Churchy Sound - Gospel Harmony

[MathOfInsects]

Barry's central point that any DIM chords become a 7 with 1/2 down on any of the four tones is a wonderfull way to realise chord relationships. Going up 1/2 step on any single note provides a minor 7. One DIM spawns 8 chords with a one finger half-step movement! That is such a wonderful unified concept utterly devoid of Greek nomenclature

 

I completely follow the Dom7, but don't think I follow the m7s. Can you give an example?

[jazzpiano88]

Barry's central point that any DIM chords become a 7 with 1/2 down on any of the four tones is a wonderfull way to realise chord relationships. Going up 1/2 step on any single note provides a minor 7. One DIM spawns 8 chords with a one finger half-step movement! That is such a wonderful unified concept utterly devoid of Greek nomenclature

 

I completely follow the Dom7, but don't think I follow the m7s. Can you give an example?

It's minor 6.

 

Cdim7 -> raise the A to Bb = Ebm6

[MathOfInsects]

Barry's central point that any DIM chords become a 7 with 1/2 down on any of the four tones is a wonderfull way to realise chord relationships. Going up 1/2 step on any single note provides a minor 7. One DIM spawns 8 chords with a one finger half-step movement! That is such a wonderful unified concept utterly devoid of Greek nomenclature

 

I completely follow the Dom7, but don't think I follow the m7s. Can you give an example?

It's minor 6.

 

Cdim7 -> raise the A to Bb = Ebm6

Yup, that does it. Thanks.

[uhoh7]

Barry's central point that any DIM chords become a 7 with 1/2 down on any of the four tones is a wonderfull way to realise chord relationships. Going up 1/2 step on any single note provides a minor 7. One DIM spawns 8 chords with a one finger half-step movement! That is such a wonderful unified concept utterly devoid of Greek nomenclature

 

I completely follow the Dom7, but don't think I follow the m7s. Can you give an example?

It's minor 6.

 

Cdim7 -> raise the A to Bb = Ebm6

 

Yes, Sorry Thank you!! I knew I had something wrong there. I'll make a note on the original post. Minor 6, even better. I was having a 60's flashback seeing the minor 7...but thinking wait.....isn't there a 6 chord in this "relationship". Obviously the 6 chords are a huge deal in this way of looking at harmony, i.e the major 6th Dim scale (added #5) which when harmonised with four notes gives you 6 chords in the tonic, third, 5th and 6th, and the 2dim in all the rest. (I need to test the minor 6 dim scale).

 

Why that relationship matters (again not news for many here, but I'm just learning to use the idea)

Play G7. Raise the Root 1/2 step what do you have? Ddim7. Raise same finger one more half step, what do you have? Dm6. So if you have a progression I ii6 V7, the V7 scale is all you need. It covers all three chords. In your "2 5 one", and if you want "true ii7" you raise the 6th 1/2, and you are still in the V7 scale.

 

Then the question becomes "Oh thats going to sound pretty simple......." And this leads to another of the very few "key concepts" in Barry's teaching: Added note rules. These basically came straight from Charlie Parker.

"In Bebop, it's important to resolve your lines to chord tones (1, 3, 5, or 7) on the beat. When you play a normal 7 note scale, that doesn't work out. Barry teaches these rules for adding extra chromatic tones to your lines in order to make them work out rhythmically."

Barry Harris BeBop lines

 

There are 4 rules. Might sound like alot except you never have to learn any modes....LOL

The context here is descending lines.

Dominant 7th rule number 1) If your line starts on a chord tone, add 1 half step between 1 and b7 [total of 1]

Dominant 7th rule number 2) If your line starts on 3, 5, or b7, you can add half steps between 3 and 2, 2 and 1, and 1 and b7 [total of 3]

Dominant 7 rule number 3) if your line starts on 2, 4, or 6, no half steps are required [total of zero]

Dominant 7th rule number 4) if your line starts on 2, 4, or 6, you can add half steps between 2 and 1, and 1 and b7 [total of 2]

Note: On Major 7 chords, the rules are all the same, except the half step between 1 and b7 is moved to be between 6 and 5

 

From "Barry Harris BeBop lines" This method was perfected as a way to get "real" people improvising as fast as possible. Barry's bread and butter in NYC was taking people of the street and making them perform respectably on stage. Just like Bach. Barry loves Bach. You got a organ and an unruly bunch of regular folks who are in the choir. Like Mattie Clark:

 

[video:youtube]

Above: rare footage of her on organ, which is where she lived in practice to acomplish this:

[video:youtube]

Barry grew up in the churches of Detroit.

Clark was, in truth, one of the most influential muscians of the 20th century. The Grandma of all the great gospel muscians today. What I love about gospel, unlike blues or boogie woogie it's not a niche re-enactment, however true. It's a real live living, growing tradition, unbounded by many of the normal constraints of commercial music.

Here is where she got into huge trouble with elder men of her church:

[video:youtube]

Why do so many Cogic churches maintain a real B3 in 2021? Mattie Moss Clark and her daughters. Mattie is on stage and Twinkie is playing organ here, 1983 Grammys.

 

Both my parents were from the LA area, my dad born in 1911. I was taught as child to be wary of "Holy Rollers". "Pentecostalism is a form of Christianity that emphasises the work of the Holy Spirit and the direct experience of the presence of God by the believer". This genre started in LA in 1906 by William Seymour, the one-eyed gentle black evangelist. The concept of "possession" by a holy spirit is fundamental in a lot of african music, and of course in the Cuban black traditions as well. The same idea is anathema to my English protestant ancestors. LOL. 60's rock and roll, to me, often has this revival flavor. You can take it back to "the great awakening" in the early 1800s

 

It was the mostly white protestants who founded the academic Jazz programs and brought modes into their tests. Masters of the buzz kill Yes, George Russell had started thinking about modes, after a long stint in a tuberculosis ward with some well studied experts in western Harmony. This never made it to any grass roots players, and was often used to mystify jazz critics as an inside players joke. Too too good OMG. But Jazz was long dead as a grass roots music by then anyway. "No Dancing" sings did not help in some of the late 40's bebop scenes. I'm not sure how much dancing there was in the after hours jams which spawned BeBop.

 

Now, Louie Jordan really did bridge the whole thing right into the 60s. Playing dance music.

[AROIOS]

Thanks for sharing these tips, uhoh7.

 

My experience with computers prompted me to start looking at chords as combinations of intervals a few years ago, that exercise opened up a lot of new possibilities to reharmonization. It is also very much in line with the wisdom you shared.

[AROIOS]

Speaking of the m6 chord, I just dug up my notes from 2017 and here's what I jotted down:

 

" Im6; II11b9; IV9; VIm7b5; VII7#5, they all share the same upper structure"

 

This relationship among the minor(m6), dominant(the 7s and 9s), and half-dim(m7b5) chords offers a lot of flexibility when we (re)harmonize.

[Threadslayer]

 

 

It was the mostly white protestants who founded the academic Jazz programs and brought modes into their tests. Masters of the buzz kill

Love this

One of my pet peeves is the tendency of white people to over intellectualize, codify, and impose structure on black and other heartfelt music to the point of missing the point.

[uhoh7]

Speaking of the m6 chord, I just dug up my notes from 2017 and here's what I jotted down:

 

" Im6; II11b9; IV9; VIm7b5; VII7#5, they all share the same upper structure"

 

This relationship among the minor(m6), dominant(the 7s and 9s), and half-dim(m7b5) chords offers a lot of flexibility when we (re)harmonize.

 

Nice!! As I tried to move forward from playing scores what I found was piecemeal instruction, from well meaning teachers. In this case, do this. The cases are endless. Unless you are playing constantly they are hard to remember. In the original scores are many pointers to Barry's teaching not apparent in lead sheets. You might see "C9", but other notes outside C9 chord tones and the tonic scale are on the score. Dims and 6 chords are all over the place. We know there are multiple ways to notate a chord. Modes have become so dominant in theory I suspect it has effected the notation in real books.

 

In a certain sense Barry's teaching leads an alternate path to the now revered Bill Evans method of left hand block chords sans tonic (used by bass player) and solos in the right. Don't get me wrong, I do love the soothing harmonies of Bill Evans, but he is essentially outside tradition. He's the Indo-European at the shout LOL. I'm overlooking the influence of Jewish folk Song in Tin Pan Alley...simply from ignorance, but it also has to be huge. Semetic refugees from Eastern Europe meet African Americans: this is the story of Jazz. Benny Goodman and Irving Berlin being very obvious examples. All others, like Crosby, Miller, and Evans are converts To whom a Wasp like me can certainly relate LOL. To the original "Americans", we are all "Settler Colonialists", not an inaccurate view..in fact probably too nice.

 

Contrast those Evans style hands with any working organ player in the COGIC church. The hands are far more equal and the result is a gorgeous presentation of worship songs which are super simple on the page...no Gershwin chord progressions, yet are profoundly rich to the ear. Academia is befuddled by Cory Henry.

 

The real players learn this by watching each other, and in general they cannot explain it. Ski Racers are often terrible ski instructors.

 

But Barry Harris get this going from the start with his strong emphasis on Drop two voicing. Kay is talking about exactly this in many videos, and I copy his contrast of Evans with Barry Harris and other players. Basically you start by moving up and down the 6dim scales and drop one of the four notes in the right hand and add to the left, spreading the chord between both hands. This gets rid of the mud in block chords, which are often only tolerable as staccato.

 

This at least is my current understanding. Now I practice

 

[video:youtube]

 

Can you tell Barry Harris lived with Thelonius Monk?

[MathOfInsects]

Benny Goodman was born in Chicago. George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn. "Semetic refugees"? From where? Three buildings down?

 

No one is "befuddled" by Cory Henry. Most of those in "Academia" are musicians first. Pretending that what he does is somehow beyond the conception of "Academia" is loaded with a ton of preconceptionist freight.

 

There is an unappealing amount of essentialization in this thread, and I personally wouldn't mind if it disappeared now. It has run its course.

[uhoh7]

Benny Goodman was born in Chicago. George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn. "Semetic refugees"? From where? Three buildings down?

 

No one is "befuddled" by Cory Henry. Most of those in "Academia" are musicians first. Pretending that what he does is somehow beyond the conception of "Academia" is loaded with a ton of preconceptionist freight.

 

There is an unappealing amount of essentialization in this thread, and I personally wouldn't mind if it disappeared now. It has run its course.

 

I'm sorry you take offense, none intended.

 

"Goodman was the ninth of twelve children born to poor Jewish emigrants from the Russian Empire."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_Goodman#Early_years

 

"Gershwin was of Ukrainian-Jewish ancestry.[4] His grandfather, Jakov Gershowitz, was born in Odessa and had served for 25 years as a mechanic for the Imperial Russian Army to earn the right of free travel and residence as a Jew"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gershwin#Ancestors

 

It's impossible to seriously discuss music tradition without reference to ethnic folk music. I celebrate all these traditions, however they are distinct, and our ears are the richer for it.

 

Most of those in "Academia" are musicians first....

 

Of course they are, it's the only way to survive as a musician for many. Obviously there are great teachers and not so great ones. But let's not think a PHD means a person knows what they are talking about. Recent advances in ancient DNA have proven entire genres of American PHDs to have been mistaken. I contend "modes" are an artificial insertion of western music theory into Jazz, to the detriment of learning to play it, with some exceptions of very modern Jazz...maybe. I am not alone in that contention.

 

One defacto role of American academia is professional gatekeeping. Such power should be scrutinized, in my view, especially in regards to subjects like music, lest selection for particular views become an end in itself.

 

It's very easy to opt out of any discussion without attacking the conversation. I am certainly open to correction, I welcome it. Considerate debate is a healthy thing, if scary at times The reward is a bigger view.

[ProfD]

There is an unappealing amount of essentialization in this thread, and I personally wouldn't mind if it disappeared now. It has run its course.

Yeah mayne. While I'm not surprised by it, this thread has taken a few detours. I believe they call it jumping the shark.

[uhoh7]

So here is another Barry Harris lover making some interesting videos with his iphone. He doesn't really explain who he is, so I looked him up.

 

"Isaac Raz holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Jazz Composition and Music Synthesis from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, and is a recipient of the Duke Ellington Award. He received his Master of Arts in Teaching degree in Music Education from Lehman College, Bronx, NY, and is a recipient of the Joseph Dellicarri fund award.

 

In 1993 he composed the musical score for the Emmy Award winning documentary film 'Pioneer Women'. In 2000 Isaac worked with jazz record producer Teo Macero, playing keyboards and programming tracks for his 'Impressions of Miles Davis' album featuring Vernon Reid, David Leibman, Lew Soloff, and Lincoln Goinnes. His arranging skills have been utilized on many pop music recordings, including Zomba Record"s gold selling R&B artist Joe. Isaac continues to work as a composer, creating music for film, TV, and educational applications. His Jazz and pop groups have played throughout the US and abroad featuring his own compositions as well as popular music of all styles.

 

In the NY Jazz scene, Isaac is an 8 year veteran of Barry Harris" weekly tuesday workshop and a great proponent of Barry Harris" method"

from this podcast, which has a very clear explanation about 5 mins in of how flawed the approach at Berklee was [for him--and many others say the same] IE Modes are fine to understand harmony for writing. They are terrible to have in your head playing:

https://nikhilhoganshow.libsyn.com/80-isaac-raz

 

I'll post two of his short videos here: First, how he latched on to Barry. It's a few minutes in when the point comes up: "Nobody asked us how we play" Barry says. "They listened and made up their own way to teach it." Isaac by this time was a grad of Berklee in Boston.

[video:youtube]

 

Isaac has quite a few short videos on Barry's ideas, but this one popped up in my feed and I'm going to try it

[video:youtube]

 

I think this was one of his early ones, and there are several more newer ones which are variations on this "My 10 Chord routine with drop 3" etc.

Anyway, I especially like the tones there. I am reminded of Monk, who was very close to Harris, and was watching a old documentary on him. One interesting aspect to me is the stories of his early life. His mom was deeply pentacostal (as is COGIC) and he was real close to her. So you know he went to church. Then as a pretty strong young player maybe 16-17, another Pentacostal lady gets permission to take him on the road with a friend to play acompany her preaching. He returns with much stronger skills. So like Barry, I think there is a real influence from the "Churchy" side early on in Monk's development. I think Isaac, above, has inherited it via Barry....or maybe I should say he has fallen in love with it in a revelatory, and inspiring way....

[video:youtube]

You gotta love Monk's hands. Like Tatum, his real fans were all musicians. One of the most original musical voices of the 20th century, who considered himself a traditionalist.

 

And one last one:

No one is "befuddled" by Cory Henry. Most of those in "Academia" are musicians first. Pretending that what he does is somehow beyond the conception of "Academia" is loaded with a ton of preconceptionist freight.

I'm sure some academics are very aware, but I suspect they are the minority. Here is one who is certainly aware and if you hear him I don't think you can help but learn more about how the "churchy" genre Cory came from is something with many unique aspects not obvious on youtube. Not least how long these folks sing and play, few muscians of any calibre have the stamina for this form. A traditon never constrained by recording time, or showtimes. The lecture really starts about 7:20.

 

[video:youtube]

[AROIOS]

So here is another Barry Harris lover making some interesting videos with his iphone. He doesn't really explain who he is, so I looked him up.

 

"Isaac Raz holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Jazz Composition and Music Synthesis from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, and is a recipient of the Duke Ellington Award. He received his Master of Arts in Teaching degree in Music Education from Lehman College, Bronx, NY, and is a recipient of the Joseph Dellicarri fund award.

...

 

Thank you for helping us discover Isaac's videos, uhoh7.

 

The first few bars of the tune he played at the end of the first video immediately reminded me of Francis Lai's Un Homme Et Un Femme. The rest of the tune sounds quite Brazil, like something out of a Tom Jobim songbook.

 

I indulged in the fun of transcribing and playing it. My doodling ended up in a short Bossa Nova piece. Enjoy!

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K5SFXFk3qow8r2Iv8RhWUKldVktDyQOW/view?usp=sharing

[uhoh7]

So here is another Barry Harris lover making some interesting videos with his iphone. He doesn't really explain who he is, so I looked him up.

 

"Isaac Raz holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Jazz Composition and Music Synthesis from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, and is a recipient of the Duke Ellington Award. He received his Master of Arts in Teaching degree in Music Education from Lehman College, Bronx, NY, and is a recipient of the Joseph Dellicarri fund award.

...

 

Thank you for helping us discover Isaac's videos, uhoh7.

 

The first few bars of the tune he played at the end of the first video immediately reminded me of Francis Lai's Un Homme Et Un Femme. The rest of the tune sounds quite Brazil, like something out of a Tom Jobim songbook.

 

I indulged in the fun of transcribing and playing it. My doodling ended up in a short Bossa Nova piece. Enjoy!

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K5SFXFk3qow8r2Iv8RhWUKldVktDyQOW/view?usp=sharing

 

Gorgeous, and exactly what a silly child of the 60's like myself needs to calm me down

 

Today I discovered another incredible channel which likens the teaching of Barry Harris to the current revival of "Partimento", which is the teaching method, developed in Naples, used by Handel, Mozart, and Bach, with their students. It went totally extinct, but is being revived by a slew of great scholars now.

 

Lead sheet circa 1700:

 

It's a method of using "figured bass" like is shown above as a basis for keyboard improvisation, which was taught from very young ages. Improv was way beyond a cadenza here and there. As in the Cogic church today, you had many many organ players, who had to go on and on for hours, and swap keys of course, though they had less options in that regard. Anyone behind a Hammond with a choir has got to be well beyond "good". No transpose switch

 

I think this may be the most interesting single channel I have found to date, because this guy is such an incredible interviewer:

https://www.youtube.com/c/NikhilHoganMusic/featured

 

Here he is showing the 251 as learned by many students in 1700:

[video:youtube]https://youtu.be/yUoUMtAqLxI

 

It was in the interview I shared a few posts above I heard the following way of contrasting "modal" teaching in Jazz to how the players learned and thought about their music before Jazz went to college.

 

"Beauty and Ugly went for a swim. Ugly got out first, and put on Beauty's clothes. When Beauty got out only Ugly's clothes were left. So she had to put them on." Barry Harris

 

Here we have a very nice video on Barry from Poland, with english subtitles and scores:

[video:youtube]

[AROIOS]

So here is another Barry Harris lover making some interesting videos with his iphone. He doesn't really explain who he is, so I looked him up.

 

"Isaac Raz holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Jazz Composition and Music Synthesis from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, and is a recipient of the Duke Ellington Award. He received his Master of Arts in Teaching degree in Music Education from Lehman College, Bronx, NY, and is a recipient of the Joseph Dellicarri fund award.

...

 

Thank you for helping us discover Isaac's videos, uhoh7.

 

The first few bars of the tune he played at the end of the first video immediately reminded me of Francis Lai's Un Homme Et Un Femme. The rest of the tune sounds quite Brazil, like something out of a Tom Jobim songbook.

 

I indulged in the fun of transcribing and playing it. My doodling ended up in a short Bossa Nova piece. Enjoy!

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K5SFXFk3qow8r2Iv8RhWUKldVktDyQOW/view?usp=sharing

 

Gorgeous, and exactly what a silly child of the 60's like myself needs to calm me down

 

Today I discovered another incredible channel which likens the teaching of Barry Harris to the current revival of "Partimento", which is the teaching method, developed in Naples, used by Handel, Mozart, and Bach, with their students. It went totally extinct, but is being revived by a slew of great scholars now.

 

Thank you for introducing us to the concept of Partimento and I'm glad your enjoy the little Bossa piece, uhoh7.

 

Learning about the history of the Roman notations and Functional theories in contrast to the practice of Partimento is quite eye opening and liberating.

 

It reminded me of the freedom Gospel harmony offers: "If the melody note is part of a chord, then we're free to experiment with harmonizing that note with that chord. Screw the theories, just rely on your ears to decide whether that chord sounded good in that context."

 

With that said, it's ironic (but not surprising) how rigid and unimaginative "Partimento" music sounded in general. The Partimento composers still had their hands tied by the rules they inherited after all.

[uhoh7]

Thank you for introducing us to the concept of Partimento and I'm glad your enjoy the little Bossa piece, uhoh7.

 

Learning about the history of the Roman notations and Functional theories in contrast to the practice of Partimento is quite eye opening and liberating.

 

It reminded me of the freedom Gospel harmony offers: "If the melody note is part of a chord, then we're free to experiment with harmonizing that note with that chord. Screw the theories, just rely on your ears to decide whether that chord sounded good in that context."

 

With that said, it's ironic (but not surprising) how rigid and unimaginative "Partimento" music sounded in general. The Partimento composers still had their hands tied by the rules they inherited after all.

 

I agree Gospel these days is so good, with chords going off people have a hard time naming, big beautiful rich two-handed spreads, and so many virtuosos. They start young, fight for the keyboards, and play so much. Backing choirs on real Hammonds where you have to come up and down to find the best register all the time......

 

Partimento as music you might actually hear is very new, I only learned about the whole idea and history behind it recently. However many of the great Romantic composers were steeped in the school, like Ravel and Debussy, or so I hear.

 

It was a very wide and deep pool of "forms" from which Bach and many others could improvise multi-voice fugues, and really only started coming back in 2008. It's become a huge deal in the classical world now, and some conservatories in Europe are changing their classes to bring it in. However for it to really work it has to start with the very young:

https://www.songbirdmusicacademy.com

 

No affiliation, but I just love this Nikhil fellow, for his incredible interviews.

 

So I think we will have to keep our ears open.

 

Back the day, keyboard contests were different. The players had no idea what they would be playing. They got handed a theme on the spot, and the best improviser won. Ludwig was legendary at this. He insisted on going first, because often the competition ran away after hearing him. Mozart v Clementi is probably the most famous of these cutting contests.

 

We have great athletes now, but it's a very narrow replication contest with huge numbers competing. 2,500 players in some contests. Improvisaton is not in most of their training, a real shame, it seems to me. But for what they are doing...like many sports, they are the best ever. It is getting more clear that they are far from the tradition out of which those works arose. That alone isn't good or bad, but worth some consideration anyway.

 

Here is the most famous "Schenk stirrer":

https://nikhilhoganshow.libsyn.com/robert-gjerdingen-music-theorist-musicologist-professor-of-music

 

His book has become very famous. If anyone likes that interview you will find a second more recent one also. It's a big storm right now in the "Academy" with powerful forces on both sides.

 

It has me so fired up I am listening to Robert Greenberg tell me all about classical music, and learning a ton.

[AROIOS]

Ravel and Debussy were right on my mind when the professor Nik interviewed mentioned about how the French schools had to tone down Partimento to the more accessible Roman systems for the elite kids.

 

I would LOVE to hear/watch a breakdown of Ravel/Debussy's music (or Liszt's for that matter) from a Partimento perspective.

 

I would love even more to see an Impressionist revival.

 

The precious "little" Ravel and Debussy gave us always leaves me wanting more. Sure, we've got Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett and Fred Hersch on the Jazz side of things, but there seems to be a wide world of harmonic beauty out there, under-explored, after the height of Impressionism.

 

The 50/60's Bossa Nova and Easy-Listening offered a lot of interested new colors I enjoyed. And we've talked at length about the sonic wizardry of modern Gospel music. But on the Classical side of things, I haven't heard much in the 20th century that touch me the way Impressionism did.