Barry HarrisThe method

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

G minor 6 diminished: drop 2s with single notes and thirds

Episode 168 · 15:26 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Drawing on Thomas Eccles’s ‘elevator’ of textures, Chris shows how to get beyond drop-2-only playing on the G minor 6 diminished scale: from any drop 2, run single notes or thirds from its top note, up or down, and land on another drop 2. He applies it over E half-diminished in D minor and argues that you only know pieces when you can connect them.

Step by step

  1. 3:14Guitarists lean on drop 2; know G minor 6 diminished in drop 2 on each string set, named by the bass note (for example D as the drop 2).
  2. 4:31Around each drop 2, see the scale as single notes from every degree, the elevator’s first floor.
  3. 5:46From a drop 2, take its top note and run three scale notes down.
  4. 6:36Or run up three notes from the top note and land on the drop 2 that has that note on top.
  5. 7:46Use the scale for a real G minor or for E half-diminished, which has the same notes as G minor 6, for example in D minor.
  6. 9:08A bit bigger than single notes: from the drop 2’s top note, come down the scale in thirds.
  7. 10:29Go up in thirds too, and connect them back to a chord.
  8. 12:52From the top note go down four notes and back up.
  9. 14:04You only know the pieces if you can connect them; try it from the bottom note or from a drop 3.

Barry’s own words on this

9.5 The minor 6th diminished scale and its diminished partner10.5 Drop voicings9.4 Playing the scale of chords (block chords up and down the 6th dim scale)9.6 Half-diminished = minor with the sixth in the bass; major -> relative minor -> minor/6

In the course

The minor 6 diminished scaleEvery chord belongs to a scale of chordsDrop 2, drop 3 and drop 2 and 4The elevator: Thomas Eccles’ floorsParallel, oblique and contrary motionPractise pieces connected to other piecesThere is no ‘having it together’

Transcript

  1. 0:00Hello and welcome to episode 168 of Things I Learned from Barry Harris. And today I thought we could talk about combining a couple of things, cording and single notes using Barry’s minor six diminished scale and thinking about Thomas’s elevator system, which you all know I love. But before we get started, I just want to remind everybody, October 1st, there will be new pricing over at my school. So for those of you that get in before then, you will get the old pricing and you’re going to be grandfathered in forever.
  2. 0:38So that’s the way I decided it. Anybody who’s joining me at the very beginning of this journey, which is so far there’s been quite a few, you are going to be grandfathered in forever. and uh i’ll have with the new pricing though i’ll actually have a monthly rate and also a yearly rate where you’ll get a little you’ll definitely get a nice discount for a yearly rate and also in addition to what we’re doing over there which is uh as of right now it’s three zoom classes a month two that i’m holding and one that’s with thomas uh also a mini lesson every friday that
  3. 1:17It doesn’t go on YouTube, but goes on just the school for school members. Also, you have access to, I’m still teaching privately, not as much, but it’s only going to be for school members. So only school members have the ability to have private lessons because there’s just too many people. But something that’s going to be added October 1st is we did a poll. and a lot of people like the idea of having a question and answer zoom lesson and instead of making it one of the two that we have just me I’m going to add another one so all
  4. 2:00together there’s going to be four zoom lessons every month it’s going to be two on a specific topic so I’ll take a specific topic and then we go over them and then the third one with just me is going to be like a office hours or question and answer where any questions you have about stuff that you’re working on as insignificant as you think it might be because those are never insignificant those are always things that uh people can learn from what other people are working on uh i’m going to add that also into the mix in addition we have once a month it’s usually the last
  5. 2:37Sunday of every month is our joint lesson with Thomas Eccles from Library of the Limitations, which is always super fun. And I learned so much at those, at those classes in particular. But I thought since we’re talking about Thomas, let’s just talk about a few things. So as guitarists, we are very drop two heavy. And by drop two heavy, I mean, most of the time, the first thing we grab is a drop two. So here’s G minor six, and let’s think G minor six diminished scale. So there’s our G minor six. So one of the things that we learn is we learn how to play G minor six diminished
  6. 3:14up the scale in drop twos. And for pianists that are watching, a drop two for us is, and for you, is just four consecutive, well, for the guitarist, it’s four consecutive strings. So we have several places we could do that. We have a six string root, we have a fifth string root and we have a four string root. Those are all drop twos, four consecutive strings. Now for pianists, it’s taking closed voicing and the second to highest note, you drop it down an octave below. There’s your drop two. It’s very, it’s not that hard. Then you go up the scale like that. And Barry used to call them out with whatever the bass note is. So Barry, like this G minor six with
  7. 3:54the D in the bass, Barry would say, this is G as the drop, I’m sorry, this is D as the drop two. so there’s a G minor 6 with D as the drop 2 this would be G minor 6 with E as the drop 2 this would be G minor 6 with B flat as the drop 2 and this would be G minor 6 with G as the drop 2 and so on but that is what most guitarists play all the time that’s we’re very guitar um drop too heavy but after I became aware of Thomas and all the fantastic things that he is working on he has this beautiful elevator series which if you don’t know about his elevator system it’s
  8. 4:31incredible it’s one of the many things that he’s come up with that are just incredible and you should definitely check out labyrinth of limitations his all of his different um all of his different pdfs and all the different uh levels that he goes through are all super worth it they’re fantastic but i just want to take a couple and show you how i practice them or at least some things that i practice. So I take a drop two like this and around this drop two I want to be able to see the scale. Okay so here’s the scale single notes and this is one thing that you learn from thinking about it as an elevator. An elevator starts on the
  9. 5:08first floor which would be just single notes. So I have to be able to see this single notes from every degree. You see any degree I start on which which requires you to really know them on all the different strings so i know for sure with thomas’s foundation series he goes through each string at a time and if you haven’t checked those out again i highly recommend them they’re brilliant but um the the way that i was just thinking about it just for today is if you take a drop two let’s say you know you drop twos you can go up the scale
  10. 5:46combine them with a first floor so if you think about the floors of thomas’s elevator drop two is until very high up but before we get to drop two we have a bunch of other floors we have single notes then we have thirds then we have triads so those three so let’s just take how would you combine here’s your um here’s your drop two and then maybe what you could do is take the top note of the drop two and go down three notes. So if I said here’s the chord, I’ll go down three notes. There’s a drop two, I’ll go down three notes.
  11. 6:36There’s drop two going down three notes. Let’s do drop two and going up three notes. from the top note. You see how nice that is? So if I say... Those are really pretty. And then if you want to connect something else, you could say, okay, I’m going to go up with three notes. But when I get to this note, I’m going to play the drop two
  12. 7:09where that’s the highest voicing. So this would be nice. Let’s see. Here’s the drop two. And then. Very nice. So now we’re combining things, see? Because sometimes if you see everything as a drop two going up or down the same direction, you don’t see it in connection with jumping around and being able to see it in the tune. For instance, if I said G minor 6 is nice, where do I use this scale? Well, I use it any time we’re in a real G minor,
  13. 7:46but I also use it if I’m playing E half diminished or E minor 7-flap 5. So E minor 7-flap 5 and G minor 6 are the same, just an inversion G minor 6, and they both come from the same scale, G minor 6 diminished scale. So here I am. Suppose I did it, look, I’m going to do it going up, watch. So there it is going up or here it is going down. From this particular inversion, which would be E is the drop 2. Or, so again, so let’s say I’m playing something in D minor.
  14. 8:31See, now I use the going up, this time I’ll use it going down. So here’s D minor. Very pretty. That’s using it. See, that’s being able to see the drop two and then seeing the single notes around it. So you have to be able to combine a couple of things. Okay? Now, suppose I said I like the drop twos also and I like the single notes, but it sounds like I’m going from a big chord then to a small thing. maybe I want to do a big chord to something a little bit bigger.
  15. 9:08So a little bit bigger would be thirds. So again, on Thomas’s floors, and when Barry used to talk about going contrary, you got the first thing is single note, then when you split contrary, the next thing is thirds. So Thomas just said, well, that’s another floor. Thirds is another floor. So now I have to know how to play thirds parallel, meaning the notes are moving in the same direction, either both up or both down. Okay, same distance both up both down both up the scale or down the scale one note So then that’s what we’re doing with drop twos
  16. 9:40We’re moving all the notes up the scale one note or down the scale one note So we take the thirds and do the same thing. So now what if I said the same thing? There’s my there’s my G minor six now the top note I’m going to use as the top note of the third So I’m going to come down the scale two notes, but what if I did it this way and then C came down the scale in thirds Now that’s beautiful. Next one. So now I’ll use the same example of the D minor.
  17. 10:29Now here’s thirds. See how pretty that is? And why can’t we play this? If we’re playing this to this anyway, why can’t we play it? And connect it to something else. Same thing, let’s go up thirds. So let’s say... That’s also pretty. You hear that? Thirds. I broke up into thirds. I went up the scale in thirds. And then I went to... Now you see how nice that is to know your thirds. and to know your single notes. Those are really important things that I feel like as a guitarist
  18. 11:05myself, I know personally, I just was playing everything drop two, drop two, drop two. But if you listen to Barry play or other pianists, they don’t do that. They know closed voice. They know little thirds in between. They know also they can just move their fingers and just one little thing. And all of a sudden now they’re moving around single notes or they’re moving around thirds. we have to be able to do that it’s a little bit more difficult for us to do that one sense because you have to learn a whole bunch of positions and see these all over but in another sense it’s easy because once you see g minor you see a flat minor you see a minor but let’s not tell the pianist that
  19. 11:42so now we have different ways to practice so so here’s our we came down which is really pretty down thirds or you could go up thirds see so watch I’m gonna go up a third from here there’s the top note now here I want to go up so watch I’ll say here’s the single notes I love those but what if I want to make the top note the third of something so I might say that’s also beautiful and even though it’s not that big a deal believe me to practice these is really great because not only are you seeing
  20. 12:20not only are you seeing um the scale everywhere but you’re really you’re really getting a sense of freedom of how you move around the scale and after all the whole purpose of this bear Harris harmonic concept is when you see a chord it belongs to a scale it’s not just a stagnant chord So what better way to look about this as coming from a scale is if you’re able to do things like this. See, listen to this. Watch.
  21. 12:52If I start here on the top note and I just go down, go down four notes, two, three, four, and then back up. So watch. That’s great. And then those are great. And you say, well, where am I going to use them? Well, if I practice these, I’ll use them. So here, watch. Just fantastic.
  22. 13:29And you can mess around with these all different ways with single note stuff. All different ways. But connect them to something else that you know. And see, I kind of use this as a way of connecting. You know, like when I talk about single notes, I talk about them as being puzzle pieces and then connecting them. So like if I know a pivot and then I also know half-step rules, those are two things that I can combine together. But what happens is sometimes I’ll know my pivots and I’ll know my half-step rules. But when I try to put them together, I say, oh man, I don’t see them now.
  23. 14:04That means I don’t really know them. That means I’ve convinced myself I know them individually, but I don’t really. because if you know them individually, you can really put them in anywhere, regardless of what situation you’re in. Same thing is true of this. If I know G minor six diminished single notes, I should be able to do it. It doesn’t matter. If I start on a drop three, I should be able to know how to move any which way on any one of these notes. See, I was just taking the top note, but what if I took the bottom note? See?
  24. 14:40and so on you should be able to see all those all of those quick and when you practice them like that you’re getting a better sense of not just here’s this individual drop two here’s this individual single notes or here’s this individual thirds you’re getting the sense of playing scale any which way you want And it’s really, it’s such a great way to look at it. And, you know, Thomas has a really genius way of looking at it. Also, like I was saying, so definitely check out his foundation series and have fun practicing this stuff. I mean, cause it’s very helpful.
  25. 15:17Trust me, it’s very helpful. And hopefully I’ll see some of you over at my school until next time.