Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 6: Line devices

All the Things You Are with Minor Arpeggios

Episode 67 · 8:24 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Chris builds lines over the opening bars of All the Things You Are using Barry’s important minor arpeggio on the fifth of each dominant. With tritone substitutes, the changes become a chain of minor arpeggios, F minor, B flat minor, E minor and A minor, which he decorates with chromatics and surrounding notes.

Step by step

  1. 0:00The changes: F minor 7, B flat minor 7, E flat 7, A flat major, D flat major.
  2. 0:41Barry’s scales: A flat major from the sixth, E flat 7 up and down, a quick A flat 7, then D flat major up.
  3. 1:19Map the minor arpeggios: F minor, B flat minor (the important minor of E flat 7), and E minor from its tritone, A7.
  4. 2:32Start on the fifth of F minor and come down, adding half steps, into B flat minor.
  5. 3:12Feel the tempo, and try Barry’s chromatic scale from the third to the fifth of F minor.
  6. 4:04Use the arpeggios as triggers, surrounding their notes rather than just running them.
  7. 4:57Over the A flat 7, use its tritone D7 and its minor, A minor, to reach D flat.
  8. 5:40Hear the chain: F minor down a fifth to B flat minor, E minor down a fifth to A minor.
  9. 7:33Recall Barry’s three important arpeggios on a dominant: major on the root, major on the flat seventh, minor on the fifth.

Barry’s own words on this

6.1 Arpeggios on every degree; the three important arpeggios of a dominant scale8.5 The tritone13.3 Standards worked in class6.10 Barry’s chromatic scale (chromatic runs with chord tones on the beat)

In the course

Scale outlinesBarry’s chromatic scaleBarry’s arpeggio and its inversionsThe three important arpeggios of a dominantThe important minorSurroundsAll the Things You Are

Transcript

  1. 0:00Hello and welcome to episode 67 of Things I’ve Learned from Barry Harris. And today I thought we would discuss creating lines for the first couple of bars of All Things You Are. Primarily focused on that important minor found on the fifth of the dominant. So we’ll think about that. So first we got to go over the chords which would be the first couple of bars would be Fm7 to Bbm7 to Eb7 to Ab major, then to Db major. So maybe we’ll just do that much talking about soloing.
  2. 0:41So, probably if we were going to use barry scales to it, we would do the first chord would take, would be a measure, so it would be like A-flat major from the sixth up. The second part would be, since we have two measures of, we have a measure of B-flat minor seven and a measure of E-flat seven, we would probably play just E-flat seven up and down. So the first part would be. And the next part would be probably A flat 7, because that’s what Barry likes to play there then.
  3. 1:19D flat major up. So before getting to the D flat, I know I said A flat major here, but Barry plays a quick A flat 7 to get back to D flat. So if we take a look at just that, the first thing we got, F minor. So we’re thinking just that minor arpeggio. now we got B flat minor arpeggio now E flat 7 it’s still B flat minor arpeggio but you could also do E flat 7’s tritone which is A7
  4. 1:56which brings in A7’s important minor on the 5th which is E minor so now we would have F minor Bb minor and then E minor so already we have a few different little minor arpeggios that we can use to work off of so maybe we’ll just create some lines using that not that you’re necessarily going to do this while soloing but it’s good to see that so if we started off with F minor let’s start on the fifth and come down
  5. 2:32that’s a pretty one I just added some half step stuff to it after that but let’s do let’s do that time I came down messing around with F minor into B flat minor, and then I did a nice little thing in E flat. But maybe let’s trigger it more towards F minor, B flat minor,
  6. 3:12and then we’ll try to use that E minor. So let’s say... That’s pretty too. So remember, it’s... This long for this. two three four that’s the tempo I want you to feel so it’s interesting though maybe we’ll do Barry’s chromatic from three to five of the F minor so one two three. So one, two. That was playing B-flat minor arpeggio, and then after that, thinking
  7. 4:04about E-minor arpeggio. Now you know, I don’t want to just play. Which you should really know how to do, but I don’t want to just play that. I want to use them to be like little triggers of things that I’ll do around it. So how about if we do the surrounding? So let’s see. Let’s see. One, two, three. Now that was good because I tried to use, So, when we got to that point, there’s Fm7 to Bbm to Eb7 to Abmaj to Ab7, Barry likes to
  8. 4:57play. I used Ab7’s tritone, which is D7, which means I used its important minor arpeggio found on the fifth, which would be A minor. So that’s interesting. So now you could play this whole thing and say Fm, arpeggio, Bbm, Em, arpeggio, for the this one, and then A minor arpeggio for this one to get back to Db. Let’s try that. Let me see if I can do something with that. One, two, three. That was using all the minors. So I used F minor,
  9. 5:40Bbm, Em, Am, Am I used a little bit of it. But let me really try to focus on that Am. So Em going to Am. Oh nice, so let’s see. If you think about it, look what it is. minor and then going down or going up a fourth or down a fifth to that B flat minor then you could do the same thing
  10. 6:15E minor going down a fifth to that A minor which brings you to D flat if you’re thinking of soloing I never really thought of that but Oh man. Now I want to do A minor. Yeah, okay, so let’s try that again. And then.
  11. 6:54Ooh, man, I never even thought of doing it that way, but that’s a nice way to think of it. Again, you’re not going to necessarily play like that with all those minory things, but it’s good for you to see how important that important arpeggio found on the fifth of the dominant is. It’s really, really important. And it also can make you create lines that nobody else has come up with before, which is kind of the point. So, you know, Barry talks about his three important arpeggios, one found on the, of a
  12. 7:33dominant. One found on the root, which is a major arpeggio. One found on the flat seventh, which is also a major arpeggio. And this particular one, which is found on the fifth, which is the minor arpeggio. Really beautiful. And again, just to make it clear, by arpeggio, Barry refers to, like, if we do F minor, it’s the triad, but then with the bottom note repeated again. So if you invert it, you get the next one. If you invert it, you get the next one. That’s what he considers arpeggio. I know people call, if they’re playing like a chord like this, they call that arpeggio, but he doesn’t refer to that as an arpeggio.
  13. 8:10But anyway, I hope you enjoyed this quick little discussion about putting in, creating phrases with minor arpeggios. Until next time. Thanks.