Chris Parks · Stage 13: Tunes as the curriculum
The most famous blues turnaround explained
Barry once named, in passing, the chords behind the blues turnaround riff guitarists copy without knowing what it is. Chris shows it is a real chord movement: in A, A7 to a diminished to D minor 6, with A held while the other three notes move. He plays the movement in every inversion and then turns each one into single-note lines.
Step by step
- 0:04The familiar blues turnaround riff that guitarists learn and drop in without knowing where it comes from
- 1:18In A it is a chord movement: A7, then a diminished, then D minor 6, with A held constant while the other three notes move
- 2:34Learn it in every inversion, as you learn chords, starting with the A7 from the seventh
- 3:48Then from the fifth: find where the A is and move only the other three notes
- 4:28And from the third, with the A on the G string staying put
- 5:38The two-note riff players use is this movement with notes taken away; knowing the origin lets you use all of it
- 6:13Turn it into single notes over a blues: from the root play A7, the diminished, then D minor 6
- 6:54Play the single-note version from the flat seventh, with only the tonic staying the same
- 7:33Then from the fifth and from the third, so you have a line for every inversion
- 10:19Listen closely in a class: Barry mentioned this once and never brought it up again
Barry’s own words on this
In the course
Transcript
- 0:04hello and welcome to episode 49 if things I’ve learned from Barry Harris today I thought we would talk about this turn around for blues which happens in a jazz blues or regular blues or even rock blues here especially guitar players play something like [Music] you know I learned those riffs and then
- 0:44I just played them I figured out where I’m supposed to put them and then I put them there and then every time we play a blues and there’s that turnaround try not to do it too much but boom I can just put it in but one time it Berry’s class he just for a minute he was playing a blues a slower blues and he just happened to call out what those were so this is not just a little riff that people play this is actually based on chord movement things that happen in courts and I’m sure that there might be
- 1:18some of you that know this already but I was completely unaware of what it was I was just kind of robotically repeating those same riffs that everybody knows so what it is is the first one is actually an a7 so we’ll do the key of a because that’s what most guitar players lose in so we’ll just do it in the key of a for this time the plane [Music] [Applause] but actually I know what that stays the
- 1:56same as the a now you have a diminished which would be seventh fret then those three notes move again pending a stays constant and now you have a D minor six so now you have from the fifth so you have this change is really this which is beautiful so
- 2:34knowing this that’s great but we have to invert all those so that’s from the room so now let’s do it from let’s say the seventh and it’s the same idea there’s another inversion of an a diminish because you know that a diminishes all look the same they’re my authority and then a D minor sex so this one is going to be the first a
- 3:12seven from this from the flat seventh is going to be six and again these three notes but the a stays constant so now you have four five again these three notes move the a stays constant so now you have three four three five D minor six from the third so now let’s do it from the fifth again we’re gonna find where that
- 3:48a is which would be the third finger and we’re just gonna move the other three notes so that would be the first one is the a7 from the fifth which would be 7 7 is not diminished again but keeping the egg constant so we have 6 7 5 we have D minor 6 which would be 5 7 6
- 4:28[Music] and the last one will be from the third so here’s our 87 from the third we’re gonna find where our which is on the g-string [Music] so that would be fourth fret fifth fret second fret
- 5:04[Music] the second fret is going to be the one that stays then you got third fret fourth fret then you got for the D minor six would be second now I don’t know about you but I did not know that I was completely not aware that that was the movement behind those little riffs and I’ve been playing those
- 5:38riffs for twenty years I had no idea what that was until now I heard that and I hear Barry play it and I said okay and it’s probably one of those things that all the older musicians all know where it originated from and then we took it and slowly started eliminating certain notes and then some of the things fall easier on guitar so then boom all of a sudden now it’s down to two notes moving rather than this beautiful movement that happens not the same thing along with the two notes but it’s nice to know the origin from where it’s coming from but because we know that then we should say to ourselves well then we have to use it
- 6:13we have to be able to use it in single notes so if we take from the root there’s our a seven from the room so we have to play in a diminished just fine and now we have to play a D minor six from playing the Blues now [Music]
- 6:54we’re actually playing something on it but because we know it from root position we should also know it the way that we learn the chords so here it is from the seventh from the flat seven only note that stays again is the time [Music] which is beautiful to play I and to be
- 7:33honest I’ve never heard any just straight blues guitar player or rock guitar player play that ever never heard never heard maybe you guys have but I have never heard that before now again so that was from the 7th now we needed from v so v from v it would be this the three notes that ago and the tonic is gonna stay the same the whole
- 8:10time so now you got this [Music] see [Music] just throwing that as example just to
- 9:30just to show you where I put it wasn’t the greatest thing in the world but at least it gets the point across so we did it from the throne now we should do from the third so from the third it’s gonna be three tons of time and then the only ones that are going to move our this [Music] okay so it’s gonna sound like this so these all these little things are so
- 10:19important and again it’s something that he brought up in his class like just if I wasn’t really paying attention to what he was saying I would have missed it I mean that that just goes to show how how much you can get from just being around a person of the caliber of Bury which is obviously rare to find somebody that way but just he just blurted it out and if I wasn’t really paying attention I wouldn’t have even gotten it and then I and then I didn’t hear and bring it I’ve never heard him bringing up again he just doesn’t discuss that that kind
- 10:51of thing but for me it was super important because that’s a riff that I’ve played my whole life and now I know where it comes from and now so do you so I hope you enjoyed 49 of things I’ve learned from Barry Harris and I guess we’ll title this the most recognizable blues turnaround anyway thanks until next time