In plain words
Barry’s complaint was aimed at horn players who learn chords at the piano and take that to be the whole story: when they solo, they play the notes inside each written chord. He also disliked charts that spell out exact chords to be played exactly as written, which he felt took something away from the music. Players taught that way, he said, could not get through Giant Steps, or simply come up and play a phrase.
Giant Steps in the piano class0:000:341:08Be movement players0:00
His alternative was blunt: we deal in scales, not chords. Scales make the music, and chords come from scales, never the other way round. In interviews he applied the same thinking to the piano itself: his pianists think about scales even when they are chording, because nearly every chord they play comes from a scale of chords.
Rhythm changes: scales, not chords6:196:56Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶489
The other half of the idea came from Coleman Hawkins, who told Barry that he did not play chords, he played movements. Barry made it his own creed: a chord is only part of the thing, and what counts is how you get from one place to another. So he wanted his students to be movement players who know all the movements.
Jazz theory, part 2: drop voicings1:07Stella by Starlight14:34Be movement players1:09Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶401
In playing, this means a phrase can start from a note and keep moving through the keys. Barry wanted players to take a phrase through Giant Steps the way they would over rhythm changes in B♭. Thinking chord by chord fails there; he gave each key about a beat and went straight on to the next, using the notes that neighbouring keys share. Everything is connected: whatever scale you are heading for, one of its notes is close by.
Giant Steps in the piano class1:081:444:135:26The 1998 workshop, part 15:43
How he said to practise it
Learn the standards. Barry said that is where you find out what Hawkins meant by playing movements rather than chords, because the standard songs teach the movements.
When a tune moves through keys this fast, sit with it and play it over and over until it comes, perhaps with someone else playing alongside. Barry said that is what he would have to do himself to get Giant Steps.
In Barry’s words
Each one plays from the moment he says it. Every other moment he teaches it is listed below.
We don’t deal in chords, we deal in scales. Scales make music, not chords. Cause I’m saying chords come from scales. I’m not gonna say scales come from chords.
You can’t learn improvisation from knowing chords on the piano. That’s what’s wrong.
He said, I don’t play chords, I play movements... See, chords is just part of the thing.
Everything is connected. There’s a note. No matter what scale you want to go to, there’s a note.
Where this comes from
Everything above is drawn from these. Open any one to check it.
Every moment he teaches it12 moments in 9 recordings
Each time opens the transcript there; the video plays when you are online.
Rhythm changes: scales, not chords
- 6:19
We deal in scales, not chords: chords come from scales, not the other way round.
Giant Steps in the piano class
- 0:00
Horn players learn chords at the piano; that cannot teach improvising. Objects to charts with exact chords.
- 1:08
A player should take a phrase through Giant Steps as he would over rhythm changes in B♭.
- 1:44
Thinking of chords fails on Giant Steps: a beat of B, then straight to D.
- 5:26
B and D share notes; every note has others around it, so the line can pass through.
The 1998 workshop, part 1
- 5:43
Everything is connected: a note of the next scale is always nearby.
Jazz theory, part 2: drop voicings
- 1:07
Learn the standards to understand Hawkins: movements, not chords; chords are only part of it.
Stella by Starlight
- 14:01
Recalls Hawkins playing movements, not chords; we have to be movement players.
Be movement players
- 0:00
Short compilation: you can’t think about chords; be movement players like Hawkins.
Movement, not chords: the sixth diminished scales
- 0:00
More emphasis on movement than on thinking of chords; that is how he arrived at his scales.
Around Giant Steps, part 2
- 0:09
Back on Giant Steps in 2008: players cannot do it; you have to make it, because we deal in scales.
Jazz theory, part 3: four dominants from one diminished
- 4:37
Each chord takes the scale it comes from: a minor seventh is the II, III or VI of three keys.
From the lessons1 lesson, 3 points
Notes taken from Barry’s classes, each tied to the moment it comes from.
Think in scales and phrases, not chords
- Idea
Barry complains that horn players learn chords on the piano and think that is the whole story. Knowing piano chords does not teach you to improvise; such players just play the notes inside the chords. He also objects to modern charts that spell out exact chords you must play exactly as written, which he says takes something away from the music.
Giant Steps in the piano class0:000:34Be movement players0:00
- Idea
- Idea
A former student, who teaches Barry’s theory at the New School on Barry’s recommendation, says what Barry taught him was to look at music in terms of movements and to create phrases that connect through different tonalities, rather than just playing one chord at a time. He calls this the thing Barry is a master at teaching.
In writing6 notes
What his interviews, his students’ class notes and other teachers’ articles add.
In a 1999 radio interview Barry said that horn players who sit at the piano, find two chords that sound good together and write a melody on them have learned to melodize harmonies instead of harmonizing melodies, as the old songwriters did. The result is playing nobody can remember or hum.
On Hawkins’s motto, Barry named the movements he meant: going to the relative minor, coming back from IV to I, small things young players no longer know. Music is movement, he said, and once you know more about movement you can venture away from it.
Ted Panken, For Barry Harris’ 82nd Birthday ¶24Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶100
Barry’s case for scales extended to chording: a chord such as the augmented ninth comes from a scale of chords, so move it up its scale to find the chords on the second, third, fourth and fifth degrees, and you hear sounds you have never heard before.
Howard Rees recalls that seeing a minor seventh as the chord on the fifth degree of a dominant scale showed him that chords come from particular points on scales, and that he did not need a different scale for each chord in a tune.
Rees’s worksheet shows one scale covering several chords: the F major scale for Fmaj7, Am7 and Dm7, and, run to its own ♭2 (the third of D7), for the move to D7; the C dominant scale for Gm7 to C7, and, run to its ♭2 (the third of A7), for Em7♭5 to A7.
Howard Rees, Part 1: Scales & Chords / Part 2: Scale Rules ¶5Howard Rees, Part 1: Scales & Chords / Part 2: Scale Rules ¶6Howard Rees, Part 1: Scales & Chords / Part 2: Scale Rules ¶8Howard Rees, Part 1: Scales & Chords / Part 2: Scale Rules ¶9
Christian Miller contrasts this with chord-based guitar teaching: Barry folds the options into a few scales, mainly the dominant and the important minor, so harmony comes out of the melody and the progression you actually think about can be very simple, such as three chords for a blues.
jazzguitar.be members (usernames kept per post), Harris vs Haque... please set me straight? ¶22jazzguitar.be members (usernames kept per post), Harris vs Haque... please set me straight? ¶23
How other teachers explain it4 videos, 4 series episodes
Barry’s students, and their students, teaching it their way. A second opinion, not Barry.
- Barry Harris- Jazz Master, Educator, Saint
Says Barry taught him to play movements and build phrases through different tonalities, not one chord at a time.
9 min, transcript On YouTube
- Getting Started with Scales for Improv
Opens an improvisation class with chords coming from scales, and shows how one scale outlines chord movements.
7 min, transcript On YouTube
- The Barry Harris Book For Guitar and the Idea of Movement
The Barry Harris guitar book and the idea of movement.
33 min On YouTube
- How to create lines from scales EP 60 TILF Barry Harris
Episode 60: creating lines from scales.
10 min, transcript On YouTube
In the teaching series
Episodes on this idea in the long series by other teachers. Each name opens that whole series in order.
Read further4 links
These open on the web.
Free to read
- Howard Rees, Jazz Workshops
— Free article that opens with Hawkins’s ‘movements, not chords’ and Barry’s account of where chords come from.
- YouTube
— Chris Parks’s free videos on making lines from scales rather than chord spellings.
Books and paid courses
- Howard Rees, ‘Chord Explorations’, Keyboard Magazine Mar 2001 (chords come from dominant scales; practise the 12 keys through the 3 dominant families)
student (Howard Rees) — Howard Rees’s free article on chords as products of dominant scales, and why one scale can serve several chords.
- The Barry Harris Workshop Video (Part 1), Howard Rees / Jazz Workshop Productions: 4+ hours, 5 clinic segments + 102-112 page workbook (ABCs, scales on song forms, movable chords, rhythm section, vocalizing)
Barry himself (produced and transcribed by Howard Rees) — Barry’s workshop video and workbook, with scales laid over whole song forms (paywalled; contents free).