You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Bebop explained.

Episode Date: April 18, 2022

Adam talks bebop changes and how to easily breakdown changes and scales in his new Bebop course.Also, check out the course for an amazing $30 off for a limited time HERE!Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open StudioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

What's up, everybody, Adam Annis, here. I think it's my last solo episode, which I'm stoked about. Can't wait to get Peter back in town and back in the studio so we can do some real live. You'll hear it. But I'm doing Method Monday, which is actually a Peter Martin idea. But I'm going to take this torch and run with it because I think I can make a cool exercise here out of what we've been working on, which are the Barry Harris Sixth Corps. This is a great exercise for comping. Whether you play piano or not, you can sit down to the piano and figure this out.

and it will make you understand what pianists are doing a lot better. But if you do play any piano, this is so handy what we're going to cover today. And by the way, this is a little bit part of my new course, Bebop Chords for Beginners, which dropped just last Friday. I just want to say shout out everyone who sent me nice messages and DMs and notes about the course. If you're an Open Studio member, it's already on your dashboard. You can check that out. If you're not and you want to check the course out, you can click the link below to save $30 for our you'll hear it, folks.

That's special for you. so check that out. Okay, so today I want to talk a little bit about the sixth diminished scale. We've been talking about sixth chords, but this is kind of a different animal here. And it's related to six chords because we can make six chords out of it. But really, it's a scale of chords. It's what Barry calls the scale of chords. What does that mean? So you likely know all about the six diminished.

It's like one of the most popular concepts in modern, jazz education. But the way that I want to practice it today flips it a little bit. And just a brief tutorial here on what it is. If we're in C, the sixth diminishes, just a C major scale. But there's an extra half step between the fifth and six notes. So between G and A, there's a G sharp. Or an A flat, depending on how we look at it. And that's important because sometimes we'll look at it differently, right? So that's the sixth diminish scale. Just a major scale with a half step between the fifth and six tones. Now, if we skip a note of this scale, starting from C, we get C-E-G-A and C. I'm going to do the locked hands voicing, so the five-note voicing where there's

octaves on the outside. That's what we're going to do all day today. It's what we did all day on Friday. And it's super easy. Four notes in your right hand, one note in your left. Again, four notes in your right. One note in your left. And your left hand is basically just mirroring what your right hand is doing on the very top note. So if we skip every note of this six, remember, there's this extra half step between G and A, which put G and A right next to each other, right? Then we get this. Now, if we take every single one of these notes up that scale one tone, we get a D diminished. If we do it again, we get a C6. If we do it again, we get a G diminished, right? So it's this combination. You have a C major six chord by skipping a note of the scale.

Take that up. You get a D diminished chord by skipping a note of the scale. Take that up. You get a C6 chord by skipping a note at scale. Take that up. One note, just one note. We're taking each of these five notes up these six diminished scale. And this is why you get the scale of chords because you get six diminished. Six diminished. Six diminished. You know what I'm saying? And so built within this is a 5-1 cadence. And you're like, well, what is that means? mean? Well, that means that this 6 chord, right, the C major 6, that's a tonic. That's a 1 in the key of C, right? We're not superimposing anything here. This is just literally C6, C major. The D diminished, however,

yes, it's a D diminished, but it's acting as a dominant chord. If we put a G in the base, check this out. This is a G7 flat 9 chord. You've probably seen a G7 flat 9. It acts as a beautiful dominant chord to where C6

Right? So this D, because look at what the notes are in the D diminish, right? Even without the G, if we think about it as G7, it's got the seventh, F, it's got the third, B, it's got the fifth, D, and it's got the flat-9, A-flat.

Right? And then we're back to C-6, D-diminish, just a different inversion. C-6, D-diminish. So really what's happening here is one five one five one five one five one works up and down how genius is this right so within just c major you're adding these little extra tensions of five one five one this not something you would like notate in a chart or anything it's just something that happens on a c major right and this is what these

genius bop pianists would do okay so we can use the six diminished scale to make these five and that means that when we have a 5-1 cadence like a G7 to a C major this scale is fair play even on the G7 because it's part of that sound right it's a G7 flat 9 is built in there so what I want to work on today is a very cool way to get from here G7 to here C major so the first thing we're going to do and I'm going to go down here an octave we're just going to resolve downward. So D diminished shape to a C6 shape. And then we're going to say that this is G7. Right. So if you ever have a 2.5 to C, right, that last bar, G7 to our C major, you can use these voicings.

And this is like so crucial for being able to, for being able to resolve some tension. And then stick around because the next thing we're going to work on, is adding one more level of tension by borrowing, and I'll explain what that is. And that's really where your afternoon is going to go from good to great. So, okay, so what I really want to do here is I want to resolve from some kind of D diminished shape to some kind of C6 shape, mostly going down. I say mostly because we're going to resolve only to the notes of the C major trium.

We're going to resolve to really strong notes. You could resolve when we get there. You could resolve to that C6 shape with the A. There's nothing wrong with it. but I just want to practice resolving to the super strong tones of C triad today. So G7, now we'll do the next inversion up. And I'm putting a G in the base here. Now we'll do the next inversion up, A-flat, and just resolving down.

Now the next inversion up is B diminished, right? And we'll resolve this up. Just because it's begging to be resolved up. So again, the whole thing, F diminished. Where does that go? It just resolves nicely down. A flat diminished. Play this with me here.

And then B diminished resolves nicely up. One more time. F diminished. Notice how these just, they have this gravity towards them or to them. All of the diminished, they have a gravity that wants them so badly. It's like a magnet, right? Like the pole wants so badly to line up with the opposite pole.

One more time. D diminished, resolve down to C6. Now, F diminished, resolve down to C6. A flat, diminished, resolved down to C6. Now, why is this useful? Well, when I'm comping, listen to these. Just a very simple thing. Put a little swing on it.

That's all we're doing here. Isn't that amazing? That's all we're working with. So that alone, just practicing the resolution between that diminished of the six, diminished to the sixth, of the six diminished resolving that down. You do that in every key, you are a good comper. Like you can now create tension in pretty much any situation.

Now there's a little bit of extra tension that we're leaving on the table here. What is that all about? So we want to do what's called borrowing. Barry Harris calls it borrowing. And we're going to borrow from of all places the six. So when we're on the diminished, we're on a on a D diminished here. And again, I have in my left hand D,

my right hand F, A, flat, B and D. We're going to borrow. up to the next tone of the six diminished, but just with the outside notes, just with the octaves, right? Remember, this is an octave delivery device. So we're just going to borrow up to the E. Listen to this chord here. This is now a G13 flat 9, right? Because we have this.

So we can borrow up and then resolve down to the diminished. Back down to the D side. Listen to that. So here's our D diminished word, borrowing the outside notes, the octave, the D's go up to E's. Everything else, the F, A, F, A, and B stays the same. The middle notes stay exactly where they are. And then we resolve down. Look at our next inversion.

F diminished, right? We can borrow up the outside notes. Everything else stays the same. Barrow up to G. How tense is that? Listen to that. Gorgeous. Our next inversion is A flat diminished, right?

Again, G7, flat 9 is the chord. You can borrow up to the next note of the 6 diminished scale, which is A, giving us a nice beautiful G9, natural 9 chord, and then flat 9. Listen to that gravity. We talk about gravity. Oh, it's gorgeous. And then our last one, our final one, is B diminished. We borrow up to the next note of the C major, 6 diminished, which is C. how pretty is this

I mean this is where the depth of this really starts to take shape resolve it to that B diminished and back up to C so you get this so this exercise will change the way you comp because now you get to add all of this

beautiful tension these are all just diminished shapes where just have two options we can borrow up right so this whole exercise you can play in a row like this next inversion next inversion play with me find your diminished and then borrow up on the outside notes a flat

diminish we're going to borrow up the next note of the six diminished now if we put some swing on this at one two three four I should actually swing it I mean what else do you need the genius Barry Harris of you know that genius of organizing these thoughts so that they're that simple I mean we literally take this idea and then we can borrow one note, literally one note, that outside note, up the scale, and everything else stays the same. This works so well, by the way, on the G7, right? Because the G7 is meant to be tense.

And so we keep the guts of the G7, right? We keep the inside the same. But we can borrow up in other notes of this sixth a minisk scale. And you're borrowing up to something that's not two tense. It's part of the C. Like everything you're borrowing up, look at the notes that we're borrowing too. It's E. it's G, it's A, it's C, it's a C major pentatonic.

Like, that's all we're borrowing up to is very inside in the key of C. You're almost hinting at what's to come, you know? I love it. I could learn out on this stuff all day. So you take that concept, and if you get it through, I would say, six keys, right? If you could really understand it in like your six most played keys, you will be a better comp. And you use this shape, too, this structure of four notes in the right, one note in the left,

This locked hands, right, with the octaves on the outside, you're going to sound like Hank Jones in no time. You're going to sound like Barry Harris tomorrow. It's going to be great. So you can check this out on a deeper dive where we practice this and all 12 keys actually on my course that just got launched this past weekend. I'm so stoked about it. And again, thank you all for such the overwhelming feedback.

It's awesome to hear from you. I haven't had a course release in 2022, so I'm super stoked about it. It's called bebop chords for beginners. It's where we cover all of this stuff. And we take you through. The keys I practice with you. We've got some play-alongs with Bob Dubu and Caleb Kirby that I think you're going to really like. So, yeah, thank you, everybody.

Peter will be back on Wednesday. Until then, you'll hear you.