Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 11: The piano

Why do we all play this? Comping on I Got Rhythm

Episode 121 · 14:15 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris takes apart the stock comping pattern guitarists play on the first bars of I Got Rhythm and rebuilds it with Barry’s ideas. He moves B flat 6 to B diminished by changing the fewest notes, works it through every drop 2 inversion, then swaps in family chords such as A flat minor 6, C minor 6, B7 and F sharp minor 6 to vary the turnaround.

Step by step

  1. 0:00The stock first bars of I Got Rhythm that every guitarist seems to play.
  2. 1:05The basic changes are B flat, G minor, C minor, F7; the usual first chord is a drop 3 B flat major 7.
  3. 1:44Play B flat 6 in drop 2 instead; the B diminished stands for G7 rather than G minor 7, before C minor and F7.
  4. 2:24Move the fewest notes: B flat up to B and G down to A flat turn B flat 6 into B diminished, then go to C minor and F7.
  5. 3:03Do it in every drop 2 inversion, treating C minor 7 as E flat 6 and taking the nearest F7.
  6. 5:35Or go to G minor, which is the same as B flat 6, moving through the B flat 6 diminished scale.
  7. 6:13In place of G7 play A flat minor 6, the minor 6 a half step above, and make F7 into C minor 6: B flat 6, A flat minor 6, E flat 6, C minor 6.
  8. 10:03Run the B flat 6 diminished scale, and replace C minor 6 with B7, the tritone of F7.
  9. 12:03Or use F sharp minor 6, B7’s minor on the fifth, as the last chord.
  10. 13:17All of this could be done in drop 3s as well; challenge yourself not to play the same grips every time.

Barry’s own words on this

11.6 Comping10.5 Drop voicings9.7 The important minor and the tritone’s minor (minor 6 dim over a dominant)13.2 Rhythm changes (‘seven songs in one’)

In the course

The tritone’s minorSixth chords rule: minor 7 is major 6, half-diminished is minor 6The minor 6 on the fifth: don’t think C9Drop 2, drop 3 and drop 2 and 4Least movement: find the closest voicingComping I Got Rhythm differently

Transcript

  1. 0:00Hello and welcome to episode 121 of Things I’ve Learned from Barry Harris. And today I thought we would focus on comping on I Got Rhythm. What’s interesting is as guitar players we’ve seen this or variations of this kind of thing like this is our basic thing that we see all the time. This is basically what we see. That’s the first eight bars, basically.
  2. 0:34Or close to the first seven bars. But it’s always this. It always seems to be this. No matter what channel you’re watching. No matter what example you’re giving. It’s like every time you go to Sam Ash and there’s a guitar player playing. Like they play all their Metallica stuff. And then all of a sudden they play jazz stuff. This is always it. Like, oh, this is how we’re going to see if the guitar has a nice sound for comping. You know, now I like that. I like these things and these are important. But what you should realize is this. What is all this?
  3. 1:05What is it? So the basic chords for I Got Rhythm for the first couple of bars is B flat major to G minor to C minor to F7. And then after that, there’s variations. There’s like D minor to G7, C minor to F7, or again, B flat to G7 to C minor to F7. But what we should see is this. First thing as guitar players that we should figure out is, all right, I do this all the time, but what is this? This is a B flat major 7 chord, but it’s a drop 3. Drop 3 for guitar players means first string, means 6 strings, skip a string, and then play 3 strings.
  4. 1:44That’s drop 3. So instead, maybe we’ll turn this into Bb6, or maybe instead I’ll just play a drop too. Since I always play this all the time, let me play this instead. Now the second chord that we play here is a B diminished. Now why do we play this B diminished? Where does this B diminished come from? Well, it’s like implying instead of the second chord being Gm7, it’s like thinking it’s G7. so that’s what this is this b diminishes and replaces that g7 and then you go to the c minor to that f7 which is really pretty so now you have something like instead of this maybe we’ll do a drop
  5. 2:24two and then c minor to f7 and let’s try to do that in all of the closest inversions of drop two so i’ll show you what i mean so here’s b flat six now we’re going to move the fewest notes possible to make this B diminished. So we move two notes. We move the B flat to B, and we move the G to A flat. So now we got, which is pretty, and then we have C minor, and then we’re going to change this to F7. So we did a C minor, and then we did an F7 from the second inversion, or from the fifth, which is beautiful. So now if that’s going to be our change, instead of doing this, which is fine,
  6. 3:03these are all kind of drop 2s except for the last F7, I mean drop 3s. So then let’s learn how to do this in every inversion of drop 2. So here’s the first inversion of B flat 6. Now we’ve got to change this to the closest B diminished. So again, we just move those two notes. And then maybe we want to change this to C minor 7, which we know is E flat 6. So now we’ve got E flat 6. and then the closest F7, which would be from the third inversion, which is from the flat 7. So now we’re going from this.
  7. 3:45Now we’ll do this. So you’re going to use these. Guaranteed you’ll use these. Let’s do the next inversion of B-flat 6. Let’s play two beats of B-flat 6. Now we’re going to change it to, again we said B diminished, so we just moved those two notes. Now there’s your E flat 6 or C minor 7, and there’s our normal F7. So we’ll play that. It’s pretty. This.
  8. 4:22That’s also very pretty. Then we’ll play the next inversion, which is, I guess, this would be that’s correct to the B diminished which would be there’s our closest B diminished so now we got this or what do we do here again oh yeah
  9. 4:57one last one so those are all of them now that’s a really interesting turnaround but we don’t have to be stuck with just playing this every time and not that that doesn’t sound good that’s not the point of this the point of this is if you’re going to play the same thing all the time then you don’t have to know anything about it you just memorize a couple of grips and you got it but that’s not really what the music is about. The music is supposed to be going a little bit deeper into trying to identify these things. So now that’s the first part, Bb6 going to that diminished.
  10. 5:35But sometimes you could just play Bb6 to G minor, which is the same exact thing. A Bb6 is a G minor. And interestingly enough, it’s used from the Bb6 diminished scale. So maybe now you could say, See, now we just moved around from the Bb6 to the diminished to get to the 6th chord. And then we still played that B diminished. And then we played the Cm7, which is really pretty. It’s really pretty stuff.
  11. 6:13Why don’t we ever do that? We should. It’s right there for us. We just got to learn how to do these things. How about if instead of Bb going to B diminished, how about if we changed and said G7, but instead of saying G7, let’s do one of those things that Barry likes to do, which is let’s play the minor 6 a half step above that G7, which would give us Abm6. So now we need the closest Abm6 to this, which would be this. So we got now C7.
  12. 6:48It’s really pretty. Or maybe let’s change the F7 to, instead of F7, we’ll make it like this, F9. Or if you know various scales of chords, it’s going to be like C minor 6. So now our change is going to be Bb6 to Abm6 to Eb6 or Cm7. and then we’ll make the last one C minor 6, which is pretty. It’s just one note moves. So let’s try that.
  13. 7:20Let me see what the next inversion will be. There’s Bb6, and then we said it’s going to be Ab minor 6. It’s right there, so now we go. And then we said it’s going to be Eb6, and then C minor 6. That’s how pretty that is. that’s pretty so if we said and then we said see how pretty that is changes everything up but you could play those chords behind somebody playing i got rhythm it’s going to sound beautiful and we just tried one little thing b flat six to a flat
  14. 8:05minor 6 to E flat 6 to C minor 6. Really pretty. How about if we changed the F7? Well, let’s do that in a few different examples. So there’s B flat 6, A flat minor 6, sorry, A flat minor 6, and then E flat 6 to C minor 6. Let’s do the next one. B flat 6 to A flat minor 6, that’s nice and then to c minor um seven or e flat six to uh c minor six let’s do that one it’s pretty
  15. 8:43see all these are really pretty we should use these why don’t we use all these we know them Why don’t we use them? I don’t know why we always go back to the same thing all the time. I don’t get it. And I know that it’s got the bass note in the root. That’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. But there’s a bunch of these that are pretty. We never play this. We never play that. Why not? That’s beautiful. That’s a beautiful change. And the person who’s soloing, it doesn’t matter. They’ll play over that just fine. Oh, let’s do the last one. Okay, so we’ve got Bb6.
  16. 9:22we got Bb6 and then we’ll do Abm6 and then the last one we said we’ll do is so now we got let’s see that’s beautiful so it’s Bb to Abm6 isn’t that beautiful so now also we can think of it this way If I’m playing Bb6, I can also do a Bb6 diminished scale. So I can say, and then here’s Abm6.
  17. 10:03That’s pretty, so maybe I’ll do that. That’s pretty. Those are really beautiful. How about if I do B-flat-6, let’s do A-flat-minor-6, let’s keep that, and then let’s play E-flat-6. But now instead of C-minor-6, let’s do again that minor-6 found on the half-step above, the important tritone’s important minor. So the tritone of F7 is B7, and then instead of playing F7 or B7, well maybe, no, let’s play B7 first.
  18. 10:48let’s do that so we got this this this and then there’s b7 that’s beautiful so again b flat six a flat minor six e flat six b7 that’s pretty that’s really beautiful that’s gorgeous let’s do that again and then and then uh let’s see That’s really great stuff.
  19. 11:21Let’s do the next inversion. 8 flat minus 6. And then... Oh, let’s do... Sorry, there it is. So let’s say 1, 2... 3... That’s beautiful. that’s beautiful stuff how about now let’s do b7’s important minor on the fifth so instead of b7 we’ll play um f sharp minor six so now we’ll do b flat six to a flat minor six let’s keep that one
  20. 12:03I like that. And then we’ll do C minor 7 or E flat 6. And let’s change this one to F sharp minor 6. So that’s nice. That’s beautiful. Change it here. B flat 6. I love that. Let’s do it here. That’s beautiful. I love that. That’s a beautiful sound. Now, why don’t we play that? Why don’t we ever play that?
  21. 12:40I don’t know. We should. And I’m including myself in this because, you know, I’m just as corny. I do the same thing every time. I’m in on that too. I’m totally for it. But I feel like if I make a video about it, now I’m really going to be forced to practice it for myself also because it’s something I really need to practice. Because believe me, I do the same thing as everybody else. And I just don’t know why we all do it we all fall into that pattern of doing it and i get it that it’s because that’s the thing that once the rhythm starts to roll and we’re like oh this is us as guitar players this is what we have to play but look at how many different things we’re doing and i’m just messing
  22. 13:17with drop twos i’m not playing drop threes i didn’t even play drop threes but we could have done every one of those inversions in drop threes also and now think about the how much you’ve just expanded your vocabulary in terms of chording for something as easy as I Got Rhythm, which of course is going to help you with most tunes because it’s just turnarounds. Anyway, it’s just something to keep in mind. Let’s not be satisfied with just playing the same thing. I mean, if I have to watch another guitar video where that’s what everybody plays, don’t, don’t, don’t. It’s okay to say I’m sick of that. It’s okay to say that. I’m sick of that. And like I said, I’m including myself in that. I’m
  23. 13:56sick of that. I don’t want to see that anymore. I want to challenge myself to be better or to be a little bit different. Anyway, something to keep in mind. So enjoy practicing your comping for I Got Rhythm and try to be a little different. Until next time.