Barry Harris “Diminished Genealogy”
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- čas přidán 12. 01. 2020
- How you can get to every chord and what came from where.
Here’s my take on how Barry Harris describes the origins of different chords and how they relate to each other. What the idea of “the diminished family“ means, and how that in turn brought about the six-diminished scale, as well as all the others.
It’s a very elegant and fresh view of tonality which completely liberated my thinking on improvisation.
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If you found this content useful, and would like to support more of it, please consider chipping in on my Patreon page where you will have access to transcriptions and more: / isaacraz
Below are links to other videos that touch up on this subject matter, since everything is connected!
Modulation with diminished
• Your Questions Answere...
“Short and long“ voicings
• Barry Harris short and...
“ Up a fifth, down a fifth“:
• “Up a fifth Down a fif...
My 10 chord routine:
• My 10 chord Barry Harr...
Barry Harris sixth-chord rules:
• Barry Harris 6th chord...
Isaac your explanation about BH's diminished genealogy makes me remember when most of jazz/classical students in early twenties (including myself) would start playing "modal jazz" and then would go preaching "tonal jazz/music is too limited, modal is the way". Took me years to understand how little we knew about the tonal system. Most of the so called "modal jazz" tunes were actually purely tonal using diminished movements and it's relations to other key centers. Of course the musicians behind them knew it was tonal 'cause they had a much stronger foundation in harmony and voice leading concepts, but music education somehow twisted it and were preventing us from a deeper comprehension of the tonal system, especially trying to create shortcuts, including the misuse and poor teaching of "greek" modes. As for "true" western modal music, the concept of tension and release, notes hierarchy, dissonance and consonance is entirely different, another world which eventually gave birth to the tonal world. For some modal sound introduction, I'd listen to Guillaume du Machaut (1300)and Orlando Di Lassus (1500) (PS: It is hard to listen to it with our "tonal" ears and try not to listen to stack thirds as chords, since at that time thirds were considered dissonances and 4ths and 5ths were actually consonances)
Yes it definitely evolves and returns. Debussy was a master of tonality but found new ways of expressing it. What’s new is old and what’s old is new!
This is groundbreaking actually, it's a whole other way to look at music theory, it has huge implications.
Yeah well there’s BH for ya. A free thinker for sure. That intellect coupled with his generosity to teach to all comers makes him a unique phenomenon indeed!
Isaac Raz 💪 Thanx for sharing these Isaac. My first and only jazz piano teacher mentioned Barry during the few lessons i took back in the days, but it was a bit overwhelming at that time, i did not follow very well 😆 also there was no BH related videos on YT at this time. Now i think i’m ready to absorb this powerfull knowledge and your videos are very helpfull - well explained and easy to follow.
Good lesson, thank you so much. This will keep me going for a long time.
great! I can't wait to see the practical applications of this system, keep it up!
Stay tuned. I’ve been getting many requests for applications-
we have to learn this 20 years maybe !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great job! Barry was a genius and your concise description is gold.
Isaac this was mind-blowing. Thank you for making these Barry Harris videos.
It’s the most elegant explanation and the most far reaching that I’ve seen. Barry is truly a genius
This video has convinced me to join your Patreon!!!! Looking forward to the applications of the diminished family and relatives. Thanks!!!!
Last year, I had found the Jazz Academy video with Barry explaining this concept and it opened my mind up to the power of diminished 7th chords, I still don’t have a complete understanding yet, but this video was the one I’ve been looking for on Barry’s music theory. Thank you so much for posting this, I’m certain you’ve made Barry very proud with your understanding and execution of this awesome technique! 🙌🙌🙌
Lol. I just found this today. 😅😅😅 So this’ll be this year’s reflection and application for me.
Thanks for the very kind words! I've always been in awe of the elegance of BH's thinking. It's so logical and simple. I'm so glad you found it to be so as well!
Thank you Isaac (and Barry!).
Man I've been eating up your stuff today. I really appreciate what you've done. I watched a lot of the Barry Harris vids and you are clearing it up so much. Lots of knew ideas of stuff to work on
thanks for that awesome feedback Ethan, looking forward to more
It's nice that barry harris' word is spread! I am really enjoying your videos because for some of his stuff I'm way too slow in the original videos. Thanks
Thanks! Yes he can be difficult to follow sometimes and you have to “keep coming” I’m trying to clarify to the vest of my ability
Thank you very much for sharing this. I have recently become interested in the ideas of Barry Harris and then I stumbled over your channel. You explain things very well.
Really appreciate the feedback!
This is so interesting, thank you!
Great ✨Thanks very much for the sharing and your pedagogy. I love Barry Harris ...he understood the music from deep understanding from the Universe and explain it like this ...music is sacred ...wonderful 💚✨✨✨
Thank you Isaack!
Thank you so much for this wholesome summary :) I am only left wondering where the augmented chords fit in? Did Barry ever talk about them, or are they just a type of voicing taken from the 6th-diminisehd scale (e.g. C E Ab B)?
Fantastic 🎵
Great video!
Wow. Thank you.
Hi there ! I noticed in one of your video’s u had a warm up routine including the 10 chord routine among other things . I am actually a guitarist watching ur great videos and they are very inspiring from this end too ! Id love to see your routine if it includes single note stuff as well :) thanks and happy new ur from Australia
Thanks so much for the vdo. Fantastic......
Thank you!
You're welcome!
Very nice, we can see you in some of BH videos some years back :))
Your explanations are great! Often I can't understand English videos - but I understand yours here. Also for the most part the content. However, I have a hard time keeping more of it in my head. What is the best way to start practicing this in the smallest possible step? So to build it into my piece of music? If I want to use these chord changes, don't I have to know exactly where I want to go beforehand, i.e. the target harmony? Thank you for your videos and your great work!
BH got the pathway to magic!
Amen
thank you so muchhhh
Thank you so much, this concept took me a couple years to wrap my head around but now I finally understand it. Took many periods of time where I just failed to comprehend and forgot about it for a while, but I guess that's part of the process. Very fascinating stuff, thank you for the great videos and the effort. Keep it up!
Thank you for that awesome feedback! Yes a lot of these things take a while to sink in but in the end we realize that at their core they are quite simple I completely identify with that!
dude this is so amazing. Serious... just holy shit thank you
Thanks. That’s how I felt too!
Hi,could we talk about harmonic Major (cdefg a-flat b) and his modes? :)
Modal progressions for example,improvisations,phrasing etc motive development.
that's basically a c6-diminished with the a missing... very easy to apply!
Thanks Issac!! So how do you apply this concept to tunes? Thanks!
Stay tuned - I will probably do a vid for each application with examples. Thanks for the question
2:51 the car horn outside plays the G in the diminished chord just before he plays it 😂😂😂
Hi Isaac. Thank you so much for your videos. They are so helpful for those of use who are trying to deepen our understanding of Barry's teachings. I have a question about the genealogy: if I'm not mistaken the Barry's genealogy accounts for 20 different chords. Arrived at, or course, by raising and lowering combinations of 1 or 2 notes of the diminished. I tried raising and lowering 3 notes of the diminished and found 8 more chords! 4 dominants and 4 minor 6th's! Can this be right? Or does the changing of 3 notes somehow alter the "chemistry" of the diminished? I would love to know your thoughts. Thanks very much!
I found that too - if you move three it’s just like moving one. Only you end up in a different key. If that makes sense.
You're totally right! What it does show is how chords can shift and overlap into other territories. This is the point that Barry so brilliantly explores. Thanks again for the reply!
Want to have some fun? Take any sus2 chord and find each note is in one of the three diminished tone sets.
Same difference, I simplify this to (poor mans music theory) the I = C dom/dim scale IV (ii) = F (Cb) dom/dim scale V = G (C#) dom/dim note scale -- 1/2 down = IV 1/2 up = V whole step up = IV whole step down = V --- I imagine a moveable diminished grid underneath the melody i'm playing. even if the note isn't played it's still heard because of the underlying grid. also I add (borrow) the b5 a lot with melodic/harmonic minor a lot making the (I ) diminished.. and interchange the b9 and #9 with the nat 9 changing (barowing) dim to melodic, most of the time don't know what i'm doing theoritically... agree Barry is a genus, thank you so much Barry.
Cool application! I’ll have to play around with that. Thanks!
That was very cool. You missed 4 of the minor sixths. There always has to be 8 of whatever your doing. Moving down one chord is the same as moving up 3. That is, you can get 4 minor sixth chords by moving one note of the diminished down a semitone or by moving the other three up a semitone. The same applies to dominant sevenths. You get four by moving any note of the dim chord down a semitone or you can also move the other three tones of dim chord up a semi tone to get the other four dominant chords.
There always has to be 8 because the remaining 4 are attached to the diminished chord you’re not using, the one you use to pass through, as you explained at the end. Just as there are 8 pairs of Maj 6 chords, by moving consecutive pairs of notes either up or down, so there are 8 pairs of Min 6 chords by either moving one note down, or three notes up. 1 and 3 make 4, just like 2 and 2 do. It always has to add to 4, because there are 4 notes in the dim chord.
At any rate, very cool stuff! You did a good job, and gave lots of ideas to think about.
Hey. Cool stuff. Can you talk about the Dom7flat5 chords and their uses? Unlike the other chords that you mentions, there are no Dom7Flat5 chords that are entirely diatonic to any Diminished 7 scale.
Thanks for this great question I will ponder it and probably make a vid on it. Stay tuned!
I had an observation that may be helpful. For example when you’re in an A Dom chord 1st inversion if you take the A up a half step and the G down a half step you end up with an F# Dom chord. Then if you take the F# up a half step and the E down a half step you arrive at an Eb Dom Chord. Then if you take the Eb up the half step and the Db down a half step you arrive at the C Dom chord. The root of those chords together form a C Dim chord. The very family of Dom chords that play well together.
Yes that’s very cool. Of course the implications of “symmetrical diminished” theory are far and wide. My only goal was to show the way Barry teaches it in class which I thought was a very elegant and useful way to describe the origins of this type of tonality. It’s a personal and fresh approach that is geared towards useful application.
@@isaacraz the only reason I pointed that out is because I’m proud of the fact that I had noticed it on my own. I’ve been wanting to follow a Barry Harris approach to my piano for sometime now but wasn’t finding a source that showed me how to get there. Your generosity of sharing your knowledge has given me the source I’ve been looking for. Thank you. Barry is truly a magician in an ancient sense of the word.
Oh my gosh, I know exactly what you mean. I go down these rabbit holes and thought experiments all the time and I keep seeing all kinds of symmetry. I guess what I meant to convey is that I sometimes have to stop myself and say just try to think of it his way in the interest of gaining some fluency and then indulge my theoretical flights of fancy as a separate endeavor. I am so bowled over by the fact that you wanted to share your insight and I’m so happy to have an opportunity to discuss it with you. I think the whole point of Barry‘s teaching, is for us to carry the word and keep it going.
I knew you were the real deal when you called it Eb6 and not cm7. Everybody else teaching Barry theory calls it cm7 then mentions that Barry never calls it that.. But from a pedagogy perspective I see so much more connection when you completely abandon the min7 terminology. It is so central to his theory!
Also the visual symmetry of the Gb 6dim scale (symmetry from the D in contrary motion) really helped me appreciate the overall symmetry of the 6dim scale
Barry is without a doubt the best teacher I have ever had, and I’ve had a few He lays things out so logically which then prompts you to explore it and make your own connections. That’s the only way to really get get some fluency with the language.
Isaac Raz reminds me of an interview with Bill Evans where he talks about only revealing part of something to a student and letting them discover the rest of it on their own. Really gives you a sense of ownership of the knowledge. Can’t thank you enough for bringing Barry’s teaching to us who will never get to see him in person.
This might require too long of an answer, but why does it make more sense to think of it as Eb6?
@@UberTurtle12 because all the harmonic relationships and movements happen to Eb6 and not cm7. It “configures” that chord so it fits properly into the rest of Barry’s diminished system and you can permute and move it like all the other tonalities
Please make more tutorial about jazz Bebop Piano..thanks
Very earnest video.
I followed up to the dominant and minor 6th chords coming out of the diminished, then I had a brain meltdown at moving two diminished chord tones and all the implications which follow and I think I'll be coming back to this video in the next years 🤣
LOL yes take one at a time... I'll follow up with applications of each step in this process, I just wanted to have an "overview" video which I kept promising to do on the previous... Enjoy
I watch the same videos every few weeks and still learn so much. I catch a new facet of theory every time! That Conor guy teaches a lot of great theory too, not very slick video production but he clearly knows how to apply it given his playing. You can hear it in people who really understand it like Isaac, their playing is so much more smooth and fluid than others
Thank you I’ve been trying to understand his concept a now. So tri-tones are chromosomes. Haha Very Cool 😎 explanation. Got it! I’ll never forget that.
I'm tryng to mend the pieces of my blown mind
Still working on that one myself!
The know-it-all car at 2:50 guessing it's half-diminished
… Which is a -6 in the third inversion or as BH called it “-6 with the 6 in the bass”
Now but the dom b5 is the kind of exception since you started out with the two whole tone scales
The dominant flat five is from both worlds. It works in a diminished framework by moving two non consecutive notes which then yields four notes that also fit squarely into one of the two whole tone groups
@@isaacraz Yes so its kind of like going back to one of the parents instead of both
I wonder how we can apply Lysenkoist knowledge to this now that we know the Mendelian gene isn't a real thing
For someone reason, his face reminds me of the father from the movie Coraline. Other than that, this was an interesting video.
maybe a skinnier version but I see it.
Man..I think this is after kind of clicking with me..
yeah!!!! but put it in playing this system is very difficult !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!