Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 14: Practising

Starting a solo from any note

Episode 76 · 14:30 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

To get out of the rut of playing the same few lines, Chris starts phrases on each degree in turn over the first bars of a B flat blues, in tempo, using the devices Barry has you practise on scales: thirds, triads, half steps below, three notes up then a third. The idea came from an online class where Barry made up a new phrase on Chi Chi; the goal is Barry’s own, who could start the Cherokee bridge on any note a student called out.

Step by step

  1. 0:00Notice what each note triggers you to play (for Chris, always a chord up from the 3rd) so you can break the habit
  2. 1:38Set up a B flat blues with Barry’s scales, B flat 7 up, E flat 7 up, B flat 7 up and down, with a metronome
  3. 2:11From the tonic, skip your usual half step and try the scale devices instead: thirds, a third with a half step below, a triad, up three notes then up a third
  4. 6:03From the 2nd: come down a chord, or play thirds, adding one half step for the E flat 7
  5. 7:13From the 3rd: a triad, a third, a half step below the triad, three notes up, or a run up to the 6th or 7th
  6. 9:34Barry’s model: in class he started the Cherokee bridge on any of the 12 notes a student called out and made it right
  7. 11:12Change a habit slightly, e.g. come up a chord but leave out its third note
  8. 12:17Start on notes outside the scale too, such as F sharp or the flat 5th, and make the line come out right in time

Barry’s own words on this

14.2 Every key, every degree, every way13.1 The blues the Barry way

In the course

Chord up, scale downScale outlinesHalf step belowWhat can I do from each degree?The blues the Barry way

Transcript

  1. 0:00hello and welcome to episode 76 of things i’ve learned from bear harris and today i thought we would discuss um improvising but uh starting on every degree of the scale and things you can do on every degree of the scale so what i’ve noticed for myself is a lot of times when i hit a certain note in the scale it triggers me to do something and a lot of times it’s the same thing so if i hit a tonic or a third and i end up always going up a chord from there or
  2. 0:33maybe playing up a triad or maybe going up five notes sometimes your fingers because you’re so comfortable with playing a few of those you end up playing the same thing all the time at least that’s what happens for me and um this video is really inspired because uh i took barry’s i’ve been trying to take barracks classes on online and uh two weeks ago he did a class where he was talking about chi chi which is a blues and a flat and there’s a little spot of chi-chi where it does this particular movement
  3. 1:05but um barry just really quick came up with like one of the most beautiful phrases i’ve ever heard him play on this little spot that i’ve never heard him play before but he just kind of was thinking about it and he just came up with it and it was so inspiring it really inspired me to think about like all the same stuff that i keep playing over and over again the same and it kind of gets you in a rut so a good way to maybe get yourself out of that or at least it’s helping me is um starting on every degree and seeing what you can do from every degree
  4. 1:38in tempo so what i mean by that is let’s say if we’re taking a blues and b flat where the scales for the blues and b flat we’ll just play the first couple bars would be b flat major a b flat 7 up then e flat 7 up then b flat seven up and down [Music] so if we’re going to put that together here i have a metronome we’ll put it together so we’ll say [Music] okay so now we want to start coming up with phrases
  5. 2:11so a lot of times when i start on the tonic i’ll immediately put a half step so i don’t want to do that all the time so maybe if i start on the tonic maybe i want to run up to something or do something that we’ve been practicing like when we practice the scales we practice thirds we practice triads or we practice chords
  6. 2:45and so on we practice these things we practice half step below we practice we practice going up three notes then going up a third [Music] see we practice that stuff so we have to the thing that i always find interesting about barry stuff is that it’s immediately uh applicable for soloing so you could throw it right in now whether you do it or not is a different case but they’re all useful so i was trying to figure out
  7. 3:18things for myself i’ll just show you what i was going through so if i started on tonic let’s say let’s say i want to start creating new things with from the tonic so let’s say i want to do thirds let’s see one two three let’s see so after the second beat one two three one two so that was just the thirds that was nice but maybe now i want to do
  8. 3:52a third with a half step below [Music] that’s a nice one one two three oh let me let me hear that that’s a nice one how about if we do start on a note [Music] that’s a nice one so let’s just start on a note play up a third
  9. 4:25a half step below [Music] see that’s nice that’s nice how about a triad [Music] that’s nice one one yeah those are nice that’s a triads but
  10. 5:00what if i did try it starting on the beat that’s a nice one [Music] very nice one um let’s say if i did three notes up let’s see that one [Music] that’s nice so you’re starting on the note you’re going up
  11. 5:33going up three notes then going up a third let’s see if i can make something of it three four [Music] yeah so you see i’m trying to take every different idea starting from the tonic instead of doing the same it’s it’s not that it’s boring but it’s boring to me because i do it all the time so now maybe what if i start on a second
  12. 6:06what if i saw in the second so let’s start on the second one two three four so i came down a chord from the second of the b flat [Music] yeah but but that was from the second
  13. 6:41so what if i wanted to do maybe from the second uh that’s nice just thirds [Music] then i put one half step with the e flat seven nice but the whole idea is to try to make something different up than you’re used to doing so that when you get time to play the blues you don’t just go to your same
  14. 7:13three or four riffs that you always play so then uh let’s try the from the third [Music] that was a triad but maybe we’ll do a third let’s see i like that [Music] that’s nice but maybe uh third with the half step below the third third so oh that’s a nice one one let’s see two [Music]
  15. 7:56yeah man this is nice [Music] wow that’s a nice one i never did that one so that’s a half step below the triad for the third now let’s just put what if we just played up three notes [Music] that’s a nice one see one two three four [Music] that’s a nice one what if we went up to the six let’s see see if i can make it right [Music]
  16. 8:29yeah up to the seven [Music] i would put one half step there watch this one let’s see three four [Music] man but you see like every note is triggering me to do something else some other series of things that i know but what happens is a lot of times for me i know
  17. 9:02i get used to playing like three or four lines always this goes in succession with this which is fine because most people haven’t heard it so if you’re hearing it for the first time it sounds great but to keep yourself interested you should have a bunch of those ready to play and i know i don’t and i have to i have to really work on that myself and i know other improvisers have a thing like that too it’s why when you hear people solo you hear them sometimes they play the same things and it’s because we all are at that we all
  18. 9:34have an issue with that so that’s i think this is the way that we have to practice it you know one time i remember in class barry was doing a thing on bridget cherokee so he was starting on cherokee which starts on uh f sharp seven but he had the class anybody from the class could call out any note just a letter and then he would start the bridge of cherokee with that note and he would find a way to make it right any of the notes it didn’t matter it
  19. 10:06didn’t have to be part of the scale any of the 12 notes and he just had he was pointing to people and he said call i don’t know call it a note so somebody would call it f somebody would call it b flat somebody would call out c anything and then he would immediately count off and then he would try to create a line starting with that note it was like so incredible to witness it and it was as if it was like every line two came out so perfect it was beautiful but that’s because barry obviously being a master has these scales
  20. 10:39and rhythm totally in his command and he’s just able to just do it like that and i think that’s the goal for all of us that’s the thing i’m really struggling with lately is trying to really find a nice balance between comfortably playing but also comfortably really improvising so there’s two different things there’s you know the things that you work out beforehand that then you could throw in because they feel comfortable but then there’s a certain level of improvisation that has to be there also which is always you know it’s supposed to be the difference in our music so
  21. 11:12that’s what you do you practice to the point where then when it comes time to improvise you’re really comfortable within that format within that rhythm but i for what i find for myself is like i say okay every time i end up on third i always come up a chord like i do this a lot which is coming up a a chord [Music] you know what whatever it is but it’s always coming up a chord sometimes you can come up a chord but you can just skip the third note of the chord so instead of saying you say that’s a nice one one two three
  22. 11:45[Music] that’s a nice one let’s see [Music] do yeah so anyway i just thought that that would
  23. 12:18that’s an interesting way we only got up to the third but you see already all the different things and we could have started on any note see like the let’s let’s start on a strange note let’s start on like let’s say so let’s start on a um let’s start on f sharp one two three four [Music] let’s see let’s see if that sounds good one two one
  24. 12:51[Music] that sounded okay [Music] let’s start on the flat five let’s say one two that’s a nice one one two three four two [Music] one two three four [Music] see i came up with from the third look i did it again come up a chord every time i gotta stop that
  25. 13:24all the time wait let’s see let’s see [Music] oh man see now i’m trying not to do it let’s try again one two three four [Music] i came up with a chord from the third there too one let’s see two three four all right that time i ran up that was okay but i could have said [Music] a million things see there’s a million things you can do
  26. 13:56but it’s a question of what your what your hands get comfortable doing and then what kind of takes over so this is just an interesting way to try to get yourself out of that anyway i hope it was helpful this was actually more of a video to help myself really um with this process this ongoing process i hope it helped you too but uh until next time enjoy um what should we call this uh soloing from every degree till next time thanks