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Author Topic:  Applying Barry Harris's sixth diminished scale to the c6 nec
Zach Lattin

 

From:
Washington, USA
Post  Posted 26 May 2021 3:11 pm    
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I wanted to share something that has really opened up my c6 playing, and jazz guitar playing for that matter. It's a sound that I've heard a lot of old C6 players utilize, and though I'm not sure they're thinking about it this way, it's how I (an admittedly music theory-obsessed person) now think about it.

In the key of c, what I'll call Barry Harris's sixth-diminished scale has the following notes: c, d, e, f, g, g#, a, and b. I've thought of this as "the be-bop scale" and used it for single-note soloing concepts on guitar, but I've never thought of what would happen when you harmonize the scale by starting on any one of the eight notes and picking every other note to build a chord. if you do that, you get an alternating sequence of inversions of the same major sixth chord and diminished chord. in the key of c you get the following: "c, e, g, a" (root position of a c sixth chord), "d, f, g#, b" (root position of a d diminished chord), "e, g, a, c" (first inversion of a c sixth chord), "f, g#, b, d" (first inversion of a d diminished chord), and so on alternating through all four inversions of a major sixth chord and a diminished chord a whole step above that! if I play it on piano or guitar (or any other instrument) I immediately hear movement from a I chord to a V chord and back to a I chord with every chord change.

To get this scale harmonization on the c-6 neck with "standard" copedent, do the following:

1. Play strings 7 through 4 with no pedals (root position of a sixth chord in whatever key you're in.)
2. Engage pedals 5 and 6, move the bar two frets up, and play strings 7 through 4. (root position of a diminished chord starting on the second scale tone of whatever key you're in)
3. Release pedals, move the bar back to your original position (two frets back from the previous step) and play strings 6 through 3. (First inversion of a major sixth chord starting on the major third of whatever key you're in.)
4. Engage pedals 5 and 6, move the bar two frets up, and play strings 6 through 3. (second inversion of a diminished chord starting on the fourth degree of whatever key you're in)
5. Repeat for string group 5 through 2.
6. For the third inversion of the major sixth chord you'll have to engage pedal 7 and move the bar five frets up from your major sixth root position. When you do this you won't need to move the bar to play the next diminished chord in the sequence, just release pedal 7 and engage pedals 5 and 6 in stead in the same bar position.
7. Combine this with the fact that diminished chords repeat every three frets and pretend like you're playing chord melodies in a dark 1950's jazz club! Smile

The beauty of this in my mind is that you can get a lot of cool notes and harmony with very minimal bar movement. have I discovered a pocket? If i have I'll be staying in it for a while.

Doing this in a minor key is probably another writeup, especially since I haven't wrapped my head around the theory, but if I understand things correctly Barry has players substitute a minor sixth chord (which I confess I still think of as a minor 7 flat 5 / half-diminished chord) for the major sixth chords above. You can do this on pedal steel by engaging just pedal 5 or just pedal 6 when playing the odd steps in my process above, which will give you a harmonized jazz minor scale if I'm not mistaken. I confess I'm having a little trouble mapping out what key I'm in when playing m7b5s, especially since in practice (to my ear anyway) both sound good in whatever key I'm working in.

As I said at the beginning of this post, it has really opened up my playing to think this way. Last night when I sat down to play after all the chores were done, a chord melody arrangement of "Besame mucho" just sort of fell out of my hands! It's also very easy to play the "b-section" of the James Bond Theme (where the guitar stops and the horns / orchestra come in) using this scale. I now look forward to playing over long static chords because this kind of thinking encourages a lot of movement over them. I'm working on this type of playing with dropped 2 and 3 voicings on what I believe steel players refer to as "armpit guitar", but it's SO much easier and more fun on the C6 neck with pedals!

If there is interest I can definitely figure out how to post some audio examples of what I am talking about. Here is some further viewing on Youtube:

A great overview of Barry's harmonized scale with armpit guitar players in mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7reOAaveCi0
Barry explaining it on piano to a workshop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jO-sIrjTqg

I've been a long time lurker here and would like to reiterate what others have said about this forum being a true wealth of knowledge and experience! I can't imagine what it must have been like to learn pedal steel from scratch before the steel guitar forum. hopefully this first contribution of mine will be interesting to someone. thank you for reading.
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Joel Jackson

 

From:
Detroit
Post  Posted 26 May 2021 4:29 pm    
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Zach, this is great. I first saw the video of Barry Harris explaining the #5 scale a couple years ago and my mind was blown. I practiced the harmonized scale on a piano daily for a while after to acclimate my ear to the sound of it. I didn't have a guitar with a C6 neck at the time and never got around to applying it to the PSG. I just gave it a try, and it's as you said, very easy and fun. Thanks for reminding me how cool this concept is!

Last edited by Joel Jackson on 26 May 2021 5:50 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Andrew Frost


From:
Toronto, Ontario
Post  Posted 26 May 2021 5:05 pm    
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Yes indeed, great stuff.
Excellent tool for bringing movement to otherwise static chords. Works great on the relative minor as well. Same harmony, just centered around Am7 in this case.
I've been working on this approach with a guitar student these days and its been a great push revisiting it.
As well as the chordal advantages, there are some killer single note lines that can be generated by mixing in brief diminished arpeggios into straight ahead diatonic phrases!
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Zach Lattin

 

From:
Washington, USA
Post  Posted 27 May 2021 3:38 pm     Re: Applying Barry Harris's sixth diminished scale to...
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here is some audio! the first clip is the scale and chords over a static g-major chord. At the very end you can hear me jump up to the twelfth fret with pedal 7 down, but I didn't have time to play a diminished chord up there. The second clip is the same concept but over a d-minor groove. Rather than play off the relative minor as suggested is possible above I subbed an m7b5 / minor sixth chord for the d-minor chord using pedals 5 or 6 by themselves. In that case to play the diminished chord starting on scale tones you still move the bar up two frets and engage the other pedal.

Sorry these are Dropbox links; may look into setting up Soundcloud if I share a lot of things like this.
d minor example:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ttti7foye3cgoqw/6%20dim%20scale%20in%20d%20minor.mp3?dl=0
g major example:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4dcaxn0ju8oj1jo/6%20dim%20scale%20in%20g%20major.mp3?dl=0
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Andrew Frost


From:
Toronto, Ontario
Post  Posted 1 Jun 2021 6:49 pm    
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Cool demos Zach. It also works on E9 but is slightly less intuitive. Great practice for half pedal diminished voicings though!
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Joseph Carlson


From:
Grass Valley, California, USA
Post  Posted 1 Jun 2021 8:08 pm    
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Forum member Rick Schmidt was kind enough to send me some PDFs he made on the Barry Harris 6 diminished concept and pedal steel earlier this year. Hopefully, he will see this thread and chime in.

I have been all in with the Barry Harris approach for standard guitar for the past year and it has really advanced my playing by leaps and bounds. All these sounds I have been hearing on records for years are suddenly at my fingertips. It is an amazing approach if you want that classic 50s bebop sound.

You still have to put in the work, but the results speak for themselves.
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Sam Conomo

 

From:
Queensland, Australia
Post  Posted 1 Jun 2021 9:44 pm     Barry harris stuff
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I find it interesting
And helpful and easily
Musical without too
Much maths.
Just learning it too.
Sam.
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Benjamin Franz

 

From:
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Post  Posted 2 Jun 2021 4:00 pm    
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Lucky Oceans got me onto the Barry Harris diminished sixth system on C6. It really opens things up in that tuning. Great stuff. I’ve been playing around with it on the E neck too.
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Scott Denniston


From:
Hahns Peak, Colorado, USA
Post  Posted 5 Jun 2021 4:19 am    
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Joseph Carlson wrote:
Forum member Rick Schmidt was kind enough to send me some PDFs he made on the Barry Harris 6 diminished concept and pedal steel earlier this year. Hopefully, he will see this thread and chime in.

Does Rick cover some positions in both E9 and C6 for the 6 dim concept? I am fascinated. Cool
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Scott Denniston


From:
Hahns Peak, Colorado, USA
Post  Posted 6 Jun 2021 8:51 am    
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Here is a thread from a while back on the bebop scales. If you scroll down to Rick Schmidt's post he has included a seminar he did on the 6 Dim harmonized scale. He also includes tab for both C6 and E9. Thanks Rick!
Thanks also to Zach Lattin and Joseph Carlson for pointing in this direction.

Here's the thread>>> https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=331172&start=0
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Joel Jackson

 

From:
Detroit
Post  Posted 6 Jun 2021 9:13 am    
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Thanks for posting that link Scott.
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Benjamin Franz

 

From:
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Post  Posted 6 Jun 2021 5:06 pm    
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Here’s a video explaining the concept on six string.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g5pQJPJ1tek
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Zach Lattin

 

From:
Washington, USA
Post  Posted 7 Jun 2021 10:26 am    
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Andrew Frost wrote:
Cool demos Zach. It also works on E9 but is slightly less intuitive. Great practice for half pedal diminished voicings though!


I was curious about how this would work on E9 too; thanks for the tip on half pedal diminished voicings.
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Zach Lattin

 

From:
Washington, USA
Post  Posted 7 Jun 2021 10:32 am    
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Scott Denniston wrote:
Here is a thread from a while back on the bebop scales. If you scroll down to Rick Schmidt's post he has included a seminar he did on the 6 Dim harmonized scale. He also includes tab for both C6 and E9. Thanks Rick!
Thanks also to Zach Lattin and Joseph Carlson for pointing in this direction.

Here's the thread>>> https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=331172&start=0


You are welcome; thank you for this old thread! As with many steel topics, it's great to learn that there are others who have already gone down this road.
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