Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 6: Line devices

Yet Another Very Important Arpeggio

Episode 53 · 10:59 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris covers the second of Barry’s important arpeggios on a dominant: the minor arpeggio on the fifth, A minor (A, C, E, A) on D7, which is why Barry hears A minor 7 to D7 as just D7. He decorates it with half steps below, surrounding notes and approaches from the scale note above, builds lines into G major, and shows the same D7 resolving to D flat as a tritone substitute.

Step by step

  1. 0:39On D7, play the arpeggio on the fifth, A minor: A, C, E, A, then its inversions up and down.
  2. 1:14Because A minor lives inside D7, Barry treats A minor 7 to D7 as just D7.
  3. 1:49Start a half step below the first note and come up the arpeggio, from the root, third and fifth.
  4. 2:30Use these over a bar each of A minor 7 and D7 going to G major.
  5. 3:04Put half steps below two of the arpeggio notes.
  6. 3:38Surround each note with the scale note above and the half step below; for the fifth use a half step above.
  7. 5:55Descend from the scale note above each arpeggio note, with a half step between them.
  8. 7:46Find every A minor arpeggio on your instrument, and play pretty on D7 before reaching for superimposed scales.
  9. 9:10D7 can also resolve to D flat major as the tritone of A flat 7, as in Body and Soul.

Chords and notes in this video

Tap a time to jump to it in the video.

Line0:39
𝄞
C4ACEA
  1. A
  2. C
  3. E
  4. A

Barry’s own words on this

6.1 Arpeggios on every degree; the three important arpeggios of a dominant scale6.5 Surrounding notes (approach from above and below)8.1 Put the ii chord away8.5 The tritone

In the course

Think the dominant: put the ii awayStarting phrases on different beatsBarry’s arpeggio and its inversionsThe three important arpeggios of a dominantThe important minorHalf step belowSurroundsThe tritoneBody and SoulSmall things

Transcript

  1. 0:00Hello and welcome to episode 53 of Things I’ve Learned from Barry Harris. Today I thought we would talk about another very important arpeggio. In the last video we talked about primarily talking about a dominant chord and one of the important arpeggios was from the seventh of a dominant so we said D7 we used as an example and we used the C major arpeggio. Today we’re going to talk about another important arpeggio, which is the one that’s found on the fifth. So in the case of, let’s say, D7, we’ll use this as an example.
  2. 0:39We’re going to talk about the arpeggio that’s found on the fifth, which is A, and it happens to be A minor. So in Barry’s language, he says an arpeggio is a triad, which in this case would be A, C, E, or A minor, and then it’s the bottom note repeated on top again so it would be A C E and then A again. So it would be this. That’s for D7. Then you have to learn to invert it. So we have A C E A. Then we have C E A C.
  3. 1:14Then we have E A C E. Then we’re back to A C E again. And you have to do it up and down. And then down. So now this is one of the reasons that when he sees A minor 7 to D7, he only has to think in his head all the stuff that he knows for D7, because as you see, A minor is included in the things that he knows for D7. Okay, so let’s think about things that we can do with that arpeggio.
  4. 1:49So we just inverted it, which is nice. We can also do other things with it that are also pretty and can help create lines. Let’s take for example instead of just doing the first arpeggio up, let’s start with a half step below the first note and then come up the arpeggio. So we’ll say... Let’s do from the third. With the same idea of putting a half step below the third. Now let’s put a half step below the fifth. which is a pretty... So let’s say if we were using a, again we used for an example of an A minor 7 to a D7
  5. 2:30for a measure piece going into G major. Let’s see if we can make that work. One, two, three. Beautiful idea. Beautiful idea. Let’s do the one from the third, let’s see. Nice also. Let’s do the one from the root.
  6. 3:04One, two, three. That one I did a pickup on, but I just, because I feel like I keep starting on the same beat. So there’s a perfect example of using a half step below of each one of them. Now, what if you did a half step below two of them? So that time I put a half step below the root and a half step below the third. So let’s try that one. One, two, three, four. That’s a nice one, too.
  7. 3:38How about if I put a half step below the third and then the fifth and then come up the rest of the arpeggio, so it would be... Okay, so one, two, three, four. Let’s do something different. Two, three, four. Really beautiful. Let’s say, let’s put, let’s surround each one of them. So we can surround them with a whole step above or a, I’m sorry, not a whole step above, but a scale note above and a half step below.
  8. 4:20So it’ll be this. That would be what surrounds the A. Then we’ll use to surround the C, the D, and the B. Now the fifth will do something a little bit different. We’ll surround it with a half step above, because Barry likes the same thing. I love the half step above for the fifth when you’re talking about the minor. So that’s a nice one. So now we’ve got this. For the root, for the third, and for the fifth. So if we continue it, which are really nice. Backwards. Really beautiful over D7. So now let’s try to create a line with it. So one, two, three, four. Or how about if we do it from the third?
  9. 5:23Nice too. How about from the fifth? That’s a nice one too. Try it again. That time I surrounded the fifth here. Or whatever I finished it with.
  10. 5:55But that time I did it coming down. So one, two, three, four. Really nice, really nice stuff. Another thing sometimes he does is he’ll say, let’s go, so let’s start, let’s descend. Let’s descend from the tonic here. Here’s our arpeggio. But instead we’re going to start with the scale tone above, and we’re going to put one half step between the scale tone above
  11. 6:28and the actual note of the arpeggio. So we’ll say, which is beautiful. And we’ll do the same thing for the fifth, which would be the sixth. We’ll do the same, well in this case it’s the, we’re still thinking D7 scale, and now we’ll do the same thing for the third. So we’re starting on the scale note above, putting a half step below. Now we should be able to come up with cool phrases from that.
  12. 7:02Let’s see, one, two, three. Or how about one, two, three, four. That’s a nice one. Let’s do one third. One, two, three. Also a nice phrase. And that’s just taking the arpeggios and putting a scale note above and putting a half step. So when you start looking at dominance like this, in the last video we looked at just thinking of the C major arpeggio which has C, E, G. This one has A, C, E, and yeah it’s got two of the same notes in it.
  13. 7:46But when you start to see it from the minor point of view it brings out other little interesting things. So the first step would be to identify where those minor arpeggios are on your instrument, all your A minors. every place. And then see them when you’re thinking about A minor to D7. Try to really see where that is on your instrument. I know saxophone and other instruments where you can’t really visualize it, but still you have to be able to finger it. So that’s your second important arpeggio. Another important arpeggio, I should say, from Barry. And I know there’s plenty of other things that you can play on D7, but I just wanted to focus on, we should
  14. 8:30focus on really smaller things first. I know a lot of people like to, they call it superimposed different scales over different things, which is fine. But I think primarily we have to learn how to play pretty on D7 first before we start messing around with any of the rest of that stuff. And when you learn how to play pretty on D7, you realize you don’t really need to mess around with that other stuff. There’s a million different things you can come, infinite amount of things you can come up with, with just playing pretty on D7. Oh, but the other thing I should point out is all of these things in the same way that all those things were true A minor D7 going to G major in the last video. It’s also true
  15. 9:10here. This A minor to D7 also goes to Db major because D7 is the tritone of Ab7. So D7 can also act as going to Db major. So everything we have here was D7 going to G major, which is a nice resolution. But if you think about it, you could play this D7 going to D major. So, like if we were playing, let’s say we were playing body and soul. I use the half step above the A minor.
  16. 9:58So let’s see. Beautiful. Let’s do the one from the third. So let’s see. Beautiful also. So you see how the D7, if you really know D7, you have to know D7 running into G major,
  17. 10:35and you also have to know D7 running into D flat major, which is really beautiful. So I hope you enjoyed this short, hopefully but sweet lesson. episode 53 of yet another very important arpeggio. Thanks. Until next time.