Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 9: Sixth chords and the scales of chords

Endless ways to play a minor I-VI-II-V with the scale of chords

Episode 47 · 11:50 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

The minor follow-up to the major episode: in G minor, G minor 6 and E minor 7 flat 5 come from one scale of chords, the G minor 6th diminished, and A minor 7 flat 5 from the C minor 6th diminished. Chris practises both on guitar in drop voicings, intervals and contrary motion, picks a sound for the D7, and shows that the scale of chords lets you improvise with chords as freely as with single notes.

Step by step

  1. 0:03The minor I-VI-II-V in G: G minor 6, E minor 7 flat 5, A minor 7 flat 5, D7
  2. 0:40G minor 6 and E minor 7 flat 5 share one scale of chords, the G minor 6th diminished; play it in drop 2 on four adjacent strings
  3. 1:14Then in drop 3 (a string, skip a string, three adjacent strings) and drop 2 and 4 (two strings, skip one, two more)
  4. 1:49Learn the smaller shapes as well: the scale in thirds, sixths and tenths
  5. 3:07Play it in contrary motion: one voice goes down the scale while another goes up from the same note
  6. 3:41Cover A minor 7 flat 5 with the C minor 6th diminished scale and practise all the same things there
  7. 5:35For D7 use plain D7, D7 flat 5, or the E flat minor 6 diminished a half step above; Chris and Barry avoid the A minor 6 sound there
  8. 6:44Play the progression through in drop 2, then drop 3, then sixths and contrary motion
  9. 8:47Barry often shortens A minor 7 flat 5 (C minor 6) to just C minor: play a C minor arpeggio, then add his half step below each note
  10. 10:48The point: knowing the scale of chords lets you improvise with chords the way you improvise single notes

Barry’s own words on this

9.5 The minor 6th diminished scale and its diminished partner9.4 Playing the scale of chords (block chords up and down the 6th dim scale)9.1 Sixth chords rule10.5 Drop voicings

In the course

A half-diminished means the dominant whose third it isHalf step belowThe tritone’s minorAugmented arpeggio on the dominantSixth chords rule: minor 7 is major 6, half-diminished is minor 6The minor 6 diminished scaleInfinite ways to play I-VI-II-VDrop 2, drop 3 and drop 2 and 4The intervals inside a drop 2Parallel, oblique and contrary motion

Transcript

  1. 0:03hello and welcome to episode 47 of things I learned from Barry Harris today I thought we would talk about 1 6 2 5 in minor since episode 46 was about major I thought we would talk about it in minor so 1 6 2 5 and minor is slightly different than major the first chord is still going to be a minor chord but it’s a minor 6 chord and let’s stay in the same key let’s say G was a G minor 6 to the 1st chord the 6 chord is a minor 7 flat 5 the 2 chord is a minor 7 flat 5
  2. 0:40and a 5 so the to scale accords that Barry thinks of just for the first couple of changes for G minor 6 to a minor 7 flat 5 is the same scale of chords its G minor 6 diminished so one thing you have to know is your G minor 6th diminished in drop twos [Music] again dropped to is four consecutive strings basically you have to Norman
  3. 1:14drop threes [Music] you have to know them in a drop to drop for [Music] those are really pretty too which is play two strings skip a string and play two more strings so drop two is play four consecutive strings drop three is
  4. 1:49play a string skip a string play three consecutive strings drop two drop four is play two strings skip a string then play two more strings so all those already give you quite a few options to play the next thing you have to know is you have to know smaller things just like maybe the scale in thirds [Music] yes I know your scale in six let’s say
  5. 2:28[Music] you have to know your scale in tents which is also pretty [Music] you have to know your a scale in Oh
  6. 3:07another nice thing that you could do with your scale is to play it in contrary motion so you start let’s say on this gene are you going to go down so I went down the scale but I’m also going to start up this know up the scale now if we put those together it’s gonna sound like this [Music] those are really pretty
  7. 3:41now all those things that we did for G minor six we also have to know for C this is the C minor 6th diminished is going to cover the a minor 7 flat 5 so same idea [Music] drop two drop four
  8. 4:26[Music] so now all these ideas the same thing
  9. 5:35with contrary motion so all those little things so keeping that in mind the G minor six diminished covers the first two chords and the C minor six is going to cover the a minor seven flat five and then as I said in the last episode what we can play for a d7 is varied we can play just regular d7 a d7 with a flat five we could play a half step above
  10. 6:10that a flat minor six diminished we can also play a minor six which I wouldn’t necessarily use there I would probably just use the E flat minor six I wouldn’t use the a minor six for that one I don’t like the sound of going to the going to the minor six barrier doesn’t either so let’s just do a few things maybe to to work on just different ways to approach it so let’s say one two three
  11. 6:44[Music] so that’s one way to maybe play it just using drop - then maybe let’s use drop three let’s say one two [Music] nice also using drop three how about if
  12. 7:28we just use maybe let’s use six so let’s start off with let’s say [Music] was it nice to maybe let’s use the contrary motion thanks let’s say two three [Music] the last court I ended on there was
  13. 8:12b-flat minor six it’s a nice way to play that let’s start up a little bit higher so let’s say drop three [Music] all those different ways that was using primarily drop threes but you see again it’s endless it’s endless a nice way to look at it though is also
  14. 8:47one thing that Barry does sometimes is since a minor 7 flat 5 Mary sees it as C minor 6 he thinks sometimes just C minor [Music] so let’s try something like that so a minor 7 flat 5 the important minor 60th
  15. 9:37or C minor 6 so we shorten it to just C minor C minor arpeggio or berry likes to put which is commonly done by Barry it’s a half step below Paige so let’s try to do that let’s try to do just the minor without they’re in the half step below two three four also beautiful now let’s do the half step
  16. 10:14below so let’s say one two [Music] so you see again limitless completely infinite amount of ways you could play these knowing those to scale accords now
  17. 10:48a few times I played just regular d7 a few times I played E augmented some times I played a flat minor six but you see just messing around with those and obviously some of those I played before but like the other ones most of them I haven’t and so I’m kind of messing up through them but you get the idea that gist of it is if you really learn those scales you’ll be able to play all these different things at at the drop of a hat which is really the point I think bury scale Accords the most important things the thing that they do is that they
  18. 11:22allow you to improvise immediately with your chords in the same way that you improvising single notes you can start to improvise with chords which is really special so anyway I hope you enjoyed that lesson ways to play 165 and minor and keep leaving the comments below I’m really enjoying this okay until next time thanks