Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 4: Running scales over tunes

The 3 scales you need for Barry’s scale outlines

Episode 169 · 12:14 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris explains that Barry’s scale outlines, a default scale for each stretch of a tune, rest almost entirely on three plain scales: major, dominant, and minor 6 diminished for real minor. Working in A flat, he shows how ii-Vs, minor ii-Vs, I to VI7 and moves to the relative minor reduce to these, and lists what to practise on each.

Step by step

  1. 2:02A scale outline is a default scale to play over a given length of time, kept simple.
  2. 2:42In A flat, on a major chord (and for I to VI minor) play the plain A flat major scale, not the 6 diminished harmony.
  3. 3:22On B flat minor to E flat 7, just play the E flat 7 scale; treat major and dominant as separate scales even though they share notes.
  4. 4:00A minor ii-V still takes dominant scales: B flat minor 7 flat 5 is G flat 9, so run G flat 7 into E flat 7.
  5. 5:16A flat major to F7: A flat major up and down until the third of F7, A natural; with half the time, just come down.
  6. 6:35On a real minor, such as F minor in A flat, use the F minor 6 diminished scale, which holds both harmonic and melodic minor.
  7. 7:11Those three cover about 95 per cent; diminished, whole tone and tritones are extra colour.
  8. 8:23On all three scales practise the scale, thirds, triads, chords, pivots, half step below, important arpeggios and nap backs.
  9. 9:05Applying an outline depends on context; the aim is to feel how one scale sounds over a set length of time.

Barry’s own words on this

4.4 Scale outlines4.2 Every dominant 7th scale is a major scale4.3 Minor8.1 Put the ii chord away

In the course

Think the dominant: put the ii awayThe three scales for scale outlinesScale outlinesNap backTwo prongs: the piano class and the horn classThe minor 6 diminished scaleThe diminished diminished scale

Transcript

  1. 0:00Hey everybody, welcome to episode 169 of Things I Learned from Barry Harris. And before we get started, I just wanted a quick reminder that starting October 1st, there’s going to be a price difference or price increase over at my school. So if you were at all interested and wanted to check it out at the old pricing, now’s the time because October 1st, we changed the pricing. Now, for that subscription price, you’re going to be getting, well, we’ve turned it into, we added an extra question and answer Zoom class. So now there’s three live Zoom classes a month on Wednesdays and that are at different times because I’m trying to get the Europeans in there too.
  2. 0:45So we have a 1 p.m. question and answer. We have a 7 p.m. These are all Eastern. 1 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Eastern, and also a 3 p.m. Eastern for all the different classes. So we have three Zoom classes, one of which is going to be just totally based on question and answer. The other two will be more structured. And then we have one a month with Thomas Eccles from Labyrinth of Limitations that are on Sundays at 1 p.m. Eastern. So it’s four Zoom lessons in a month. You get one of them is with Tom, which is fantastic. We just had one which was great uh that and uh i put up a mini lesson every friday there’s a different
  3. 1:24mini lesson and then also you get a chance to if you’re interested in studying private lessons there’s a link for that to through the school membership so uh yeah so if you were at all ever interested now’s the time to check it out and like i said i’m gonna keep that seven day free trial up for a long time you know because it seems to be i want people to see what they’re getting first so anyway today i thought we would talk about um the three scales that barry primarily used for coming up with these scale outlines which was another beautiful barry harris thing that he
  4. 2:02doesn’t get enough credit for that now i’ve noticed people started using scale outlines like it’s a thing but it was not a thing before barry harris it was not a thing i never saw these so the scale outline is just a way of saying here’s a default scale that you can play over this length of time whether it’s a measure two measures a half a measure whatever and he keeps it really simple and really basic and by doing that you realize oh man this music can be really dealt with with all of these much simpler ways to look at it.
  5. 2:42I’ll show you primarily what he uses. And let’s take the key of A flat just because I haven’t played an A flat in a while. But let’s take A flat. So one thing that he always does is if you’re on a major chord, he will play a major scale. And just a plain major scale. So let’s not confuse it with his harmonic concepts, which is six diminished stuff. that’s entirely different his single note stuff is its own thing it’s plain seven note scales so a lot of times for instance you’ll see a one chord to a six chord that’s just a minor a lot of times he’ll just play just regular a flat major over that a flat major is one of the scales that
  6. 3:22he would use or just a regular major scale and then let’s say if we have a two five in the key of A-flat. Let’s say we have B-flat minor to E-flat 7. Well, you know, as Barry people now, we know just the E-flat 7 covers that C-minor. So that’s already two kinds of scales, a major scale and a dominant scale. Now, yes, it’s true that A-flat major and E-flat 7 share the same notes, but we do different things on C-minor to E-flat 7 than we do on A-flat major. So it’s important to recognize them almost as their own thing, you know, even though they share all the same notes.
  7. 4:00Now, you have a major scale, a dominant scale, okay, for a regular 2-5. Then you have a minor 2-5 that happens sometimes. Like, let’s say if we had B-flat minor, B-flat minor 7-flat 5 going to E-flat 7. That’s a different thing, but that still takes another dominant scale. Because in Barry’s world, this B-flat minor 7-flat 5, which is this chord you could see it is also you could see it in the shape of the chord would be like a G flat nine you see how pretty that is so that’s B flat minor seven this B flat is G flat
  8. 4:39nine so that would take like G flat seven scale up and down to the third of B flat you see that So now this movement takes... So that is running one dominant scale into another dominant scale. You see? But still, you still only are thinking dominant scales. Still. So, so far, we’ve worked out a bunch of different moves, and we have this going to this, and we still only used major scale and a dominant scale. scale. Now sometimes in a tune, a tune will go from the one chord to the six dominant.
  9. 5:16Now if it’s like a long one chord to a long six dominant, like for instance in the key of A flat we have A flat major going to F7, Barry likes to say that’s all A flat major up and down until you get to the third of the F7. And by the third I mean now we’ve changed that A flat to A. So here’s your sound. Now that’s if you have a measure of everything, but if you only have a half a beat, a half a measure of everything, then it’s just going to be down. It’s just going to be down from the major seven. And that’s the other hip thing. Like all you have
  10. 5:55to do is instead of say, if we’re going up and down for two measures, well, then you got to cut that in half if we have one measure. So this is the kind of way that we cut it in half. We either do it down or just up, but in this case we do it down. So now you have a major scale running into a dominant scale. That’s a different, that’s also another thing. Now let’s say we go into the relative minor. Now this is also really important. Whenever you play something that starts to sound like real minor, like in A-flat it’s like if we were thinking of, if we were thinking of Indiana or Donnelly, It goes to F minor. So that’s a real F minor.
  11. 6:35When you’re on a real minor to make it sound particularly minor, Barry liked to use his minor six diminished scale. Now that’s the one time where we’re going to be using one of his scales of chords idea for soloing. So he didn’t really talk about melodic minor. Sometimes he talked about harmonic minor. but really the reason why we use F minor 6 diminished scale is because it contains both of those it contains the melodic minor and the harmonic minor so it has both of those scales in
  12. 7:11it and those scales are cool too I mean there’s nothing wrong with that but I’m just saying in various classes those three scales were the ones we used almost 95% of the time a major scale a dominant scale and minor six diminished scale that’s it those were basically the three now yes sometimes we throw in something diminished yes sometimes you have to know some whole tone stuff but it was never really part of the scale outline so those are all extra those are all extra coloring things you know and then of course tritone and all that stuff yes of course all that stuff is true
  13. 7:46but those are the three basic major dominant and minor six diminished which is the only eight note scale that we use from when we’re soloing you know besides the full diminished obviously sometimes people use that but he didn’t use that a lot i know bud powell uses that but barry didn’t use that a lot but anyway then the next step that you have to say to yourself is okay major scale dominant scale minor six diminished what are the things i have to know on those scales oh but that’s where you go through your whole list of things i gotta know my scale up and down
  14. 8:23my scale in thirds my scale in triads my scale in chords my scale in pivots i have to know half step below i have to know important arpeggios i have to know uh you know the things that we call in our class nat backs which is start on a note go half step below the note and then back to a note Barry never used that term, but we started calling it that in our class because it’s something that happens a lot. So you take all of those scales, the major scale, the dominant scale, and the minor six diminished scale, and you should be able to do all of those things on those three types of scales. If you’re able to do that, you are definitely well on your way to soloing.
  15. 9:05There’s no question about it. Now, the tricky part is, because I get this question a lot, like, can you give us a basic summary of how you’d put a scale outline over something? And my answer is always not really, because it’s all context dependent. So it’s dependent on the context of what key you’re in, what chord it is in terms of chord quality. what is it the one chord is it the three chord what what is happening at this certain point and i can’t just give out a thing that says like oh well on the three chord you always play the major
  16. 9:41scale because that’s not always true because sometimes we go to the three like in the bridge we go to the three minor and then we want to do the minor six diminished scale so some of them get complicated so it really is based on context and you know it’s not like barry gave a scale outline for every song. So if it’s a song that I don’t remember Barry giving a scale outline to, I’m just thinking, okay, this is probably how he would apply it. I don’t know 100%, of course not. But I would think like, okay, this is the particular way that he would do that. Now, whether it’s right or wrong, it doesn’t necessarily matter in this sense that at least
  17. 10:21then you’re getting what one default scale sounds like over this length of time and for me that was the hardest thing to learn like how to be able to play over you know let’s say two measures how do you feel two measures how do you feel one measure especially me coming from rock music it was really difficult I was used to play in a minor for 16 bars or 32 bars and then you don’t even have to think about the chord changes because you know you’re in basically a key that you’re just messing around it. But this is, you know, our music is difficult. It moves around a lot. So there has to be a way that you start to learn how to feel that. Like, how do I know when to move from A flat major
  18. 11:03into F7? How do I learn to move from A flat major into B flat 7 if it goes there, you know? How do I learn to move from A flat major into E flat 7 if it goes there? How do I learn to move from A flat major to the F minor to the relative minor. How do I learn how to feel? And the scale outlines do that. So it’s just another brilliant Barry thing. But really try those three scales, regular major scale, dominant scale, and minor six diminished scale. And really try to practice those three scales, because I guarantee you, if you start to really get those in your hands, you’re going to be able
  19. 11:43the solo now by again scale up and down thirds triads chords pivots all those things that we worked on and by the way i break these down into smaller pieces over at my school just to make it a little bit more manageable because in the mini lessons basically like we could spend a whole i’ll spend the whole mini lesson on just thirds or something like that so um anyway i thought i would Just share that and hopefully I’ll see you over at my school. Until next time.