Start with the basics; practise slowly, exactly, in time; repeat until it is yours

Barry admitted that the material students hate most is exactly what they need: triads, arpeggios and the plain major scale. He likened his teaching to the old European figured-bass approach (while saying he didn’t know much about figured bass), where players had to know basic things and then started making little things up from them; later, he said, Europe turned to writing music more than teaching people how to play and improvise. So the path is: know the basics so that you can create, start inventing small things from them, and then learn about movement.

Jazz schools and the basics2:12Believe: a talk to musicians13:4814:22

In a 1998 workshop Barry reminded the class more than once that they should already know all the little basic stuff: all their minor arpeggios, all their diminished chords, all their triads, and all their arpeggios in general.

The 1998 workshop, part 31:131:456:10

Take a four-note arpeggio, such as D-flat minor in one position, and find every order its notes can be played in. Barry compared it to the digits of a number: three digits give six orders, four give 24. Starting from the low D-flat, the other three notes can follow in six ways, and the same is true for each of the other starting notes, which makes 24 in all. Aim to know every inversion and every combination.

The 1998 workshop, part 313:1214:2514:57

After playing an Art Tatum ending and a Bud Powell ending, Barry said he used to have students take a simple chord and make up something of their own from it, such as an ending or a little figure built only from knowing those chords. He demonstrated several invented versions, then set up taking an idea through every key. Try it: pick a simple chord, invent a few endings from it, then move one of them through the keys.

Practising the sixth diminished scales28:3929:56

When a student rushed an exercise, Barry slowed them down: don’t play it so fast, keep the pattern going all the way through, and do it exactly and in time. Practising in time is how the material actually gets learned.

Jazz theory, part 3: four dominants from one diminished6:567:29

Barry said that if you know all the material and practise a little slowly, you will be surprised at what you come up with. He said this while discussing Giant Steps, noting that Coltrane had practised that tune for a long time.

Giant Steps6:22

In a 1998 workshop Barry had the group run scales from different starting points, all counted off and played in time: start on the third of F major, run up the scale and come back down; go from the fourth of a dominant down to its seventh; then go up the dominant scale doing the same figure from each degree. He stressed that this is more than scale practice: you are practising rhythm and the feeling of what you play.

The 1998 workshop, part 12:142:504:0016:22

Practise keeping time while you practise improvising. You may play the same phrase over and over, but every repeat has to stay in tempo. Barry might even talk in time between repeats, and the player was expected to keep going without losing the beat.

Practising the blues with the horns, part 124:33

Barry said you can think about rhythm anywhere, even walking down the street, so you should always be thinking rhythm, for example the rhythms of the Bird tunes. He wished someone would use a computer to play those tunes as pure rhythm without the pitches, so students could hear and learn the rhythm on its own, separated from the tonality.

Rhythm before notes4:475:20

A former student speaking at Barry’s funeral recalled that he was always pushing his students toward excellence, toward a perfection they could never quite reach. What that really meant, the speaker said, was making them do something so many times that it became part of them, until they could finally do it with an ease they had never imagined. Repetition was at the heart of how he taught.

Barry Harris Funeral1:06:56The Great Pianist Barry Harris’ Funeral At Abyssinian Baptist Church In Harlem53:06

Listening to a player move through B minor to E, then B-flat minor, then A-flat major, Barry admired how it simply came out with no plan behind it. His conclusion: you have to do these things over and over, any way you can, until they are just there when you play.

Following a line on Half Nelson, second copy1:223:204:32

Barry’s main lesson from Monk: most of us spend practice time on things we don’t know, but jazz musicians must also practise playing. Barry had tapes of Monk playing one tune in tempo by himself for 90 minutes, so that when Monk went to a gig he had in effect been playing every day. Since the average jazz musician gets only a few gigs a month, you have to create that playing time at home: pick a tune and keep playing chorus after chorus in tempo. Barry admitted that when he tried it himself he lasted about ten minutes.

Interview: Bird, Hawkins, Monk and New York28:03