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Instead, I "pretended" the melody note was a B and wrote the corresponding drop-2 E7 voicing that would've gone with that now, altering the B to C creates a E7♭13 sound. But, on beat 4, we have the note C on a downbeat, which won't sound nice with the F7. Notice that in the second (full) bar, I have used the E7-F7 chord pair as described above for the first three beats. Blue denotes regular block chord voicings, olive is drop-2 block chords, and red is for "something else."
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Here, I embellished the melody of "On the Sunny Side of the Street" and harmonized it using (mostly) block chords. Then the two block chords are E7 and F7, where the latter could be analyzed as subV/V in A minor. Drawing on the A harmonic minor scale, I would modify the E7 mixolydian bebop scale's F♯ to an F and C♯ to C (implying E7♭9♭13). But a more perceptive arranger recognizes the E7 as V/vi in C major, and thus will choose a harmonization that sits better with local A minor context. Naively, you might choose the E7 mixolydian bebop scale to harmonize this, alternating between E7 and D♯ø7 voicings. We often teach beginners to look at the corresponding bebop scales instead, but I think that secondary dominants are generally what's going on "under the hood."įor example, in C major you might have an E7 chord (as in "On the Sunny Side of the Street"). When the harmony gets further away from the tonic, a good approach to writing block voicings is to try to pick a secondary dominant–type chord to alternate with the target chord. In the G7 example above, the passing chord is F♯ø7, which can be analyzed in C major as a secondary dominant: viiø7/V, or simply V9/V if we view F♯ø7 as a D9 with its root omitted. I would say that when you use Barry Harris voicings (also called "block voicings"), you are essentially tonicizing whichever chord you are on at the moment.
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Relationship between block voicings and functional harmony The specific chord voicings chosen will depend on the context, with the goal of having a ii7 sound on the downbeats and a passing chord on the upbeats. If the ii chord is held for a long time, you can also form a "dorian bebop scale" by adding a ♭6 or major 7. (Occasionally, one note can be swapped around in order to create smooth voice leading changing the E here to a E♭ to form F♯☇ is a natural choice.) The two chord shapes outlined are G7 and F♯ø7, and a well-constructed melody usually again has G, B, D, and F on downbeats, so the F♯ø7 acts as a passing chord. In C, that's G A B C D E F F#, adding a major 7. Over ii and V, we generally use the mixolydian bebop scale. This principle of alternating between the main chord and passing chords is central to Barry Harris's harmonic concept, and also used widely in big band arranging. This is because the stable scale degrees (1, 3, 5, and 6) tend to sit on the downbeats, so we'll hear the sound of the I chord on the downbeats and a passing chord, vii☇, on the upbeats. Over the I chord, the voicings come from the major bebop scale and alternate between the major I6 and vii☇ chords. This of course vanished when we re-harmonize.Ī different set of voicings, derived from the appropriate bebop scale, is used for each chord. Harmonizing a Major scale in triads is what gives our characteristic chords (our ii-dorian, iii-phrygian, IV-lydian, V-Mixolydian, etc). What are typical ways of applying Barry Harris voicings (as described here) to jazz standards?ĮDIT: While writing this I came to the conclusion that the biggest challenge for me is to make coherence between the Barry Harris voicings and functional harmony. Even the thought of applying this to a 2-5-1 makes little sense to me.
#The barry harris harmonic method for guitar audio examples how to#
However I don't really know how to use this theory and apply it to functional harmony chord changes in jazz standards. This on its own creates beautiful sounds, and its fun to play around it in a "modal" setting. Same can be constructed for minor, and dominant scales. So every note belongs either to (C,E,G,A), or (D,F,A♭,B).
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We harmonize each note using only the I-Maj6 or the vii-diminished chords (which is the rootless V7♭9). In essence, these are harmonizations of the bebop scale using the I and V7b9 (vii dim7) chords. The Barry Harris diminished 6th voicings are popular voicings in Jazz, often related to Bill Evans when using drop 2 's.
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