Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Things I've Learned From Barry Harris Episode 1 Scales on the Blues

Barry Harris is a respected music educator, particularly in the realm of bebop jazz.  While reading discussions on the Internet about his workshops, I stumbled upon a video series called Things I've Learned From Barry Harris, recorded by a student of Harris' weekly class.  This is the first episode:



The instruction on the video is quite clear and well demonstrated.  But for my own study I decided to write down the scales for the 12-bar blues scale exercise, so that I can just refer back to this page, instead of having to rewind the video a bunch of times or look at the comment by one Youtube viewer - he got a couple of scales wrong by the way.  So here are the scales for 12-bar blues in the key of C, listed in groups of 4 (a total of 12 bar) for easier reading:

C7 up
F7 up
C7 up
C7 down

F7 up
F7 down
CMaj7 up
CMaj7 down to 3rd of A (C#)

G7 up
G7 down
CMaj7 up
G7 up

Pitches of each scale:

C7 = C D E F G A Bb
F7 = F G A Bb C D Eb
CMaj7 = C D E F G A B ascending, A G F E D C# descending
G7  = G A B C D E Fb

While the exercise is good for practicing picking technique, the main emphasis is to drill the sounds of the blues changes into one's head, in relation to rhythm.  I believe that is why the scales are named in relation to chords. Note also that the scales are never played tonic to tonic.

Note that the metronome click is on the 2 and 4.  So in a 4/4 bar, the metronome is silent on beats 1 and 3, and is clicking on 2 and 4, just like a snare in a basic drum beat.

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