Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 4: Running scales over tunes

Scales for Giant Steps, the Barry way

Episode 104 · 11:53 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Working from a video of Barry discussing Giant Steps, Chris works out a likely scale outline for the tune. Two-beat chords get 1-2-3-5, the minor ii-Vs become half-diminished chords that call for a dominant scale coming down to the third, and longer stretches get Barry’s diminished movement. He also takes Barry’s habit of anticipating the next chord and applies it to other tunes.

Step by step

  1. 0:33Map the opening: B major, D7, G major, B flat 7 for two beats each, a longer E flat major, then A minor to D7
  2. 1:06Where a chord lasts two beats, play 1-2-3-5 of its scale: B, D7, G, B flat 7, then the full E flat major scale up
  3. 1:40Treat A minor 7 to D7 as A half-diminished to D7 and play F7 from its flat 7th down to the third of D
  4. 2:53Second phrase: 1-2-3-5 of G, B flat 7, E flat and F sharp 7, the full B major up, then D flat 7 down to the third of B flat
  5. 4:02On the longer section, use Barry’s movement: E flat major, D diminished, C minor 7 with the 7th in the bass, A half-diminished, D7, G
  6. 5:11Outline the rest: E flat up, F7 down to the third of D, G up, A7 down to the third of F sharp, B up, D flat 7 down to the third of B flat, E flat up, F sharp 7 up
  7. 6:53Like Barry, give B only a couple of beats and already think D7, anticipating the next change
  8. 9:46Use the same anticipation on other tunes, e.g. on I Got Rhythm in B flat go straight to F7 or its tritone

Barry’s own words on this

4.4 Scale outlines8.2 A half-diminished chord means the dominant whose third it is7.3 Getting through changes

In the course

Scale outlinesA half-diminished means the dominant whose third it is1-2-3-5 on short chordsAnticipate the next chordA beautiful movement we never playGiant Steps scales

Transcript

  1. 0:00hello and welcome to episode 104 of things i’ve learned from barry harris and today i thought uh we would try to tackle maybe what barry would use for the scales for giant steps it’s not a song that i really worked on that much but it’s something that gets talked about a lot and there’s this video i mean i’ve been in class where he’s talked about a lot too but there’s this particular video on the barry harris videos um youtube page where barry talks about
  2. 0:33giant steps and how he looks at it and it’s really it’s super enlightening if you’ve never seen it i’ll leave a link in the description or actually in the comments section and it’s really wonderful but anyway so giant steps what’s hard about giant steps besides it going into several keys is that it’s only two beats of a lot of things so the first part of giant steps is b major for two beats d7 for two beats g major for two beats b flat seven for two beats
  3. 1:06e flat major is longer and then it does a quick a minor to d7 so we’ll get to that in a second what barry would play for that um so the first part when you only have two beats of something barry usually plays one two three five of whatever scale it is so if that’s the case we’re gonna play one two three five of b one two three five d one two three five of g one two three five b flat and then we’re gonna play a full e flat major scale up
  4. 1:40now normally since we’re going to a minor to d7 we would just play d7 up so then that would sound like this [Music] which sounds good i like the sound of that but barry has this particular way of thinking about this a to d going to g again he thinks of it instead of a minor 7 and d7 he thinks of it as a half diminished to d7 now that a half diminished or a minus seven flat five brings in f7 scale
  5. 2:15so instead of just playing straight d7 scale he would play f7 down and whenever you play a scale down you always start on the flat seventh or the seventh so it’d be f7 down to the third d so here would be then that way of playing it it would be b major up one two three five one two three five d 2 3 5 of g 1 2 3 5 b flat scale e flat up now f 7 down to the third of d [Music] so he would be in time in tempo slow tempo though
  6. 2:53and that’s the first little part then you’re going to do the same thing that you just did but now you’re starting on g so it’s going to be the same concept where you play g major b flat seven one two three five e flat major one two three five uh one two three five of f sharp and now again a full b major now here again it’s supposed to be um f minor seven to b flat seven so you could just play b flat seven [Music] but barry likes to play
  7. 3:26um uh d flat seven down to the third at b flat so it’d be this so that would be b major up so now you have here’s g major b flat e flat f sharp full b major flat seven down to the third b flat so now we got for the first part b major everything one two three five until we get to the e flat major so it’s gonna be [Music]
  8. 4:02g now we get to this longer part which is e flat major for longer than to a to d to g major then to d flat uh um yeah or c sharp to f sharp to b and then again f to b flat to e flat and then a quick a quick uh f sharp seven but on these changes barry plays that a movement that
  9. 4:37i talked about in previous episode instead of just playing uh e flat major and then just to a minor d7 he connects those two by saying e flat major d diminished c minor seven with the seven of the bass a half diminished to d7 to g and does the same thing in g same thing in b flat [Music] now i know the melody doesn’t quite fit that but when he thinks to solo over it really works so he’ll play
  10. 5:11so for after you do the uh b flat and then to the um d flat seven down to the third of b flat we’re going to play e flat major up then again not just d7 but f7 down to the 30 d then g major up and instead of playing um just f sharp seven we’re going to play um a7 down to the third f sharp then we’re going to play b major up and then we’re going to play d flat 7
  11. 5:42down to the third of b flat and then e flat major now the last one since it isn’t that move because it was just going right to f sharp i would just play f sharp seven up again this is i’m guessing what barry scales would be i i never actually heard him do the scales on this but i would imagine it would be something like this so if i could take it from this part it’d be e flat major [Music] it starts from the beginning so if we
  12. 6:19did the whole thing let’s see if i could do the whole thing one two three four [Music] oh those would be the scales to it and i think if you look at the scales in that
  13. 6:53way i think it makes life a little bit easier as a berry person if you see especially these little spots where it goes a minor to d7 if you think of that as f7 down to the third d you could come up with some beautiful things to run another thing that he points out is he says at least he feels this way that and of course i’m trying to feel that way too but i haven’t quite gotten it yet is he says like he just thinks of um one b to the b then right to d7 so you got one two three four but he
  14. 7:27anticipates the d7 already so he does like he has i’m not even going to attempt to do any of the beautiful examples he does a million beautiful examples like i said i’ll leave the link in the description but to think of it like that is such a great way to think of it you know [Music] i mean it it’s not the greatest thing in
  15. 8:09the world but it makes me see it makes me see the connecting points a little bit better and slightly different connecting points but i think the most important part about it is generally when you hear people play giant steps well first of all it’s 10 times faster than that but second of all it’s a lot of the same type of way of approaching it and i never quite heard anybody approach it like this and it kind of makes it sound like really like the chords are totally normal like there’s nothing obscure about them or there’s nothing different about them it just has
  16. 8:41this kind of free-flowing way to play and in this particular video barry takes like a chorus or two of some of the most incredible solo i’ve ever heard on giant steps ever and i and i’m i mean of course i’ve heard a million people play giant steps and i would not say that lightly but it’s the most incredible solo i think i’ve ever heard and it just shows how he almost makes it feel like um he almost makes it feel almost like it’s a blues and by that i don’t i don’t mean that
  17. 9:13he’s playing like blues phrases i mean like it’s just so comfortable that he makes it seem like it’s a blues and what’s funny is in the video he actually says i don’t really know this song which makes it even more uh incredible and i believe him like he was really working out the changes he wasn’t 100 sure of them but the idea of there’s several parts to it that are great but the idea also of starting uh and only giving two beats of something and then moving right ahead anticipating
  18. 9:46the next change you can really use that for anything so even if you’re playing let’s say i got rhythm and b flat [Music] is b flat now that was i had two notes of b flat and then i went right away to f7 or or i might even just think f7 the whole way one two three that was totally thinking f7
  19. 10:23one two three four one ew this is already f7 i mean i was already thinking f7 so sometimes you might just do that one two three four that time i thought of f7’s tritone which was b major it was a little clunky but it was it still works i mean that stuff works so those would
  20. 11:04be the the the things that i would focus on in the video he actually talks about anticipating or only playing a little bit of one of the changes which can be applied to anything you’re playing which is really wonderful way to look at it and the second thing is thinking about a lot of those two fives as being minor seven flat five going to the five instead of a regular minor seven going to a five i know it’s not quite the melody if the melody doesn’t it doesn’t quite fit in that but when you’re soloing it really is helpful at least it was
  21. 11:36helpful for me i had a lot of trouble i still have a lot of trouble with that tune but when i think of it this way it makes things easier anyway i hope that was helpful and i promise to leave the link for barry playing giant steps until next time thanks