The Secret to Soloing EP 117 TILF Barry Harris

Available for Skype lessons
Collings I35 Deluxe

[LokeyeMC]

Phases of the Secret =)

1. Learn a standard in a few keys
2. Learn to connect the movements "from this chord to this chord" (Coleman Hawkins is big on this)
3. Learn how to conjure emotions over movements. For example, Gmaj to D7 can be moved through in a way that sounds happy, or sad, or more complex emotions like mysterious or flirting, and so on. (Charles McPherson is big on this). Telling an emotional journey is the start of communicating something meaningful as opposed to merely outlining the progression.

[nickknirk]

“Know all the movements in the songs you’re learning. And be able to play a lot of things over them.” Love it

[KennethGonzalez]

Great examples, Chris! An important part of what you illustrate with this is that it's about *songs*, not just abstract chord movements. Keeping a focus on songs enables us to focus on music, not technique or theory before we can get to the music. At least, that's my opinion ;-)

[malkasianmuses]

TILF fanboy and patreon here!!! Thank you for all you do!

[MrXeberdee]

My old teacher used to say 'Play over the cracks', and I think about 'the cracks' the other way round, so I think of everything as moving from dissonance to assonance. G if that's the assonant harmony, and a functional chord is always a dissonant approach. So in G that's say a functional dominant D7 to G, or B7 to Em, or Ab7 to G, Db7 to Cmaj7, E7 to Am, Bb7 to Am, F#7 to Bm, Eb7 to Am etc. etc.. Even though Am might be an assonant idea, you could also make it a dissonant one in some way - like Am7b5 to G (Cm6 to G), or when G becomes G7 (inversely D7 becomes Dm :)). This is usually pointing at some other temporary key center. After all - a song starting in G more often than not includes an intro that has a dominant function to lead us in (the lead in). So I would think phrasing wise, for something like Gmaj7 to Bb7 as described here (Giant steps) the natural phrasing should move first from (eg. D7) to Gmaj7, and then another phrase 'playing over the crack' between Bb7 and Eb maj7. I think if you consider dissonance as the first thing that needs to be resolved (play over the crack), then there are suddenly lots of dissonant possibilities that all move to some 'home' sounding assonant tonality that is more aligned with the harmonic series - so chaos moves to order.

Also think about it this way. Take a standard like 'I love you' Cole porter. It's a love song right? So the strong beat is on 'love' and not 'I', which is a lead in. Otherwise, the song would be egoistical and about 'I' - 'When I love you' where I would land on the strong beat. In the same way I think the strong harmony should 'land' assonant, but the dissonance has functionally necessary to lead you there phrasing wise. The other way round, of thinking and phrasing from G to Bb7 is kind of going against the grain in my book.

[jkaznosky]

About to start on all of this TILF-y stuff on lap steel. This is a good example of how it all works.

[CWBella]

BTW, your conversational style is perfect for conveying all this info.

[theblarneystone]

This is the kind of content no one wants to tell you about. Best lesson on soloing I’ve ever seen. One thing that helps me connect to Dominant Chords is thinking about the root triad thing f the dominant, the important minor on the fifth of the dominant, and the important major on the minor seven of the Dominant chord. Suddenly you have a lot of note options that are bound to be very close to a note already in your G major seven cord in this example. That being said all of this is still very much a work in progress for me.

[rzbach]

I love this. It’s a much better way to structure my practice.

[CVGuitar]

I've been working on all the ideas from your many videos for the last year or so and I just want to say that my playing has improved well beyond what I could have hoped for -- thanks for this channel dude!!!

[robflores]

You really are the man. I can’t wait to get back on lessons with ya. The new job is a big adjustment for me! Sorry for the wait!

[aadityakiran_s]

You've learnt a lot of stuff from Barry Harris huh? haha... thanks for the great service.

[BenKolloch]

Wonderful! I was just trying this the other day! 😀

[jamesemerson]

Another fantastic lesson. Thank you so much

[TheRealSandleford]

soopa cool. I believe what you think about bird because you really sound like him to me. Of course, thank you!

[mwicks]

Is this the actual definition of “Movement” then?
Moving from a Root Major chord to a Dominant Chord, and the Dominant chord can be on any of the 12 degrees of the chromatic scale?

[ecaepevolhturt]

You know the Gmaj7 to Fdom7. It makes me think of "Christmas Time is Here" (Fmaj7 to Ebdom7). I think of it, as playing F major scale into an altered dominant scale. Howeer my bebop skills are seriously lacking so I've got not chromaticism going on.

[freddymclain]

Have you played an Eastman T-186? (all solid woods, carved maple top, solid mahogany back and sides, an ebony board, etc. and for thousands less!)

[tioliak]

Hi Chris. This is a great lesson! Do you have this exact same lesson but in the key of C?

[neverdiminished]

When you have time could you do a video of why there is a m7b5 scale? I thought one of the things about Barry’s system was that you could think of m7b5 as an inversion of a m6. I’m a long way from being good enough to use it, but still keen to understand what this is adding.