Episode 3: Borrowing From the Neighbors ( Barry Harris )

Hello everyone!
I hope you are all doing holding up and doing well during this strange time. . .
In this episode, we are looking at "borrowing", which is a powerful concept that we can use in the major and minor 6 diminished scales to get a seemingly endless variety of harmonic/contrapuntal motion.
I'm really grateful for the constructive comments that I received for the first two episodes! Please keep the comments coming, and share anything that might add to the discussion. While later episodes will deal with a variety of subjects, these first ones are dedicated to the ideas of Barry Harris, who is, in my view, one of the most important musical thinkers alive today.
Here is the link for the PDF for this episode:
www.thomasechols.com/scores/e...
The Labyrinth of Limitations app, for exploring all of these concepts in a fun, educational, and inspiring way, can be found here:
www.thomasechols.com/labyrinth
Patreon:
/ labyrinthoflimitations
If you would like to contact me about online lessons, you can email me at [e-mail]
Take care,
Tom

[@thingsivelearnedfrombarryh2616]

Fantastic Brother! Beautiful examples on All the things you are and Ruby My Dear. There is so much here to digest. You've tapped into something really special with your system of floors. You are doing all of us a great service with these videos. Keep the content coming!

[@TheLabyrinthofLimitations]

Thank you, my friend! I'm loving exploring these ideas with you! More to come

[@Chris_music_channel]

This stuff is on the cutting edge of music education. Keep it up. Should be getting much more attention on here than it is.

[@johnrothfield6126]

I recommend this video. Very important concepts on Barry Harris' (and the author's) approach to counterpoint, consonance and dissonance, and "borrowing". Beautifully exemplified.

[@Chris_music_channel]

I think your contribution to studying music, specifically the Barry Harris system, is absolutely wonderful. Especially in conjunction with the design of the app. Practicing this stuff has been more rewarding and eye/ear opening than any other method system I've ever came across in the past. Also love what Chris Parks has done as well. Great job. Thank you!

[@mikebryant4146]

Thanks so much for this. A companion video of working these out or at least demonstrating the various principles via the Labyrinth of Limitations app would be greatly appreciated!

[@bartwalder5927]

Starting from 5:02 up to 5:30, it sounds like Villa-Lobos!!!

[@TheLabyrinthofLimitations]

I agree!

[@bubsadoozy]

The chords I find myself playing because of this idea are so exciting, I can't put conventional names on quite a few of them! A couple things I've noticed is that when you look at the new scale (at least with the two i've done (Maj7 and min11) is that the diminished chord has second order symmetry akin to the Dom7b5 chord -- in the major7 sample you gave there are two half dim chords and those two MinMaj#11 chords (you play it at 2:15) -- making this all a bit more manageable to internalize. Additionally you only ever get the one chord -- if you want a Cmaj7 in any other inversion the chord sequences completely change. My question is how much consideration do you give these chords? Do you think, or hear perhaps, these MinMaj#11 sounds in connection to Maj7 chords and is their relationship more than just "that chord is the consequence of the borrowing sequence continuing up the scale"?. Also had a big moment yesterday playing Cmin11 > D7(second inversion) [the second chord in that scale] > Cmin6 [F9] > Bbmaj6. I feel like i'm finally starting to at least begin putting all of this together. Your videos are incredible Thomas! Thank you!

[@TheLabyrinthofLimitations]

hi JrMagnus! So glad you're finding it all inspiring:) These are great questions and observations, but might be something I can only sufficiently address in a lesson. . . In general, I practice having the ability to quickly recognize the notes in a few ways: their placement in the 8 note scale of chords (along with their "on/off" qualities and what part of the on or off chord they are), their location in a single note scale that I would use for monophonic improv, and, lastly, their harmonic label in traditional theoretical approaches (#5 or whatnot). The real practice here is to work on getting your mind to flow entirely in the scale of chords/borrowing logic, with little regard for what static harmony is created at any given time. This allows emphasis in our ears, minds, and hands on the linear motion of multiple voices that create wonderful instances of harmonic color and function. Check out my last video (on improvising chord melody arrangements) and the recent polka dots and moonbeams video for examples of this. Just my thoughts on the matter. Hope it helps to share. Thanks again for joining and for your kind words:)

[@johnrothfield6126]

9:35 Stella by Starlight

[@MinhPham-ly7yp]

Hi, what’s the formula to build an octave chord?

[@TheLabyrinthofLimitations]

www.thomasechols.com/scores/octave-chords-youtube-short

[@MikeL-7]

Can you have an elevator of ‘chords with borrowed notes’?

[@TheLabyrinthofLimitations]

Good question! In this approach, there are multiple things that interact and combine to create an endless array of things out of relatively simple and limited amounts of information (hence the name “labyrinth of limitations”). If you gain real competency in borrowing and also in navigating the elevator, it is easy and fun to combine. I do it all the time:) it’s a more musical approach, while also being more enjoyable, as compared to creating a new structure called “elevator with borrowed notes”. Hope that makes sense and inspires more fun practice. This stuff really pays off!

[@MikeL-7]

@@TheLabyrinthofLimitations the elevator is a fantastic concept I love it, it’s got me looking at the whole BH theory afresh. I was put off it for years because of the parallelism when moving chords around traditionally. The borrowed notes thing is great too, very important to get on top of early on so thanks for these videos! You can also get great dim sub voicings by keeping the outer two dim voices and putting any two in between, voice leading is preserved but very cool sounds

[@johnrothfield6126]

Borrowing == Suspensions/Appogiatura ??

[@TheLabyrinthofLimitations]

great question, that I was actually just preparing to address in the next episode, coincidentally! that's a good window in to it, but to say it's == would not be correct for a few reasons. I would say that it is related but not exactly the same, and that, if we ignore what makes it a distinct concept with some important differences from traditional suspensions/appogiatura, we miss out on the opportunity to really take advantage of all that "borrowing" has to offer us. Suspensions/appogiatura require resolution, whereas borrowing does not. In fact, borrowing can be seen as a way to produce new chords. When people say that Barry's chord scales have a particular "sound" it is partially because they are unaware of borrowing, among other things --barry's concepts are about process and linear development of an idea more than they are about having a particular sound or style. Consider that a Cmajor 7th chord, which can be viewed as a Cmajor 6 with a borrowed note: this does not mean that we are compelled to "resolve" the note (resolution in its traditional sense is not always the best term to apply to aspects of this very chromatic method). Rather, we find that this Cmajor 7th voicing can stay as it is. We can also do this with other borrowed voicings, producing, often, some really remarkable results. I do recommend practicing resolving them, because it helps to provide context to our minds and ears. it is very true that there is, generally speaking, an off/on, instability/stability dynamic between the chord with and without borrowed notes, but I'd have to say that it is generalized, in a similar way to how a 4 dimensional cube (tesseract) is a generalized version of a 3 dimensional cube.

[@evelyncharlottejoe4238]

@@TheLabyrinthofLimitations hey i found your channel thru a link you shared in barry's lesson. we were nerding out about the circle of fourths vs the chromatic wheel and how its just flipping one wholetone across its tritone axis :) I think about this all the time too! like its not necessarily like we need to figure out every chord combination we can get from these ideas, but that this concept helps connect sounds that in other approaches would be treated as individual sounds (and i think that's what he means by movements instead of chords). I really love how barry's thing creates more of a map thinking approach instead of list approach (like how in chord scale C6 and Cmaj7#5 would be treated as independent unrelated sounds). I think spiritually and politically it connects to this idea that the dominant culture treats things as isolated events, when there are more intricate connections we can observe as we expand our challenge the limits of our imaginations and dig into traditions that have been suppressed by whiteness and colonialism in a way where we share it and not gatekeep it (the fact that barry's method isnt the standard in schools, or mary lou williams' pedagogy etc i think is a big indicator of this) your elevator concept has seriously changed my guitar playing as i've been running it thru the keys and different dualities so thank you so so much for sharing that. ive had it together on piano for awhile (barry seems to want people to do contrary motion while filling it in right away) but the way youve outlined this on guitar and show how it doesnt just apply to the jazz tradition is invaluable. Id love to learn more about the software you've made. In my own study i've been realizing that the connections the symmetrical shapes web together are difficult to visualize on a 2d or even 3d space (the maps i make get to a point where selfrepeating/self similar patterns start to feedback which makes me think im not working in a high enough dimension) and i'd love to talk more about that with someone who clearly is on that wavelength too. thanks for the amazing videos and for sharing your process and vulnerability ~~~

[@TheLabyrinthofLimitations]

@@evelyncharlottejoe4238 Thanks so much for this thoughtful discussion, Evelyn. I totally agree with what you said about dominant culture. What continues to be amazing to me is how deep Barry's theories are. It really does call into question the gate keeper aspect of academia. . . I'm inspired that it seems like more and more people are becoming curious about Barry Harris. Feel free to email me about geometries and apps if you like! Here's something that might be helpful with what your were saying about higher dimensions. The amount of dimensions you need to in order to map all permutations with 12 note chromatic pitch space is equal to the amount of voices you wish to deal with. 2 note chords need a 2 dimensional space (but it's a mobius strip), 3 note chords need a lattice of cubes, 4 note chords need a lattice of 4 dimensional cubes etc. It's pretty wild, but really helps to clarify things once you get into it. Tymoczko's Geometry of Music is a must-have for this subject: he's done all the work for us!

[@evelyncharlottejoe4238]

@@TheLabyrinthofLimitations yeah im glad too! i discovered his videos in 2014 and it blew my mind that i had gone to school for jazz and still couldnt hear what people were saying in the music. (then started finding out about the history of chordscale pedagogy and its racist roots which is a whole other rabbit hole) a lot of it has been clicking in the last year in a way thats been really special. super appreciative of the work your doing by connecting the overlaps of barry and dmitry and yourself! and glad more people are seeing barry and his labour for the amazing gift that it is. ya i should order that book! thanks for the explanation. i could tell that if i was able to fold things in a certain way different points would meet up and connect in a more clear way. (been trying to map out T PD D relationships by using the diminishes as focal points) if you ever need an upright bass player to accompany your song performances hit me up!!

[@shanely7317]

@@evelyncharlottejoe4238 Hmmm your comment about the history of chord scale pedagogy and its racist roots has me interested. Would you be willing to point me to any resources on this topic, Evelyn?