Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 8: Thinking dominant

Playing with the family of dominants

Episode 10 · 10:56 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris explains Barry’s family of dominants: lower any note of a diminished chord a half step and you get one of four related dominants, whose roots make another diminished chord and together give the diminished scale. Barry insisted you learn to play with family, so Chris gives the musical reason for running D7 into F7, B7 and A flat 7 in the key of G, and plays short lines for each.

Step by step

  1. 0:00Barry’s creation story: the chromatic scale splits into two whole-tone scales, which give the three diminished chords
  2. 0:37Lower any one note of C diminished a half step for a dominant: C gives B7, E flat gives D7, G flat gives F7, A gives A flat 7
  3. 1:52The four roots make a diminished chord too; with C diminished they form the diminished scale, and their notes explain altered dominants
  4. 3:50Why D7 into F7: in G, the ii-V (A minor to D7) often moves to the IV minor, C minor with F7
  5. 4:26Why D7 into B7: a song may walk down from the ii chord to VII and the III dominant, B7, going into E minor, the relative minor
  6. 5:07Why D7 into A flat 7: A flat 7 is D7’s tritone, leading back to G; and F7, the tritone of B7, can lead into E minor
  7. 5:43Play D7 into F7 with Barry’s rules, for example from E (D7’s second) with two half steps, or a chord up from the fifth that surrounds F
  8. 7:02Play D7 into B7 and on into E minor, with one added half step or with none
  9. 7:55Play D7 into A flat 7, coming down by half steps into a chord, or going up with a triplet into A flat
  10. 9:16Learn to play with family first: these moves turn up in countless standards and let you play through the changes, not over them

Chords and notes in this video

Tap a time to jump to it in the video.

Cdim0:46
𝄢♭♭
CAC4E♭G♭
  1. C
  2. E♭
  3. G♭
  4. A

Barry’s own words on this

8.3 Four dominants from every diminished chord8.4 Playing with the family8.6 The diminished scale as diminished chord + four dominant roots8.5 The tritone

In the course

Barry’s creation theoryThe family of dominantsPlay with family firstDon’t think altered, think familyThe diminished scale: a diminished plus four tonicsRun one chord into the nextNotes in common and notes that surroundMajor to the relative minor

Transcript

  1. 0:00Hello and welcome to episode 10 of Things I’ve Learned from Barry Harris. Today I thought we would take a little different approach and talk about something that Barry refers to as his family of dominance. So, the way he talks about it is he has this great creation theory that he talks about. He says the chromatic scale, all 12 notes, which then separates or breaks apart into two scales, which are the two whole-tone scales.
  2. 0:37Then from the two whole-tone scales, you get three diminishes. And those three diminishes. All this always equals back to the original 12 notes. Now from the three diminishes is where we get four dominants, and that he refers to as family. So if we take a look on guitar, just for instance, if we take C diminished, now how do we find out, he says, what are the four dominants that come out of this diminished? Well you lower one note a half step, and we’re going to find each of the four dominants.
  3. 1:14The first one, if we lower the C, is a B7. So that’s the first dominant. The next one, if we lower it, is to F. That’s going to be an F7. The next one is going to be A-flat. And the last one is going to be a D, a D7. So there are our four dominants. B7, well I did in this order, B7, F7, D7, A-flat7, but if you look at those four notes,
  4. 1:52what’s interesting about them is those four notes are also make up a diminished themselves. So if you think about it, C diminished has these four notes in it. So, if you stack the C diminished notes with the tonics of the dominance that are all connected, what you get is this. Which is the diminished scale, what some people refer to as half-step, whole-step.
  5. 2:29He doesn’t like that. Barry usually doesn’t refer to it as that because he says then you don’t understand where the notes came from. So anyway, that’s where his dominance come from, the four family of dominance. So once again, D7, D7, F7, and Ab7. Now the reason why these are important is when you see an altered dominant chord like a flat 5 or a 13 or a sharp 9 or a flat 9, that’s usually because you’re using the notes or some of the triad notes from the other dominance.
  6. 3:08So if you see this chord, or if you hear this type of chord, or this type of chord, or this type of chord, I’m sorry, this type of chord, those are all with altered sounds, and the altered sounds all come from those other family of dominance. Now besides that, he says we have to learn how to play with family. So in other words, we have to figure out, let’s take D7 for example. Okay, you say, okay, we have to learn how to run D7 into, let’s say, F7. So these are the scales.
  7. 3:50And here’s F7. So the next step is to say, well, why would I need to have to run that? So this goes back to Barry’s understanding of movement. So what would be the reason to play D7 to F7? So if we’re thinking in the key of G major, let’s say, the D7 is the 5. So usually before they play 5, they play A minor 7 and D7. Now the reason that you play F7 is if we played F7’s 2, which happens to be C minor, that’s the 4 minor. So there’s a lot of songs that go from the 2 chord to the 4 minor.
  8. 4:26So that would be a reason to play D7 into F7. That’s the first movement. The second movement, D7 into B7. You say, well, what reason would you use for D7 to go into B7? Well, sometimes a song will play the two chord, walk it down, play the seven to the three dominant, going to the relative minor. So that’s exactly the reason that you would need D7 going, running D7 into B7, which happens a lot. The last one is D7 into Ab7. Why would you need to run D7 into Ab7?
  9. 5:07Well, again, if you stayed in the key of G, if we were playing a 2-5 to get back to 1, you could easily run D7 into D’s tritone, which is Ab7, to take you back to G. So that’s another reason. Now we didn’t even get to another reason you could play D7 to F7, is F7 is the tritone of B7, so if we were playing a song that went to the relative minor, you could play as the tritone of the B7, you could play that F7 and run it into E minor. That also happens too.
  10. 5:43But anyway, let’s start looking at a few of these. So D7 into, let’s do F7. So let’s try D7 into F7. So let’s start, let’s say, on the second of the D7, which is E, we’ll put two half steps. Or, which is the F7. So if we had 2, 3, 4, so let’s try. I ended up on 1.
  11. 6:23But anyway, that’s a reason to go from D7 to F7. Or another one would be, let’s say. So that was just coming up a chord from the 5th. And then I’m surrounding what is the tonic of F7. Putting it one half step. So. Anyway, whatever change it would go to next.
  12. 7:02So that’s a reason to run D7 into, that’s another D7 into F7. Now let’s do D7. into B7. Let’s just put one half step. Going into E minor, so let’s try again. Into E minor. Let’s do two no half steps. There’s another way to do it. Three, one half step.
  13. 7:55And to E minor. Another example of being able to play that. Now let’s play a few examples of D7 going into Ab7. So we’ll say... So all I did was started on three, came down one half step, and now I went down another half step, which is now, I started on the second of the A flat and I came down a chord. So...
  14. 8:34Or I could have gone up the same thing. I like that one. So I walked up. And when I got to the 4 of the D7, I did a triplet between the 7 and the tonic of the Ab. Anyway, so those are just a few brief examples of running D7 into F7, D7 into B7, and D7 into Ab7.
  15. 9:16And the importance of it is it’s your family of dominance. So Barry always says you have to learn how to play with family first. So if you think about all the different songs, all the different standards that use those kind of movements, so the two chord going to the four minor, or the two chord going to the relative minor, or just playing the tritone of a five chord, that’s a million movements in a million different songs. So if you get comfortable playing with the dominants that are the family, if you get comfortable playing within the family, there’s a lot of songs that you can really tackle the changes
  16. 9:53to in a really professional sounding way. You’re really playing through the changes as opposed to playing over the changes, playing one long thing over the changes. You’re actually playing through the changes. And yeah, it’s really important. I mean, actually making these videos, I’ve started thinking about some of the things, obviously, that I’ve learned from them. And this thing about the family is so important, was one of the most important things that I learned. And I’m still obviously still working on it because it’s never ending. So anyway, I hope you enjoyed that episode about playing with the family.
  17. 10:34And enjoy practicing those four dominants into each other. So I’m really enjoying these. I hope you guys are too. And leave a comment down below and let me know what you think. Or if you have any suggestions for future videos. Anyway, thanks. Enjoy practicing.