Bud Powell and Barry Harris teach us how to Improvise! EP 162 TILF Barry Harris

[00:00:00]Hello, and welcome to episode 162 of things I learned from Barry Harris.

[00:00:06]And today I thought we could discuss um a beautiful Bud Powell phrase, something that he does uh on one of his um tunes.

[00:00:18]I'm not sure if it's his tune, but it's sometimes it's called crazyology and sometimes it's called Bud's Bubble. This one is called Bud's Bubble and that's, you know, >> [music] >> that that rhythm changes, which has this weird thing in the middle which goes to F sharp major.

[00:00:37]>> [snorts] >> But um and actually Bud doesn't even solo on that. Bud just solos playing uh rhythm changes. But this is on his version called Bud's Bubble and in the bridge, which is just a rhythm changes bridge, D7 up and down, G7 up and down, C7 up and down, F7 up and down.

[00:00:54]He does a really interesting thing. He plays a thing and he plays it three times. He plays it on the last three dominants. So not on D7, but on G7 he plays starting from the third to this flat seventh. So this to this, but he does it as a triplet, totally chromatic, so that you start the triplet on the third, triplet a triplet bomb, and then the last note, the flat seventh, is on the downbeat of the next beat. So and then he does the same thing for uh C7.

[00:01:30]He does the same exact thing for F7.

[00:01:33]>> [music] >> This is super hip. Now, what most people would do is say, "Okay, I can do do this from now on, so I'm going to just Okay, now I'm going to learn how to do it in this key.

[00:01:47]This."

[00:01:49]Which is great. You should know it.

[00:01:51]That's fine. But here's the difference between the way I think everybody else teaches and the way Barry used to teach is that Barry would take a thing like this or let's do it in let's do it in F7, okay? So, I'm doing it from the third to the flat seventh using the triplet.

[00:02:08]Now, Barry would probably say take that up the scale.

[00:02:13]So, you ask yourself, well, how could I do that? Cuz this [music] is a flat fifth, right? So, how would I be able to do that? There's no other flat fifth in the key of F7. It's just [music] there from the third to the flat seventh. But, if you look at this as it's the lowest note and the highest note of a triad, [music] so here's our triad.

[00:02:34]So, here's all our triads.

[00:02:37]Same thing down.

[00:02:39]There's our triads in F7.

[00:02:41]We have to know all those. So, we can look at that as the lowest note and the highest note of a triad that he then is filling with chromatics so that you get triplet triplet and then right on the next beat. Triplet triplet three.

[00:02:56]Triplet triplet three, which is really pretty.

[00:02:59]So, now you'd have to be able to do that from every degree. So, if we start on F, we're going to go F A C. Now, here's the problem.

[00:03:08]The measurement is slightly different.

[00:03:10]It's a perfect fifth.

[00:03:12]So, now I could if I wanted to put all the chromatics in, listen to what happens.

[00:03:18]It doesn't work. See, triplet triplet, [music] now I'm messed up.

[00:03:22]So, what you have to do is adjust it.

[00:03:24]So, it's funny cuz I was talking to Thomas about this yesterday and I said it could be a lot of things. It could be you just go chromatic, but you leave out one chromatic. So, in other words, I have to go totally chromatic from this [music] to this, but you leave out one of the chromatics in between. So, it could be like I did F F# G and then I left out the chromatic between G and A and then just did A chromatic to C. So, I did.

[00:03:52]Which is [music] really pretty.

[00:03:55]That's a nice phrase to listen.

[00:03:59]That's a beautiful phrase.

[00:04:01]So, you should know how to do it from the root.

[00:04:04]Now, see what Thomas said was, "Oh, I like to just leave out the first half step. So, I'll leave out the first chromatic. So, instead of playing uh F F sharp G, I like to play F G and then go totally chromatic from there."

[00:04:20]So, that's interesting. F G G sharp A to totally chromatic to the um to the C. That's interesting.

[00:04:30]So, we're going to get back to that. So, here's the here's the one that Bud Powell did from the third to the flat seventh.

[00:04:35]Which works perfectly because it's a flat fifth. But, now a perfect fifth we say or works great. The next triad would be G uh B flat and D.

[00:04:47][music] So, I have to do it G to D. So, let's do Thomas's one where we just leave out the first chromatic.

[00:04:54]That's nice. Or I would probably do that one. Or maybe I would say maybe. Either way.

[00:05:01]But, you got to leave one chromatic out.

[00:05:04]You see? So, now you got or let's see.

[00:05:09]Or or this one.

[00:05:13]Those are really nice. Now, the next one we already [music] did. That's the one that Bud did. That's totally chromatic.

[00:05:19]Now, we have uh B flat to the the uh the triad would take B flat D F. So, now we're going to play B flat to F totally chromatic. Let's leave out the first one. Let's see.

[00:05:30]That's nice, but I like this. Maybe I'll put in the first one and leave out the second one.

[00:05:37]That's nice, too.

[00:05:38]Whichever fingering feels right, I really think. Cuz you're going by it so fast.

[00:05:43]Now, the key is though, you got to probably stick with one and really practice that one, okay?

[00:05:52]Okay, so now the next one would be >> [music] >> another perfect fifth. So, the same idea, let's use Thomas's. Let's leave out the first half step from So, it's uh the chord up from the fifth or the sorry, triad up from the fifth, which is going to give you C E flat G.

[00:06:05]>> [music] >> So, let's not put it in between C and D, let's say.

[00:06:09]That's a nice one.

[00:06:11]Okay, now the next one, which [music] is going to be um uh D to A. So, that's also a perfect fifth. So, let's leave out the first one.

[00:06:23]Or let's not leave out the first one.

[00:06:26]I left out the second one.

[00:06:28]That's a nice one, too. The next one, [music] another perfect fifth. Let's leave out the first one.

[00:06:34]Or let's not leave out the first one.

[00:06:37]And now the that another perfect fifth, uh or What what would the other one be?

[00:06:47]That's probably the one I would do. But, if I was here, I might do this.

[00:06:52]Okay, now you got uh the next one, which is We'll leave out the first one.

[00:06:59]Next one, back to the first And then you're back to the first one.

[00:07:04]So, now these are interesting. So, if I said, watch.

[00:07:10]>> [music] >> And then And then >> [music] >> Uh next one.

[00:07:26]Next one.

[00:07:32]Now, down is going to be interesting.

[00:07:35]Should we follow the same rule? Maybe Here's our first fifth down. We'll start on We'll start on uh um, we'll start on C.

[00:07:44]We'll go C down to F. Should we use the first one? Let's watch what leaving out the first one sounds like.

[00:07:51]That's nice.

[00:07:53]Or I like this.

[00:07:55]I like leaving out the second one.

[00:07:57]This one? [music] Same one?

[00:08:01]This one?

[00:08:03]>> [music] >> This one?

[00:08:08]This Oh, sorry.

[00:08:11]This.

[00:08:14]>> [music] >> Those are great. So, you see how we take a thing and we say, "Okay, we got to figure out how to do that." Now, the next thing is you have to be able to figure out how to solo using it. So, if we take the bridge to rhythm changes, >> [music] >> then we might say, There it is.

[00:08:40]See, I got to get these in my hands.

[00:08:42]But, what if we did We'll do this one.

[00:08:44]We'll do this one from this We'll do that one. So, we'll say it Let's start again, bridge.

[00:09:05]>> [music] >> That is a pretty one.

[00:09:14]>> [music] >> You could even start on that. Watch.

[00:09:19]Watch.

[00:09:20]>> [music] >> Let's see.

[00:09:25]Let's see.

[00:09:29]Let's see.

[00:09:39]>> [music] >> How about if we did all these?

[00:09:47]All the diminishes are easy because they're always a flat fifth away, so it's always going to be chromatic.

[00:09:53]Those are great.

[00:09:55]Let's see.

[00:09:57]Okay, let me let me do one going up.

[00:10:03]>> [music] >> Well, I I'm sorry. I want to do it up.

[00:10:18]Those are great. So, you see how you take a Bud Powell thing or a Charlie Parker thing or a Sonny Rollins thing.

[00:10:25]Now, to me those are the people that are worthy of like figuring it out what they're thinking cuz those are the creators.

[00:10:33]Those were our creators.

[00:10:35]So, those are the ones that you say there must be something about what they're doing, whether it's rhythmically, whether it's note choice, and most of the time it's both.

[00:10:45]Rhythmically with note choice. But, see now you could take a thing like Bud did and do it from every degree.

[00:10:54]>> [music] >> That's a really nice change of rhythm, too. Baba do do do do do. That's great.

[00:11:01]And I know I always struggle. Now, you know what's funny, uh Thomas and I were talking about this, too. Without adding half steps, there's two spots you can do it or there's a couple of spots. Like, let's say I just wanted to go tonic to seven.

[00:11:14]That actually works out perfect for a triplet watch.

[00:11:21]So, that's nice, too.

[00:11:23]>> [music] >> So, so watch if I took the bridge to rhythm changes and I said, let's see.

[00:11:36]>> [music] >> That time I soloed on the third Some of them I soloed on tonics and I soloed on third. But look, tonic to seven or second to tonic, third to second.

[00:11:50]That's >> [music] >> So if we said ah >> [music] >> you instantly can do it. You see? So this is the this was the blessing that I had to study with Barry is that he didn't just tell us you know, here's this beautiful Bud Powell phrase. Let's learn how to play it in every key. Which by the way, there's nothing wrong with that.

[00:12:22]But what happens is then you become a player that just develops a series of here's my Bud Powell phrase, here's my Sonny Rollins phrase, here's my John Coltrane phrase, and you kind of piece them together and then that tries to make um a coherent solo. Which I feel like it never does. It doesn't. It still needs you, some of you.

[00:12:43]And the whole idea of improvising is you have to learn within a certain framework of how to voice how you have to find your own voice.

[00:12:51]And but you don't find it by just disregarding what the masters left us.

[00:12:58]And also you don't you don't do it by just saying I'm going to copy what the masters did.

[00:13:06]It's a language, so we have to learn the language and then we have to learn to put our own words together, our own sentences together, our own paragraphs together, our own page.

[00:13:16]We have to be able to do that. And I feel like Barry was the greatest at showing us what they left us and what we can do with it. You know. So anyway, enjoy working on your triplets using scale sometimes and sometimes using half step rules.

[00:13:34]Take care.