Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 7: Building phrases over changes

Stealing a Bud Powell phrase from Anthropology

Episode 115 · 10:26 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris takes apart a short Bud Powell phrase on the C7 of Anthropology’s bridge: a chord up from the 7th, then down a fourth with a half step below, up a third, and down the scale into the third of F7. Rather than copy it outright, he plays the figure from every degree and changes its rhythm, as Barry taught, to make the phrase his own.

Step by step

  1. 0:00Find the spot: the bridge of Anthropology (rhythm changes) runs D7, G7, C7, F7; Bud’s phrase starts on beat 3 of the C7 and lands on the third of F7
  2. 0:36Hear its two pieces: a chord up from the 7th of C7, then a drop of a fourth, played with a half step below first, up a third, and down the scale
  3. 1:42Practise chords (Barry’s word for arpeggios) up and down from every degree of the C7 scale
  4. 2:47Practise thirds with a half step below on every degree, up and down
  5. 3:20Play the whole figure from every degree; where the first two notes have no half step between them, add one (Chris likes the version from the 5th)
  6. 6:05Make it your own: leave out the third note of the chord and start the figure on an ‘and’
  7. 8:17Play your favourite version from the 5th of each bridge dominant (D7, G7, C7, F7) and try it going into the bridge of I Got Rhythm

Barry’s own words on this

7.2 Building phrases from small pieces (class phrases)14.3 Learn from the masters by ear; study the small things14.2 Every key, every degree, every way7.5 Rhythmic placement

In the course

ThirdsChord up: Barry’s ‘chord’Barry’s chromatic scaleFeel the ‘and’Dissect the masters’ phrasesBud Powell’s Anthropology phraseSmall things

Transcript

  1. 0:00hello and welcome to episode 115 of things i’ve learned from bear harris and today i thought we would talk about um bud powell and uh how much i love them and how much a lot of musicians love them and why this is a good example of why just a little tiny phrase of his from the bridge of anthropology so anthropology is rhythm changes so it’s i got rhythm changes so and the bridge does d7 to g7 to c7 f7 and on c7 on the third beat bud
  2. 0:36powell plays this now that last note is the third of f7 so it goes in perfectly but listen to how pretty this is so why do we love bud pal so much well look at what he did he did two simple things and put them together and made a fantastic phrase he played a chord up from the seventh of the c7 so that’s the first thing you have to know the second thing he did was he came down
  3. 1:09and he he came down to the third but before he played the third he put a half step below it and then he went up a third so after he got to the top note of the chord he came down a fourth but instead of just hitting that note he did a half step below it then he went up a third and then he came down the scale so i was thinking to myself this is so pretty but yet if i played this [Music] the part of the problem would be first of all that would be so much prettier than any other phrase i’m gonna play that it would completely stand out
  4. 1:42second of all it’s stealing it’s me playing exactly but pal’s phrase which i don’t you know it’s one thing to pay homage to somebody it’s another thing just steal their phrase outright now i would like to steal that but i’d like to steal it in a slightly different way and i’ll show you the first thing that we have to know is oh he’s telling us we have to know how to play chords so okay here’s corey here’s c7 scale so we have to know how to play chords plus chords are playing out skipping on playing out skipping off playing not skipping or playing a lot of people call those arpeggios but in barry’s world we call those chords so
  5. 2:15there’s the first one play the second one third fourth fifth sixth seventh that’s the one he uses so if we do everything up we should know it down too really pretty now the second part of the phrase is so we’ll just do that much so that is half step below we don’t go up a third
  6. 2:47and then come down the scale so that’s nice pretty so you have to be able to do that on each degree but first you have to be able to do thirds with a half step below that’s the first one second one third one fourth fifth sixth seventh tonic and you have to be able to do them down [Music] also pretty but in this instance we have
  7. 3:20to know a cord up then go down a fourth half step below you know and then go up a third come down the scale so i love that sound so what i like to do and what barry taught us is you take something like that and you say let me do it on every degree of the scale and see what happens so if we do it from the tonic we’re going to go up um we’re gonna go up a chord now we have to the next note should be a fourth down
  8. 3:52from this note so we’ll say but instead of just playing the fourth we have to um play a half step before it that’s pretty i’ll put some half steps in those are pretty too let’s do it from the second that’s pretty now that time i just did a bearish chromatic since we don’t have a half step between the first two notes i put one which would be i jumped up to the tonic so
  9. 4:24let’s see let’s do it from the third that’s pretty [Music] from the fourth let’s see that’s nice nice from the from the fifth that’s a nice one [Music] that’s a pretty one this is the one on
  10. 4:56the fifth so [Music] that’s a really nice one from the fifth let’s do it i mean they’re all nice but the fifth i really like now let’s do from the six come down a fourth but before we go to the fourth to do a half step below that’s a nice one too that’s also a pretty one now here’s his on the seventh
  11. 5:30i love it i love it so this is the thing most of us can play some of these exercises but he ran one of those exercises into the next one in such a beautiful way that it shows you that’s the difference between you know all of us mortals and these masters like bud and bird and barry and that level is that they’ll take something that’s part of our language very simple but they chain it together with something else and connect it to something else that is just it makes it sound incredible and
  12. 6:05that’s what i’m trying to shoot for that’s what we all should be trying to shoot for so that’s a great idea though chord up go down a fourth but then put a half step before the note half step i love it now another thing you could do is say okay well i want to change it slightly so maybe instead of starting like he starts on a beat he starts on the third b he says one two so maybe what you want to do to make it more your own is say okay i’m going to start on the and so i’m
  13. 6:37going to remove one note so instead of playing one chord up maybe i’ll take out um the third note of the chord so here’s the first note second third fourth i’ll take the third note out and i’ll start on the end so maybe i’ll say one two three that’s also pretty one two three maybe i should try that on every one of them so instead of the first one we’ll just we’ll leave the third note of the chord out one two three four one two three
  14. 7:10that’s a pretty one i love it from the second from the third i love that one ah you could hear that one already wait i love that i love that one how about the fourth uh one two three four one two three how about from the fifth i love that one too
  15. 7:44[Music] i love that sound that’s beautiful how about from the sixth all right let’s see wait that’s a nice one too [Music] i love it next one from the seventh that’s his so i might play that on this
  16. 8:17[Music] so instead of playing buds which i love that sound too but maybe i’ll do so now but maybe i like it from the fifth so let’s see from the fifth now let’s think about this i came a quarter from the fifth then put a half step below when i came down the fourth then one up a third so i’m gonna try to do that from the fifth of each one so here’s d7 [Music]
  17. 8:50and then maybe [Music] that’s a nice ones even though you wouldn’t do them on all of them but it is nice to look and see where they would fall in each one so let’s say if we’re playing i got rhythm here’s the end going towards the bridge [Music] [Applause] [Music]
  18. 9:27you see how you just implement it and make it into your own thing so that is my suggestion also for if you want to steal a phrase and by steel i’m obviously don’t mean it specifically but instead of taking a bud pal phrase and just ripping it off where you say okay i’m just going to copy this phrase exactly do a little work say what if i do this on every degree of the scale you know how does it sound what does it sound like from the fifth what does it sound like if i start on the end and change one note you know this is what makes this music so special
  19. 10:02and remember it’s these little small things that you build the small things that build upon the small things that make the big things there’s no big things there’s just small things like this so i hope you enjoyed this lesson on um stealing about proud phrase enjoy practicing see you next time