Chris Parks · Stage 7: Building phrases over changes

What is a puzzle piece?

Episode 166 · 16:04 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris explains where his term ‘puzzle piece’ comes from: Barry dictated solos in class as chains of small instructions, each something you must know on the scale. He dissects a Sonny Rollins phrase from Come, Gone into a reordered B flat triad plus a surround, takes it up the scale, and shows how rhythm and combinations of pieces lead to your own lines.

Step by step

1:17In the horn class Barry dictated solos on tunes in small pieces, such as ‘run up to the fifth and do five’.
1:57Each instruction is a piece you must know, for example on F7 a chord up from the fourth, then down the scale from the third with one half step between tonic and seven.
3:15Pieces fit together in any order, and seeing them makes transcribing easier.
3:57Sonny Rollins plays a five-note phrase into B flat on Come, Gone: D, F, C, A, B flat.
5:10See it as a B flat triad started from its third (third, fifth, root), and play that shape on each triad up the scale.
6:21Its ending surrounds B flat with a scale tone above and a half step below; add that to each triad.
8:14Piece first or sound first? A bit of both: practise a piece enough and its sound becomes yours.
11:31Changing the rhythm keeps the same piece: thirds starting on the ‘and’, or a chord up with a triplet.
13:23Combine pieces: a half step below the first note, a chord up and a nap back on the top note; take them up the scale.

Chords and notes in this video

Tap a time to jump to it in the video.

Line3:57

D
F
C
A
B♭

Barry’s own words on this

7.2 Building phrases from small pieces (class phrases)6.5 Surrounding notes (approach from above and below)14.3 Learn from the masters by ear; study the small things

In the course

Triads up and down the scale Five-note chords Take it up every degree of the scale Puzzle pieces The descending half-step rules for the dominant Feel the ‘and’Eighth- and sixteenth-note triplets in lines Nap back Surrounds 5-4-3-2 Dissect the masters’ phrases Barry dictating lines Freedom and your own voice

Transcript

0:00Hello and welcome to episode 166 of Things I’ve Learned from Barry Harris. And before we get started, I just wanted to remind everybody if you’ve been following my channel for however long you have been, I have a school that I’ve been running that has been super fun and we’re having a blast over there. and right now up until September 1st I have a seven day free trial and if you have any interest in it I would do it now because come September 1st there’s going to be some new and improved pricing
0:36so if you want to be grandfathered in before September 1st now would be the time so check me out over at school and the rest of us where we’re just having a blast I’ll leave a link in the description and in the comment section. But today I thought we could talk about something that I, a name that I bring up that I talk about that is not a Barry Harris term. And that is what is a puzzle piece. So we’ve started talking about these on Open Studio for a few months now. And I bring it up on my, on this channel, and we talk about it at school also all the time. So where I came up with the idea of puzzle piece is in Barry’s classes, he would have,
1:17let’s say his improvisation or his horn class, we would usually practice not only playing scales, but then we would practice soloing over a tune. So if he took How High the Moon or Indiana or a blues or I Got Rhythm, when I first started going to him in the later 90s or the mid 90s, he would do sometimes two full choruses of a solo off the top of his head where he would just call out things. And the way he would call them out is in these little small bite-sized pieces. Like start on the scale, run up to the fifth, and when you get to the fifth, do five. So now that’s
1:57already a couple of things that you’d have to know. So a puzzle piece, I have to know how to run the scale from tonic to the fifth. And then when I get to five, what is five? What does he mean by do five? So these were all little puzzle pieces. Or he would say, come up a chord, you know, on F7, come up a chord from the fourth and when you get to the top note descend the scale start on the third and come down and put one half step between tonic and seven which is the first rule of the half step rules starting from a third so already that’s a couple of puzzle pieces that you had to understand in order to really get it now of course if you didn’t know what those puzzle pieces were you just
2:36used your ear so you just said okay i’m just gonna mess around and try to get the right notes when i take this home, I’ll try to fully understand what a puzzle piece was. But that’s how he would reverse engineer the phrasing that he was giving us. If he was coming off the top of his head, that’s how he dictated this to us orally. So I started referring to these things as puzzle pieces because each one of these things is important for you to practice or know on the scale. And then really what a solo consists of is just a series of these puzzle pieces put together and what makes them more
3:15special than a normal puzzle piece is the normal puzzle piece you have one piece that goes with one other piece that’s it these can go wherever also when you look at things as puzzle pieces when you transcribe somebody else like i was just transcribing some of um sonny rollins uh solo on a song that is called off of uh off of way out west called um come gone which is uh he plays he basically solos over um uh after you’ve gone um and it’s it’s great he plays so many beautiful things there but the way because i’m a really slow transcriber but the way that i start to get it is to start to think
3:57oh i got to see this puzzle piece so there’s one part i just want to show you this is what i consider a puzzle piece. So watch. Sonny Rollins at one point plays this on B-flat major. It’s actually F7 leading to B-flat, but he plays this. Or I’m sorry, he plays this. Which to me, okay, there’s a lot of ways that I can dissect this and look at it. So it’s five notes. It’s D, F, then come down to C, A, B-flat. Now I’m thinking he’s thinking B flat major.
4:33And here’s how I thought of it as a puzzle piece, okay? So I say, now, if I want to be like Sonny Rollins, I can say, one, two, three, four, one, two. That means the last note falls right on the B flat major. Now that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. I love that. That’s his phrase. It’s amazing. But what Barry used to do is he would take things and say, you got to do that up the scale. now in order for me to do this phrase up the scale I have to dissect it and see what it is okay now at first glance I say oh he went up a third down a fourth
5:10down another third and up a scale tone so it’s up to it’s up a third down a fourth down a third up a scale tone but that’s kind of a lot so I might see this as see this this is just a B flat major triad where he’s starting on the second note of the triad. He’s hitting third, five, one. And instead of just going this, doing this. So here’s our normal triad. B flat, D, F. Instead of just doing this, he does this. So that’s interesting. That means I have to start like an inversion of each one. So instead of doing this, like this would normally be an inversion. That would be kind of an inversion. But what if
5:50you just reverse the notes? Kind of pivoted that triad, so to speak. So here we got this. So that means I should be able to do that from every degree of the scale. So here’s B flat major. I’m going to do what Sonny Rollins did. Now here’s the next triad up, which would be C, E, flat, G. I’ll do the same thing. Next one. Oh, sorry. And then back to the first one.
6:21See, those are pretty. Those are great. Now, what he did was at the end, he didn’t just do this. He then, instead of just going directly to the B-flat, I feel like what I’m hearing is he did a scale tone above the B-flat, half-step below the B-flat. Yes, it’s a scale tone, but watch. I like half-step. Watch. So now you have to know. You see these surrounds?
6:54We’ve done those before. scale tone above and half step below so here watch for b flat for c for d for e flat f so that’s great but now he added those things those two things together he said which is great so now you should be able to do that on every one of those triads Oh, sorry.
7:33Next one. And back to the first one. That’s great. So watch. If I said... That’s great. What if I do from here? that’s a great i may never think to play this see if i don’t break it into what in my mind is like a puzzle piece i might never do that so then what happens is your soloing becomes a series of little
8:14puzzle pieces put together now over at open studio we have a bunch of really fantastic players there and Phil who’s one of the fantastic players he made a point he said he asked me he said you know is it that you’re using the puzzle piece and then you’re inventing sounds in your head and then you are able to think about it beforehand or are you thinking about phrases first and then reverse engineering it by calling out the puzzle pieces and I think if I really think about it it’s a little bit of both. It’s the same thing, like when Barry was calling out phrases to us, I don’t necessarily
8:55think he was thinking in puzzle pieces, but he was thinking, how do I explain it to everybody else, how I came about this? Now, it might be just pure sound, like he heard this particular sound and this particular sound, and that’s what he likes to do at this spot, and then he’s going to dictate it to us orally by giving us the puzzle piece sound. Now, I may never, just let me just explain this, I may never think to play this if I’m not thinking of what Sonny Rollins did. I may never think to do that. Now, I played that puzzle piece so many times, that’s in my head. Bobby D. See, that’s
9:39great. Now, that’s how it sounds in my head now. Bobby D. That’s great. But that puzzle piece, that’s now solidified with two things. I know exactly what the puzzle piece is, and I know that sound. Bobby D. So now I have two ways to go about looking at it. Okay. Now, what happens is you start to put together all these different ones, which are, which whatever order you put them in are fine. Now, some people say,
10:10oh, I put together certain puzzle pieces and I can’t stand how they sound. That’s okay too. You might start putting different ones together and as soon as you luck up on a couple that you really like, those are the ones that you should put together for sure. Taking everything up the degrees of the scale is also unbelievably helpful. So this is what I mean. Like I know, obviously, Barry Harris is my person. You know, like I love him so much for what he gave us, but he really did give us a lot. I mean, he gave us so many ways to look at this stuff to make it to make what is really a beautiful genius music into something that somebody like me can can understand.
10:56Like I have no business being able to play the same music as somebody like Sonny Rollins or, you know, one of these masters. But I can because I have these beautiful puzzle pieces that Barry was able to to get across to all of us, you know, when he was when he was around teaching all of us. So that’s what a puzzle piece is. Now, sometimes in the comment section, people will say, well, how about if you call it this or call it something else or call it a cell or call it all those things? in the end, I don’t care what you call it.
11:31Because in this instance, now I know language is important, but in this instance, I don’t care what you call these little things. As long as you practice these little things. And what are puzzle pieces? Let me give you an example. Barry had us practice a scale up and down. There’s B-flat major. Here’s F7. There’s a scale up and down. The first thing he had us do was practice in thirds. Thirds are a puzzle piece. If I said, how about triads? triads are a puzzle piece you see those are puzzle pieces now the rhythmic aspect of each i still consider part of that puzzle piece so for instance if i said thirds there’s thirds
12:10starting on the beat one and two and three and four and but what if i started on the and ah but that’s still that same puzzle piece i’m just messing around with the rhythm at least just a little bit. You know what I mean? So same thing with triads. There’s starting on the beat, and I’m doing kind of triplets with them. But I can do anything with the triad. I can say, there’s a different rhythm. If I said, here’s a chord up, that’s a nice chord up, right? But if I said chord up, starting with first note on triplet, one,
12:48two three four uh that’s a that’s with a particular rhythmic concept but that’s still the same puzzle piece to me that’s the same puzzle piece if i said instead of this or uh if i said that’s still the same puzzle piece that’s a chord up from the f how i rhythmically decide to do it is also where all this beautiful stuff comes in but see i still see that as the same puzzle piece now if I put a half step below the first note that’s two puzzle pieces that’s a half step below the first note and a chord up
13:23you see what I mean if I put a half step below the first note make more five note chord that’s two puzzle pieces half step below the first note and coming up with five note chords suppose I did a half step below the first note when I got to the top note I put it I did in that back so if I said That’s three puzzle pieces I see that as. And I have to do each one. I have to be able to do each one of those individually. Not connected. So those three, this. Three puzzle pieces.
13:56That means I have to do a half step below each note. I have to be able to do those. I have to be able to do chord up from every degree. All this. These are all puzzle pieces. I also have to be able to do a nap back on something and a nap back is this term that we came up with over at Open Studio where we talk about hitting a note, going a half step below then back to that note. Now I’m sure there’s another musical term for it but every degree you have to be able to do that. So what if I started off on a, like I said, half step below the first note
14:33and then put a nap back on the top note. Take it up the scale. those three puzzle pieces see i might say watch so let’s see just you just start putting things together and then i moved from what we worked on to some I heard something else because I heard something else. Now I’d have to go back and think about, well, what puzzle piece did I just put with that? But that’s the idea. The more of these that you do, the more this will trigger you to play something else. And it starts to become much more than just hunting and pecking the right notes. It starts to become really thought out ideas, which are great. And if you listen to any of the masters, I’m telling you, every one of their solos, You could start it and stop it at any point.
15:32You’re going to find something just like brilliant. If you haven’t checked it out, I’m sure most of you have already checked this out. But go check out Sonny Rollins. Well, both solos on Come Gone. There’s an alternate take too, which is also amazing. But go check that out. Every second of that is filled with beautiful things. Every second is filled with beautiful things. But anyway, enjoy checking out Puzzle Pieces. and if you haven’t already, come join us over at school. Until next time.