Barry Harris Harmonic Method For Guitar Pdf
Beatris Ninh
On your site you specifically say that your comping has radically improved/changed since you discovered the book "The Barry Harris Harmonic Method for Guitar". I have trouble adding interest, motion or spice to my own comping.
I know most of the guitar (comping) chord voicings and I get by, but it sounds really vanilla or plain. After buying quite a few books on comping and voice leading it really hasn't changed my playing to anything that sounds 'professional'.
So before blindly buying another book I was wondering if you could tell us why this book had such a big impact on your comping or harmonic awareness. What makes this book or method so good? Maybe you could give some examples.
For example, if you see Cmaj, instead of using the regular C6 scale, start with an "extended" chord such as G6. It contains G B D E, so it gives a C major chord with 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th. Then it's possible to "come back down" from the extended C major 9th with a passing diminished:
As you can see, this way of thinking clearly demonstrates what extensions really are and the origins of the passing diminished chords often found in fakebooks. And it is, of course, applicable anytime, anywhere with any chord type.
Other very interesting concepts topics found in the book are : diminished borrowing, Monk moves, solo jazz guitar, applications to intervals, partial chords, applications to single-note playing and altered dominant chords.
Finally, while I believe that books and concepts can change your playing for the better, always remember that there's no magic pill for playing good! You have to investigate, practice and develop a personal style.
Is this the same principle of Mark Levines Drop 2 Book that was adapted by Randy Vincent to Guitar? I'm still trying to play II-V-I properly but started reading the barry harris book and saw a lot of similarities with Levine's one.
There are some similarities with the Vincent book, but it's not the same basic "approach" to passing chords. I really like both books, but Kingstone opened my eyes to LOTS of things I wouldn't have figured out ...
Thank you for this lesson !!!! I have already been practicing this harmonic devices. Juat wanted ti ask if its posible for you to share some II-7b5 Valt I examples. I guess you will be using the minor dim 6th wright? thanks in advance and greetings from argentina. JP
Back in the late 80's or early 90's the jazz faculty at McGill
University handed classes over to Barry Harris for one week and the
results on the students were amazing. He also inspired those of us
who were on the staff at that time.
Although the "Passing tone" scale or "bebop" scales theory
is well known in a " scratching the surface" way , the ramifications
of it's prolonged and intense study and application are not so well
known. There is also a harmonic or chordal component to Barry's
concept that is much less known. It's application to guitar
presents some fingering and adaptation issues but there is much to
learn and explore. Any text that covers any portion of the
Barry Harris method will I'm sure be of great value to the serious
player. If you get into it ,prepare to to be challenged to "go
deep" ie: serious long term commitment to intense practice and
study.
Greg
I worked through all of this stuff when I studied with Barry (for about
5 years in the 80s, and then a couple more years to review in the early
90s). And YES, if you're interested in playing authentic bebop phrasing
(or really pretty much any jazz style) then understanding this stuff is
pretty much the key (and by "understanding" I mean being able to play it
upside-down, inside-out and backwards effortlessly). So, I concur with
Greg. Be prepared to commit. It's something that you practice, not
something that you "think" about when you're playing.)Yes it ALL "fits" on the guitar just fine. Ronny Ben-Hur actually wrote
a book called "Talk Jazz" that works you through all the "rules" with
fingerings for guitar, although you probably ultimately come up with
your own.Barry also teaches some very cool harmonic concepts which revolve around
what he calls the Sixth/Diminished scale. There are major and minor 6th
versions of this scale and it can be used to create harmony as well ans
melodic lines (I wrote some articles on this for Just Jazz Guitar about
10 years ago, you can download them from my website).--
Musically Yours,
Rick Stone
Website:
Recordings:
Videos:
Myspace:
EPK:
Rick, the fingering issues I spoke of refer to the maj and min 6th
diminished as chord scales and borrowing notes in the voicings which
are impossible to do in all closed voicings on guitar and though the
guitar friendly drop 2 and 3 voicings are much more facile when one
tries to borrow more than one voice at a time or start to take complex
voicings through the scales , as always certain compromises will have
to be made compared to piano. I certainly didn't mean to suggest it
was not applicable to our instrument. Quite to the contrary IMO.
BTW Howard Rees did several good articles on some of the harmonic
stuff from a pianistic point of view for Keyboard mag years ago I
think they are still available here. -voicings-part-iGreg
Paul C
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More options Sep 12 2006, 9:17 pmI haven't seen this mentioned here before, so I thought some of you
might like to hear about a new book/cd combination by my fellow
Torontonian and Barry Harris/Howard Rees student, Alan Kingstone. As
I
know Alan personally, I won't pretend to an objective review, but I
will say that any jazz guitarist interested in bebop harmony,
especially as taught and practiced by Barry Harris, will find this to
be an informative, highly useful, and generally quite gentle
introduction to the business of thinking of the music as movement
based
on harmonized 8-note scales; of progressions as interlocking
sequences
of 6th voicings; and of dominants as, well, dominant.
Unlike Roni Ben-Hur's recent book, which emphasizes scales and lines,
Alan's is concerned almost entirely with the harmonic aspects of
Barry
Harris's teaching. While those aspects are beautifully demonstrated
in
the harmony chapters of the two volume workshop video (now dvd)
series
produced by Howard Rees, the emphasis there is mostly although not
exclusively on piano. (Alan is the guitar player on volume 2.) What
Kingstone's new book does very well is translate what are often
intensely pianistic ideas to the guitar in ways that are both
practical
and musical.
The book starts by harmonizing Barry's four main 8-note scales (major
6
diminished, minor 6 diminished, 7 diminished, and 7b5 diminished),
supplying drop voicings (and partial voicings) in all inversions.
These are shown in standard notation and fingering charts ("boxes").
Alan then moves on to the role of the diminished chord in Barry's
harmony, Barry's ideas about related dominants and how they can
substitute for one another, voicings that use "borrowed" notes, and
the
use of all this in movement through commonly-encountered
progressions.
The book ends with a chapter on scale practice, a detailed analysis
of
an exemplary arrangement of a standard (Like Someone in Love) using
many of the "moves" described in earlier chapters, and an appendix
that
systematically sets out a wide range of voicings playable on guitar.
Alan Kingstone's "The Barry Harris Harmonic Method for Guitar" is
published by Howard Rees's Jazz Workshop Productions and available
from
his website (www.jazzworkshops.com), from Aebersold, and probably
from
lots of other places too.
Yeah, I've seen Alan's book too. A lot of the charts and diagrams in it
pretty much look like the stuff in my notebook from the 80s, which make
sense since we were most certainly both trying to put Barry's stuff into
guitar terms for my own understanding. The Chord Construction Workshop
articles I wrote for JJG in 1999 & 2000 came out of that thinking as
well (also from a Pat Martino article from 1977 in Guitar Player, Mel
Bay's Rhythm Guitar Method, and Berklee Arranging classes). They're all
available as pdf downloads on my website (go to the "Lessons" page and
scroll down).
Though not half the player Rick Stone is I do consider myself lucky to
have studied with Barry Harris since 1987. I don't offer my book for
free though I've been told by guitarists and some pianists that it has
helped them grasp Barry's concepts.
I caught a glimpse of Ricks work in a magazine years ago and thought
'hey this looks like my stuff'.
I've been with Howard Rees, since 86 who introduced me to Barry in 87
and I've been wrestling with this great stuff since then. I took part
in a workshop with Howard this evening with some wonderful Toronto
musicians and we utilized Barry's thing of 3 or 5 or 7 ordered scale
tones through a tune. It actually made me play melodically for change.
Barry is in town Wednesday rehearsing a yearly outreach project and we
get to take a special harmony class with him.
My book differs from the Ben Hur work as it is specifically Barry's
harmonic method. The method is about improvising harmony as 'movement'
as opposed to static chords.If you're in the Toronto area check out Howard's workshops. If you're
in New York, go to Barry's classes.My book can be found here. -productions/the-barry-harris-harmonic-method-for-guitarThanks
Alan
HI Rick,I've been using both the bebop scales and the maj 6/diminished harmony
principles for at least 30 years, but I never put together that they
were the two sides of the same same thing until I saw your articles.
Thank!Clay
Reading various musical biographies it appears that Dr. Harris has had a
profound effect on jazz music and that quite a bit of what is considered
modern in jazz finds its origins with him.--
That'll put marzipan in your pie plate, Bingo.