Barry HarrisThe method

Chris Parks · Stage 8: Thinking dominant

Creating lines on a minor II-V

Episode 38 · 13:45 · On YouTube · In the lesson player

Barry thinks of a major ii-V as just the dominant, but going to minor he hears the half-diminished ii as the dominant whose third it is. Chris applies this to B minor 7 flat 5, E7 to A minor, running G7 into E7 and building lines from G7’s half-step rules, its important arpeggios, Barry’s chromatic scale and the tritone substitute B flat 7.

Step by step

  1. 0:42A major ii-V is just the dominant to Barry, but going to A minor he hears B minor 7 flat 5 as G7, since B is G7’s third
  2. 1:16Scales for one bar of B half-diminished to E7: G7 up and down to G sharp, the third of E7, then A minor 6
  3. 2:25Have G7 ready in every form: scale, thirds, triads, chords, the half step below and the dominant half-step rules
  4. 3:36Start on A, the second of G7, and run the scale down with no half steps to the third of E7
  5. 4:10Put an eighth-note triplet between the second and the third to break up the straight eighths
  6. 4:44From the second come down a chord, then take G7’s tonic and one half step down to the third of E7
  7. 5:54Use the dominant’s important arpeggios, on the root, fifth and seventh: two half steps down from the second, a major arpeggio down from the seventh, then an augmented arpeggio on E7
  8. 7:07Use D minor, the important minor on G7: from B, three half steps to the tonic, then a D minor arpeggio down to the third of E7
  9. 8:16Barry’s chromatic scale: to put a half step between 4 and 3, jump up to 5 first so the chord tones stay on the beat
  10. 8:53Swap E7 for its tritone B flat 7, whose third and seventh trade places with E7’s, and run G7 into B flat 7 before resolving to A minor

Barry’s own words on this

8.2 A half-diminished chord means the dominant whose third it is8.5 The tritone6.1 Arpeggios on every degree; the three important arpeggios of a dominant scale6.10 Barry’s chromatic scale (chromatic runs with chord tones on the beat)

In the course

The scale every way: up and down, thirds, triads, chordsChord up, scale downThink the dominant: put the ii awayScale outlinesA half-diminished means the dominant whose third it isTriplets and the half-step rulesBarry’s chromatic scaleThe three important arpeggios of a dominantThe important minor5-4-3-2The tritoneCome up a diminished from the thirdAugmented arpeggio on the dominantPut it in a song

Transcript

  1. 0:07hello and welcome to episode 38 of things I’ve learned from Barry Harris I thought today we would tackle um a different a little bit of a different topic uh which is a minor 25 or a two5 and minor um the reason that I thought I should do this separately is because in previous episodes we’ve talked about Barry referring to 25 as only five so for instance in the key that we’ll choose today let’s say a and we’re going to think a minor or a minor
  2. 0:426 the two chord normally if we were doing a major would be B minor 7 to E7 going a major Barry thinks of that B minor 7 to E7 in terms of uh soloing he thinks of all that as E7 the whole way through now the distinction comes in when we’re going to a minor like a minor he thinks of the two chord for that five as B minor 7 flat 5 which it which it is B minor 7 flat 5 to
  3. 1:16E7 going to a minor now uh he doesn’t like to just think E7 there this is where he likes to think G7 for the B minor 7 flat 5 and the E7 you know you could think E7 but E7 so you think like this uh G G7 up and down to the third of e so this is the scale that you would get if you were doing 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 going to a minor so it’s a measure piece of B minor 755 to E7 the scales would
  4. 1:51[Music] be G7 up and down to the third of e and then just a regular a minor 6 [Music] that would be the scale if we were just going to do a turnaround and go back to it [Music] again so the importance of that distinction though is can’t be overlooked because he likes to bring in different things when it comes to the
  5. 2:25minor 25 let’s say then even bird did for instance bird when he plays minor 25 he does his or whatever his his phrase is on E7 but it’s a strict E7 going into a minor Barry makes a distinction there so he comes up with all sorts of things going from G7 running it into E7 so let’s take all the things you’re supposed to know for G7 so you have to know your G7 scale you have to know your scale in thirds your scale in Triad
  6. 3:02you have to know your scaling chords and so on you have to know your scale with a half step below in third and so on you have to know your half step rules for your dominance which are in previous episodes which you should go back and look at um but let’s let’s let’s take just let’s create a line on B minor 755 going to E7 and let’s say just for sake of argument we’ll start on a there’s a lot of things you could do from a a you
  7. 3:36could think of or you should think of as the second of G7 there’s a lot of things you can do from the second of G7 let’s just run down and put no half steps so [Music] G7 down to the third of e that’s a nice phrase so let’s see how that would feel one two three two three and then I from the diminished I uh I pivoted and then I ended on the fifth of B minor so let’s
  8. 4:10do that again one two three one two [Music] three I’ll try it again where it actually sounds good 2 [Music] three so there’s an example let’s maybe throw a triplet in between the second and the third to make it sound a little bit I don’t know to give it a little less of an eighth noty sound 2 three that’s one example or we could have done a lot of things from there we
  9. 4:44could have started on the second and come down a chord that’s a nice phrase okay so let’s try that one 2 three [Music] well I came out of it in a kind of a strange way but you you get the idea I came down a chord or we could have actually after we came down the [Music] chord let’s try that one so that was we came down a chord for the
  10. 5:18second now again that’s down a chord from the second of G7 and then I went back and grabb the tonic of the G7 and I put in one half step [Music] down to the third of V hit the e and then came up to the tonic so let’s see what that sounds [Music] like and maybe we’ll put that same triplet [Music] in see these are just little things that you start to create uh running one thing
  11. 5:54into the next thing those are all really important again another thing you have to know for a dominant is what’s the important arpeggios the important arpeggios for a dominant are found on the root are found on the fifth and are found on the seventh so you have to think to yourself okay let’s start using some of those so if we [Music] said okay so that was starting on the
  12. 6:30second again of G7 coming down two half steps now once I get to the seven I’m going to come down a major arpeggio which is one of the arpeggios the important arpeggios on the dominant so let’s see now that time after I came down the important arpeggio then I came down and augmented arpeggio from the E7 which is nice also so let’s [Music]
  13. 7:07see again using the things that we worked on previously from the dominance let’s take the important minor on the G7 which is D Minor let’s create a nice little phrase with with the D Minor let’s maybe start on the third that’s a nice one so we’ll do uh three half steps till we get to Tonic and then we’ll come down a D Minor arpeggio from the
  14. 7:42third then hit the uh the the E and then end on four three of um or just end on three the four is still a part of the E7 so let’s see [Music] again coming down the important AR Pedra maybe let’s try Okay so that’s some of Barry’s chromatic scale which is so if we wanted to put a
  15. 8:16half step between the four and the three here we’d have to jump up to five so let’s do that and then I put another half step between three and two of the G7 and I came down a D Minor arpeggio from the fifth then I came down to the third of E7 so let’s [Music] see that’s a nice [Music] one see that [Music] again a nice
  16. 8:53one also using the minor 25 well this is also true the major 25 you can think of I might think G7 instead of running it down to the third of e we can use the trone the trone of [Music] E7 is B flat 7 and what’s nice about the trone is the third of e is also the flat 7th of B flat the flat 7th of e is also the third of B flat so the third and the seventh
  17. 9:27are the two most important intervals in a chord which is why you can do the rule for the trone and replace one for the other because the thirds and the sevenths flipflop so let’s try that one then let’s do um G7 and let’s run it into B flat 7 and then resolve it into a so let’s see oh let’s see let’s see [Music] that’s a nice
  18. 10:01one so I came up B flat 7 flat 7 tonic second third I jumped up to six and then hit five and then resolved it to the fifth of a a minor 6 I that’s nice that was Major s ending on a major 7 for the a minor which has a very pretty sound to it let’s try that one again so one half step to the down to the second but the second is really the
  19. 10:36fifth of the D Minor which is important arpeggio found on the fifth I came down in arpeggio then when I came down a half step now I’m thinking already B flat 7 so I came up the flat 7 tonic second third six five so then I end it on major 7 the second time but when you start to see how all these run into each other it’s really
  20. 11:09great let’s let’s come up with another one let’s say [Music] uh oh that’s a nice one let’s put three half steps but now I’m going to put one more half step in between three and two of B7 of I’m sorry B flat 7 [Music] and then I’m going to come down a chord from the second of the B7 of B flat s I’m sorry so and I’ll end on U uh the second which
  21. 11:46is pretty so one two [Music] three do that one again [Music] really pretty stuff just a few ideas to get you started to look through how you create lines using these things that we’ve been working on and again if this is too advanced if you have to stop it stop the record you know stop the video and then
  22. 12:20go back and check it out if there’s something that I mentioned in it that you’re not sure about I think everything I’ve discussed is in one of the previous episodes I know there’s a lot of episodes to go through but you can check them out and just to see if they’re helpful but these are all things that you have to know in order to create lines too many times I see um on um well different uh different people talking about jazz lines and they just think well you just you play this scale into this scale that’s great you you can know the scale the scales are important the
  23. 12:53next step after you run the scales is to create pretty lines with them I feel like that’s the part that a lot of people skip they just run the scale up and they just run a scale up and down and but that’s not playing anything that’s playing a scale you have to try to make music out of the scale the scale is not music itself you have to do something with it so this is the next step of getting you to that point and for me too it’s the thing I work on all the time trying to take the knowledge that Barry has given us and create lines with it I mean after all that’s what the
  24. 13:26whole thing’s about so anyway I hope you enjoy enjoyed this episode about playing 25 in minor or minor 25 and uh yeah enjoy practicing thanks