You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The Maestro's 6th Chords

Episode Date: January 3, 2022

Nerd out with Adam as he introduces Peter to the late (and great) Barry Harris' 6th chord concepts.Check out Open Studio Pro hereHave a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeSupport the pod by spreading the word with the link youllhearit.com Interested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Yes. You ready to nerd out? Let's do it. There you go. I'm Adam Manus. That was a drop two voice and I just played all that. I'm Peter Martin.

He's already nerding out, folks. You're listening to the you'll hear it podcast. Music advice, inspiration, and nerddom. Nerddom coming at you. Peter, I wanted to just show you what we've been working on over on Open Studio Pro. What do you know about Open Studio Pro, Peter? I know that folks love it. I know that it meets darn near every day.

Well, do tell. I know that it is a, commitment, but like a wonderful marriage or union, it pays you back more than you put into it in a beautiful way. We are live at least twice a day, six days a week over there. Right. Different classes for our members. And on the Daily Guide of Practice session, this past week, we worked on a concept. You know, I've been taking a very deep dive on all of Barry Harris's teachings because we just lost him a few weeks ago.

You're like the Mike Spinks. Not Mike Spinks. Who is the diver, the Olympic diver? Mike Spinks was a boxer. Mark Spinks. Michael Spinks was from St. Louis. Great, great heavyweight boxer. Where's this going?

Deep dive. Deep dive. Oh, good one, man. You're the Mark Spinks. Good one, dude. Yeah, that's great. Deep to Mike Spinks. You know, Mike Spinks.

Well, I'm thinking Olympics, because he was in the Olympics. That's true. St. Louis, deep dive. Adam. Anyway, let me get to the meat of the lesson here. So I discovered this really cool concept for building chords. from the great Barry Harris, and this is having to do with six chords. Now, he's got...

Is this a sixth chord? No. No. Okay, sorry. Yeah, this is a regular triad, right? Yeah, I saw. Yeah. So, this is not the six diminished concept, although it's loosely...

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's some relation to it, but it's not exactly that. So six chords, so maybe like... Oh, yeah. No, you got it. And lesson done. That sounds great. So it is a six chord like that, though. It is like, so if we take it in C here, it's a...

C major triad with a six. And it's six. So this is where we start. We start by learning these in all inversions. Four inversions. Let me just interject there. Most folks know inversions, but you know what? Don't be intimidated if you don't.

It's just a silly technical term, but the concept is kind of important. I like to think about it. Take the bottom note, put it on the top. Yeah, so the C. And you keep doing that. And you keep doing it. Add infinitum. That's right.

As the Latins would say. So that's the first way to practice. You might want to do that in all 12 keys. D-flat, major six, D major six, all inversions. Now this two, this voicing here where we have... We're talking one-three-five-six. One-three-five-six-one. Major triad with a major six.

Three-five, six, one. And then five, six, one, three, and then six-one. Right, those are the conversions. Exactly. So this is called the closed. So you want to do that with all these voicings, which are called closed voicings, right? Now, is that the same?

I've always wondered. this as I'm going to play the part of the skeptical and unbeknownst neighbor. He's like, we're doing like nerd stuff. Maybe we're like the cool guy neighbor. I'm the cool guy. What is this nerdy crap, man? No, but I've actually always wanted to, so you said close.

That's a closed. Close. Yeah. But is that also a close. Well, yes, it is very cool. Is that the same thing? It's called four-way close is another way to say it, but it's also a closed. Any relation to Glenn Close, the actress?

Very much so. Yes. Glenn Close's cousin. Closed voice. No, but it is a closed voicing because all of these notes of this chord are literally like the next note up is the next note up. There's nothing that you don't skip over one at any point. It's all within under an octave, four note voicing. So you want to do it all in the closed voicing.

Then you also want to do it in the open voicing. And this is an open voicing can be a lot of different ways. But this particular one is the drop two version. So we take our closed voicing, our four we close voicing, our four we close. We take the second note from the top, we drop it down an octave so that instead of C-E-G-A, we have G, one note with our left hand, G, all the way down there, C-E-A. Yes. Still four notes.

We just take the second note from the top, we drop it down an octave, we play it with our left-hand. And I want to just be interjecting neighbor again here because this always confused me. I just realized why this always confused me. and perhaps this could open a door for other people or it could close the door of confusion, hopefully. Yes, of course. I got confused because when I heard drop two, I didn't learn this until later.

I kept here and dropped two. I could hear that. I was like, oh, drop. I thought it meant you're dropping a major second. You're dropping that second interval. But you're actually dropping the second note from the top, which in this case happens to be, that's right.

Coincidentally, a major second. But that has nothing to do with it. Nothing to do with it. It's just the second note. How do you see why I've been so confused about this? I do. So literally, drop two is like any four-way close voicing, whatever, major six, major seven, augmented. You just take that second note from the top.

And that's the drop two. So what if it was the first inversion, major six? So you got E-G-A-C, and you drop the A. That's fine. That's a drop two. That's what confused me because I'm like, that's not a drop-two. That's a drop minor third. No, that's the drop two.

It's just the second note from the line. You know what? Hallelujah. So you want to work on these six chords in both the closed voicing and the open drop two voicing. But what the real magic is, and I think Peter, where you're going to recognize this sound, is once you kind of know these six chords, major six chords, and all 12 keys, you can use them. You can superimpose them over chords to create different sounding chords. Let me explain what I'm talking about here.

So this C major six that we were just playing. And I'll do the one that you said in the first. version with a C on top. So you can play this over a C in the bass, right? And this is a C major six chord. This is with the A on the bottom of the voice. Yeah, so we'll do the drop two version. So that's with the A on the bottom. Now, you can also play here a G major six chord over the C, and that is now a C major nine, right? So we have a G major six chord, which is G, E, and E, right? Just that major time with that six, and we'll do that inversion.

That drop two with the D on top, B, E, G, D, right? Just the same four notes. Now, if we put that over a C, that's a C major nine because you have the third, seventh, fifth, and ninth of C major. So here's where Barry Harris teaches us that we can combine the major six chord of the root and of the fifth above, in this case, G.

Any of the inversions, too, right? Any of the inversions. So you get this sound. G major 6 to C major 6. I'm moving that there's outside notes on this particular inversion. B and D on the G major 6 down to A and C for a C major 6.

So G major 6 over C, C major 6 over C. Now this would be if you just saw anything that said C major, you can do that. And you get that beautiful movement. And like you said, you can do this with any inversion. How gorgeous is that? That's G major 6 to C major 6.

You can do it here. Isn't that pretty? Now, Barry then talks about one other... Pretty confusing. Pretty nerdy. It's pretty nerdy. And pretty, too. Check it out.

There's one other thing you can do. Because you're moving these two notes from the G major six down to the C major six, and this is all over C, by the way. This is like all C major. You can throw in the half step in between these notes that move, which make a nice... Little G diminished triad.

Diminuendous situation. You get this sound. Do this exact same. think, put that G-trot, G-diminished in seventh chord between the G-major 6. There's G-major 6. There's the G-diminished. It works in any inversion. So you hear this all the time, actually.

You know, all of that stuff is so, so beautiful. Yeah. Isn't that cool? So that's how you can use... You added a little something in at the end there. I did it. Yeah. So here's one other thing that works really, really well.

Not only can you use this G-major triad to see... G major six dry-in to C6, you can also use these over an A minor. Isn't that gorgeous? You can see a little E minor over A to a little A-minor 7 sound. But for like a Dorian sound, it can be absolutely beautiful. And of course you can mix this with diminished chords. That's so beautiful. And then when you land on our little G major here,

why not land on the D major six? So using that five major six chord, going to the one major six chord on your one chords can get you all this great tension. Is that nerdy enough for you, Peter? Do we nerd at just enough? Yeah, I'm just thinking, I don't know if this is legal as part of the system, but so you're talking about... Anything's legal, bro. Okay.

G major, you ended on G major, right? So we're talking about G major six and D major six, right? That's right. Could you just move up? So I'm just going... Let me see it. I'm starting on E. I'm just thinking melodically at the top, and I'm switching back and forth from G major to

to D major six, G major to D major six, with whichever inversion happens to fit. I'm just spitball in here. You can do it if you want, Peter. Do you know what I'm saying? That kind of works, right? It does. Yeah, that's what's so great about it. It's basically you're moving from a G major nine chord to a G major six chord.

But those, they're related. And specifically with that sound that you hear, where those common notes on both of those are, like, if we're in the key of G here, is B and D. Yeah. Right? So you're just changing. Yeah, you can move up and try moving up without changing those notes. That's from the D.

Oh, gorgeous. Oh, it's so beautiful. You know what I mean? That is where the brilliance comes in. It's like all things, Barry Harris. It's a very simple concept at first, and it just keeps growing and growing, growing, getting more and more complex however you want to make it.

Good. Yeah. Great stuff. Well, that's like, you know, I love it when we have these concepts. And, I mean, thank you, Barry Harris, for, you know, explaining this and showing it and showing it with a loving appreciation for both teaching and playing it, entertainment and education, such a master of doing that. And so we definitely stand on the shoulders and the hands and everything of the master.

But these concepts, these kind of simple, singular concepts that can be ported out, that have such a high success rate in terms of how you check it. Yeah, that's the third time today you've used the term ported out. Well, you know, I mean, a little bit of a nautical theme, like a portal. Yeah. Like a portal to. Ported. Ported.

A portal. Like portatious. After dinner drinks. Yes. Like Natalie Portman. I'm just thinking anything that has port. You know, from the portugal. Portly.

Portly gentleman who's looking out of a certain age. Of a certain age. Of a certain age. Yeah. Oh, let's stop before we get started. So until next time, you'll hear it.