Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 2: The musical universe

Diminished Explained

Episode 93 · 13:13 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris retells Barry’s creation theory: the 12 notes split into two whole-tone scales, which combine into just three diminished chords, and lowering any note of a diminished gives its four family dominants. Knowing where the ‘half step, whole step’ scale comes from lets him make lines on the A7 of Alone Together by adding one family root to the diminished or by filling chromatics between two of its notes.

Step by step

  1. 0:35Follow Barry’s creation theory: 12 notes, two whole-tone scales, and two notes from each make a diminished.
  2. 1:11See there are only three diminished chords (C, C sharp, D); E flat diminished repeats C.
  3. 1:56Lower each note of C sharp diminished in turn to get the family: C7, F sharp 7, A7 and E flat 7.
  4. 2:41Add those four roots to the diminished to get the eight-note diminished scale, and know its origin.
  5. 3:23On the A7 in Alone Together, play the diminished up from the third (C sharp diminished).
  6. 4:01Instead of the whole scale, add just one family root, F sharp, to the diminished notes.
  7. 5:24Do the same from A, from C and from E flat.
  8. 6:34Fill in chromatics between two notes of the diminished, C sharp to E, then continue on the diminished.
  9. 7:53Move the chromatic fill to E-G, G-B flat and B flat-C sharp, and try it descending.
  10. 8:36Put chromatic fills in two places in one line for a new sound.

Chords and notes in this video

Tap a time to jump to it in the video.

C#dim1:11
𝄢♯♭
C3EGC4D♭B♭
  1. C#
  2. E
  3. G
  4. B♭
Line2:41
𝄞♯♭♭♭
CEGAC6D♭E♭G♭B♭
  1. C
  2. C#
  3. E♭
  4. E
  5. G♭
  6. G
  7. A
  8. B♭
A74:01
𝄞♯♭♯
C3GC4G♭B♭D♭
  1. F#
  2. G
  3. B♭
  4. C#
A76:34
𝄞♯♯♭
C5DEGC6D♭E♭B♭
  1. C#
  2. D
  3. D#
  4. E
  5. G
  6. B♭

Barry’s own words on this

2.3 The three diminished seventh chords (‘the children’)2.2 The two whole-tone scales (‘man and woman’)8.3 Four dominants from every diminished chord8.6 The diminished scale as diminished chord + four dominant roots

In the course

Barry’s creation theoryThe family of dominantsThe tritone’s minorCome up a diminished from the thirdSoloing with the diminishedOne family member and the diminished

Transcript

  1. 0:00Hello and welcome to episode 93 of Things I Learned from Barry Harris. And today I thought we would discuss some of Barry’s beautiful, I think they’re beautiful, beautiful diminished ideas, which hopefully will give you limitless possibilities to thinking of lines. So if we take a look at Barry’s first creation theory, he has the, he starts off Barry’s creation theory, I don’t know if you should definitely look it up, I’m gonna try to find him talking about it and leave a link in the description but it’s really wonderful. Anyway, he discusses it, I’ll paraphrase it, but him
  2. 0:35saying it is really perfect. So it’s basically the universe is all 12 notes of the chromatic scale, the western scale. Those twelve notes can be broken apart into two six-note scales. So you take six notes, six notes, you have two six-note scales, which gives you the two whole-tone scales. If you take two notes from one whole-tone scale and two notes from another, you get it diminished. You can do that three times because you have six notes, six notes, you can do it three times. Then you get these three possible diminishes. Let’s just say if we get
  3. 1:11C Diminished, C Sharp Diminished, and D Diminished. When you get those three diminishes, once you hit Eb Diminished, you’re already repeating the notes of C Diminished. So you basically only have three diminishes. Now what Barry says is, if we take a look at the Diminished, let’s take a look at C Sharp, and we lower one note of the Diminished, each one at a time, you will find your four family members. So for instance, if we take a C Sharp Diminished and lower the C Sharp to C, you’re going to get a C7. If we take the G and lower it to F-sharp, you’re going to get F-sharp 7. If we take the B-flat and lower it, you’re going to have an A7. If we take the E and lower it to E-flat,
  4. 1:56you’re going to have an E-flat 7. So there’s your four family members. You got C7, E-flat 7, F-sharp 7 or G-flat 7, and A7. So those are your four family members. So, okay, what does that tell you? So those four family members came from the C-sharp diminished, which is C-sharp, E, G, and F. So there’s our C-sharp. C-sharp, E, G, B-flat, or A-sharp, I guess. And then you have the four family members, which we just did by lowering one of those notes. And then you got
  5. 2:41a C, an E-flat, a G-flat, an A. So if you put those four notes with the other four notes, you’re going to get there’s your half step whole step diminished scale or your octatonic scale so that’s what barry refers to this now the reason that he likes to refer to it as that instead of just saying oh well it’s a half step whole step or it’s octatonic it’s because he wants you to know different things that you can do with it and where it comes from So for instance, one of the notes that we lowered was Bb to A.
  6. 3:23So that gives us an A7. So now we know, okay, A7. So let’s say we’re playing a song like Alone Together. There’s your A7. So we know we can do things for A7 has that C sharp diminished in it. Okay, so we knew that already. And a lot of times you’ll play that diminished up from the third. We do it all the time. So let’s see.
  7. 4:01There’s that C sharp diminished. We use it all the time. But maybe what people, or you’ll hear people do this, which is just the full octatonic or half-step-hold-step scale. So it’s like... Just the whole way they’ll play that whole scale, which is a really nice scale. But what’s nice is we can also just take parts of that. So for instance, if I said, okay, well, one of the dominants that comes from that scale is the F-sharp. So we said F-sharp 7, A7, C7, and E-flat 7 are family. So what if I just used the
  8. 4:45F-sharp and then I just came up with the rest of the diminished. So my notes would be F-sharp, G, B-flat, E-flat, I’m sorry, C-sharp or D-flat. So there’s our scale. So now, according to the octatonic scale it would be this. But I don’t want to use all those notes. I just want to imply the F sharp, just one of the family numbers. Which is really beautiful. So now I know, well hold on a second, if I’m playing the same thing with alone together, I can play
  9. 5:24because instead of just running up a straight diminished, I added that one note, which was the F sharp. It’s a really pretty way to play. So that means if I can do it for F sharp, and I’m ending on a note of D minor 6, so in this case it’s the minor 6, or it’s the 6, not the minor 6, but. Now if I do it, I can do the same thing from A. So that time I just did it from A. Went up a half step to the diminished, came up three notes to the diminished.
  10. 6:03And I did it up two octaves. So now what if I do it from C? Also pretty. So the last one that’s left is the E-flat. Beautiful sound. So you see, already, I’m taking the idea of a diminished, and I’m using one family member. One time I did F-sharp.
  11. 6:34One time I did A. One time I did C. One time I did E-flat. And creating a line with it. So that is the benefit of knowing where that half-step, whole-step scale comes from, what its origin story is. That’s one of the many benefits of that. So now, also, Barry does this other really beautiful thing where he says you could take, let’s say if we took C-sharp diminished, still using it for A7, like we’re playing alone together, he says you could put chromatics in between two notes.
  12. 7:13So let’s say if we took the C-sharp and the E and we wanted to put a chromatic in between it. That’s a beautiful phrase. So now all I did was just go chromatically from C-sharp to E, and then I just came up with the rest of the diminished. I didn’t put any more chromatics. So let’s see. That’s beautiful. What if we did it between C-sharp and E? Now let’s do it between E and G. That’s a pretty long...
  13. 7:53I should have had... I like that sound. How about if we do between the G and the B-flat? That’s a pretty one. How about between B-flat and B-C-sharp? One, two, three. Oh, man. See, I could have done it there, too. You could do it backwards, too, the same thing. but that’s such a I’ve never heard anybody do that put chromatics in between those two notes so we had
  14. 8:36the second one the third one and the fourth one I mean that’s pretty now you don’t have to do it in just that spot you can actually put what if I chose to put the chromatics in between C sharp and E but then I also went up to the G and then I decided to do the chromatics between the G and the B flat so I said that’s a nice one I mean that is really a different sound
  15. 9:17how about if I did it between E and G and then between G and B-flat. Let’s see. I love that sound. So let’s see. Totally chromatic. So if you were taking a look at it, reverse engineering it, and you didn’t know what we were doing, you’d say, wow, that’s just a chromatic in between. in between E and Bb, but we’re thinking of it as diminished. Really beautiful sound.
  16. 9:59How about between G and Db or C-sharp? That’s pretty, too. and maybe so you see all the things how about if we do it from the top I mean listen to that and you know the thing is and I was talking to a few people about this
  17. 10:33that we had a get together on Zoom and we were talking about how what’s interesting is a diminished has a certain specific sound and quality to it so if I said that has a very specific sound really the quality of that is very clear you almost know it right away without even playing it oh that’s a diminished sound whole tone scale has that too also a very distinct sound, whole tone. We all know what that sound is. Or if you don’t and then somebody tells
  18. 11:12you, oh that’s the whole tone, then you’re able to identify it right away. Oh yeah, that’s whole tone sound. Then you have, let’s say, the minor six on the half step above, or some people refer to altered sound because they play melodic minor, but Barry plays minor six diminished, But it would be Bbm6. That’s also beautiful. That’s Bbm6. So you can say... I should do that better.
  19. 11:51Or maybe... There’s that 6 again. So that’s got a distinctive sound. But my point was when you put the chromatics into the diminished, I don’t even know how your ear perceives that. I mean, to me, it’s a beautiful sound, though. It’s a really beautiful sound. So it’s yet another, like, Barry gem that he just kind of discusses. And then I just, I started remembering this, that this was something that he discussed a long time ago.
  20. 12:30And it was something that I was really interested in. And then as all things Barry, like there’s other things that all of a sudden I become interested in. So I kind of put this to the side, but it’s so useful. So even if you take some of these, like just taking one of the family members notes and coming up a couple of notes of the diminished or using these chromatics, there’s limitless amounts of lines you can come up with. And that’s why I love this method and that’s why I’m still doing the channel. But anyway, I hope you enjoyed this lesson on some beautiful diminished ideas.
  21. 13:08Until next time, have fun practicing.