- #Barry harris harmonic method for guitar pdf how to#
- #Barry harris harmonic method for guitar pdf pdf#
Attached is an example of how a ii-V is reconceptualized as major and minor sixth diminished chords. This breaks down to essentially moving inversions of major and minor sixth chords with 'passing' diminished chords in between. Rather than ii-V, you start to think of moving through these scales.
Thinking about sixth-diminished scales was a difficult transition, but it has proved to be a real breakthrough.
#Barry harris harmonic method for guitar pdf pdf#
Even more information is now available at Jazz School Online, a pay, e-school version of the Harris method (with video lessons by Kingstone and pianist Howard Rees).Īll this material emphasizes Barry Harris Diminished Theory Pdf movement-exactly what I wasn't getting with my existing stable of voicings. Both Kingstone and Ben-Hur are closely connected to Harris and explain the pianist's ideas in very clear and practical ways. That book, along with Roni Ben-Hur's Talk Jazz Guitar, have been immensely helpful, gradually changing some of my basic ideas and approaches to improvisation and 'comping. Frustrated with my 'comping-I felt like I was using the same set of voicings over and over again-I bought and started working through Alan Kingstone's The Barry Harris Harmonic Method for Guitar. It was only a few years later that I found myself returning to the Harris material. It seemed to involve a very different orientation to navigating the changes melodically as a soloist or harmonically as a 'comping instrument.
#Barry harris harmonic method for guitar pdf how to#
Out of this focus on the diminished come a set of scales, what he calls sixth-diminished scales: a major (or minor) sixth chord combined with a 'related' diminished chord.Īlthough I attended Harris's workshops during my time at the camp, I wasn't sure how to incorporate his ideas into my playing. For Harris the diminished scale has a foundational importance for the derivation of all the harmonic materials a player will use. Where things get interesting is in the harmonic underpinnings of this approach. lydian augmented) than about chromatically manipulating major and scales. There is obviously much more to it, but the system is less about learning specific scales (e.g. The 'Harris Method' is structured more explicitly around bop practice and focuses on creating smooth chromatic melodies through the use of certain 'rules' (for example, descending from the tonic, 3rd, 5th or 7th of a major scale add one half-step between the 6th and 5th degree). With so much mystification around the process of improvisation, that remains an important lesson.Ī few years ago, I attended the Stanford Jazz Workshop-a week-long, all-ages summer 'camp.' That program is structured around the ideas of bebop pianist Barry Harris. One of the central messages of all his instructional materials is that anyone can learn to play the music. Press, 2002), the Aebersold approach has introduced many, many musicians to the music. For all its limitations, and there are problems with such a heavy focus on scales (see David Ake's discussion in Jazz Cultures, U.C. There is more to it than this, and the Aebersold world is also closely connected to legendary jazz educator David N. You derive the melodic material you want to play from a scale or set of scales. In high school I was exposed to the Jamey Aebersold approach-basically a scale-chord method. None of the teachers I've had were dogmatic in their adherence to a particular methodology, but they did have preferences. A student today has a surprisingly large number of approaches or methods to choose from. But the amount of pedagogical material has exploded in the past 20+ years. Instructional guides are not new-you can find books on how to play and improvise jazz going back to at least the 1920s. It has become 'institutionalized.' This has had an obvious impact on the way the music is taught. Jazz, as many other writers have pointed out, is increasingly taught in high schools and universities.