same thing in F minor 6 this so pretty I mean that is such pretty stuff just I mean a million different things now if we take it and keep going with it the way I was thinking about going with it then you have the rest of Thomas’s elevator so we did it one note two notes so obviously the next note thing would be Triad so even if we did Triad let’s say here C minor 6 Triads let’s just do those and we say
  15. 8:05let’s do the top note uh or let’s do the bottom note uh I mean you hear how beautiful that is let’s do the middle note oh I like that so the other thing it does as a guitarist I mean piano doesn’t have this problem but a guitarist is maybe you learn different way ways to play Triad so that you’re doubling certain fingers and and then see like that I’m kind of barring the middle finger or the middle note and
  16. 8:38same thing here me maybe I’ll change the way I play that one but you you how pretty that is and then of course I’ll do Jerry’s idea which is all three [Music] notes now some people might prefer that but what’s nice is they each have their own distinctive quality to them that really makes it pretty so then that would be um you got the first FL is uh one note then you have thirds then you have Triads the next is going to be um uh shell voicing or what I call
  17. 9:13broken drop two um which would be just the other three notes or the highest notes or the lowest notes of a drop two and again that’s if I’m doing C minor 6 from the lowest three notes Here starting on the a string and I can do again the either the the the highest note that’s pretty or the lowest [Music] note that’s also pretty or the middle [Music]
  18. 9:50note or all [Music] three but you know I guess just thinking about it you could do any two of those also so like let’s say if I chose the two lowest notes and kept the top note or something like that but do you see how many different variations you could do so and again I’m just doing this down to half step but what if you started with a half step below so watch here let’s go back to thirds again so here’s the thirds right now what if I started with the
  19. 10:23half step below the highest note [Music] first you see how pretty that is [Music] that time I didn’t start with the normal third I had a half step below [Music] first that’s pretty now let’s do the half step below the lowest [Music] note but this is what I mean if a person says half step below do you see how many things that can mean to you just taking
  20. 10:56a look at the half steps with Thomas’s um elevator I mean it’s just I there’s no way to practice all of it and then to figure out different rhythmic ways to put it in but it sure is beautiful and again I haven’t really I don’t have the ear for the half step above I guess you can kind of use it but I never like the sound of it as much as the half step below so that’s the one that I’m going to be using but anyway I thought this would be interesting to share since it’s something we’ve been talking about over at open studio and
  21. 11:30it’s something I’ve been talking about and thinking about actually just on my own so I hope this was helpful and uh until next time enjoy half St below thanks