The Secret to Soloing EP 117 TILF Barry Harris

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Collings I35 Deluxe

[@LokeyeMC]

Phases of the Secret =) 1. Learn a standard in a few keys 2. Learn to connect the movements "from this chord to this chord" (Coleman Hawkins is big on this) 3. Learn how to conjure emotions over movements. For example, Gmaj to D7 can be moved through in a way that sounds happy, or sad, or more complex emotions like mysterious or flirting, and so on. (Charles McPherson is big on this). Telling an emotional journey is the start of communicating something meaningful as opposed to merely outlining the progression.

[@LA-cy1zj]

have you got further readings or viewings on the 3rd point?

[@LokeyeMC]

​@@LA-cy1zj Not much has been documented because of how highly subjective this area is. It's all about shedding over the same chord transitions until you've identified how to start or end on every scale degree in ways that conjure all the different types of emotions that you're familiar with. In the Coltrane documentary he was said to have achieved this during his visit to Hiroshima, but it never said how. The closest thing I've seen to an instructional video on the topic is from Jacob Collier: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e4iroZejea2lpJo And to offer the approach I take, which I believe is similar to the approach Barry and Chris would advise students, is to spend time being mindful of my inner emotional journey on simple chords and fit in practice time to convey/communicate/"say" those emotions within the lines I'm playing. I like to start by playing a Fmaj6 with the 6th in the bass in my left hand (I'm a piano player) on each down beat and soloing lines with my right hand. Then I'll turn it into an Fmin6 in my left hand and see where my emotional center wants to lead the lines. I can't explain why that starting place works for me, but oh my goodness, my rhythms start naturally moving into key Barry concepts, like playing 6 over 4, and with really evocative volume dynamics. For me it is that emotional piece which locks all my playing into an order of magnitude better than I was playing without the emotional connection, and that's not even talking about the emotion itself, which is adding so much more richness and depth to the experience. Once you lock in, it's hard to want to go back to playing without emotional connection. But it really does require a lot of shedding to get those concepts into your muscle memory so you're not using up that precious brain space to think about that stuff. I try to keep my conscious mind focused on only 3 things and I leave the rest up to my unconscious/subconscious/muscle memory. With my conscious mind I focus on the emotion, and then the importance of the note I've landed on, within context of the greater picture, and lastly, I focus on what I feel should come next in my expression in terms of where my solo note(s) should land next. That's three things, and I'm not built out enough to handle 4 things in my conscious mind (yet?), so I choose to trust the harmonic movements to come from my unconscious/subconscious. And they do! Because I've practiced these BH concepts enough that they've become muscle memory and live in my inner ear to call on whenever it feels right. Hope that helps! And I hope you're having fun with this stuff. I sure am! Watching this youtube channel is actually where I learned to play, even though I play piano and this is a guitar channel. It all translates and I see Chris as teaching jazz and the BH method, regardless of instrument =)

[@LA-cy1zj]

@@LokeyeMC thanks for the extensive response

[@mwicks1968]

“Barry People” 👏👏👏

[@nickknirk]

“Know all the movements in the songs you’re learning. And be able to play a lot of things over them.” Love it

[@KennethGonzalez]

Great examples, Chris! An important part of what you illustrate with this is that it's about *songs*, not just abstract chord movements. Keeping a focus on songs enables us to focus on music, not technique or theory before we can get to the music. At least, that's my opinion ;-)

[@malkasianmuses]

TILF fanboy and patreon here!!! Thank you for all you do!

[@CWBella]

BTW, your conversational style is perfect for conveying all this info.

[@kashakasmith3893]

too early to say but I think this lesson might be one of those break through moments. can't help but feeling this could have been the very first lesson in tilf. been doing the exercises but I never ever really understood why i was doing them. now i think I do. that the exercises show you a variety of ways of moving from one chord to the next chord. in retrospect it might seem straightforward, but never having gone to music school I realized this. thanks man

[@MrXeberdee]

My old teacher used to say 'Play over the cracks', and I think about 'the cracks' the other way round, so I think of everything as moving from dissonance to assonance. G if that's the assonant harmony, and a functional chord is always a dissonant approach. So in G that's say a functional dominant D7 to G, or B7 to Em, or Ab7 to G, Db7 to Cmaj7, E7 to Am, Bb7 to Am, F#7 to Bm, Eb7 to Am etc. etc.. Even though Am might be an assonant idea, you could also make it a dissonant one in some way - like Am7b5 to G (Cm6 to G), or when G becomes G7 (inversely D7 becomes Dm :)). This is usually pointing at some other temporary key center. After all - a song starting in G more often than not includes an intro that has a dominant function to lead us in (the lead in). So I would think phrasing wise, for something like Gmaj7 to Bb7 as described here (Giant steps) the natural phrasing should move first from (eg. D7) to Gmaj7, and then another phrase 'playing over the crack' between Bb7 and Eb maj7. I think if you consider dissonance as the first thing that needs to be resolved (play over the crack), then there are suddenly lots of dissonant possibilities that all move to some 'home' sounding assonant tonality that is more aligned with the harmonic series - so chaos moves to order. Also think about it this way. Take a standard like 'I love you' Cole porter. It's a love song right? So the strong beat is on 'love' and not 'I', which is a lead in. Otherwise, the song would be egoistical and about 'I' - 'When I love you' where I would land on the strong beat. In the same way I think the strong harmony should 'land' assonant, but the dissonance has functionally necessary to lead you there phrasing wise. The other way round, of thinking and phrasing from G to Bb7 is kind of going against the grain in my book.

[@rzbach23]

I love this. It’s a much better way to structure my practice.

[@sixstringstudies5125]

This is the kind of content no one wants to tell you about. Best lesson on soloing I’ve ever seen. One thing that helps me connect to Dominant Chords is thinking about the root triad thing f the dominant, the important minor on the fifth of the dominant, and the important major on the minor seven of the Dominant chord. Suddenly you have a lot of note options that are bound to be very close to a note already in your G major seven cord in this example. That being said all of this is still very much a work in progress for me.

[@MrHilight2012]

Great information! Thanks, Chris.

[@cuoredibue4180]

That was incredibile

[@jkaznosky]

About to start on all of this TILF-y stuff on lap steel. This is a good example of how it all works.

[@CVGuitar]

I've been working on all the ideas from your many videos for the last year or so and I just want to say that my playing has improved well beyond what I could have hoped for -- thanks for this channel dude!!!

[@CWBella]

Excellent as always, Chris!

[@2chordloops]

Great lesson Chris!

[@kingabdulmuminelsnobletv7728]

I love the way you play and teach!

[@robflores5172]

You really are the man. I can’t wait to get back on lessons with ya. The new job is a big adjustment for me! Sorry for the wait!

[@lightningstrikes7314]

Great lesson, outstanding even.

[@6StringsTheory]

Great advise. Thank you so much.

[@EliZevin]

Loved this episode

[@Tapfool]

Excellent as always!

[@Alan-zi2rs]

Great video Chris 👍 thanks 🎸🎶👌

[@flashkatwillie7657]

Thanks for this. Great advice

[@jamesemerson4102]

Another fantastic lesson. Thank you so much

[@taylorjohnhardinVlogs]

Great Ideas! as usual!

[@LanceThomasRecordProducer]

That's cool. nice one, thanks.

[@BenKolloch]

Wonderful! I was just trying this the other day! 😀

[@aadityakiran_s]

You've learnt a lot of stuff from Barry Harris huh? haha... thanks for the great service.

[@TheRealSandleford]

soopa cool. I believe what you think about bird because you really sound like him to me. Of course, thank you!

[@francescoantoniomonaco]

Great video!

[@ecaepevolhturt]

You know the Gmaj7 to Fdom7. It makes me think of "Christmas Time is Here" (Fmaj7 to Ebdom7). I think of it, as playing F major scale into an altered dominant scale. Howeer my bebop skills are seriously lacking so I've got not chromaticism going on.

[@mwicks1968]

Is this the actual definition of “Movement” then? Moving from a Root Major chord to a Dominant Chord, and the Dominant chord can be on any of the 12 degrees of the chromatic scale?

[@freddymclain4955]

Have you played an Eastman T-186? (all solid woods, carved maple top, solid mahogany back and sides, an ebony board, etc. and for thousands less!)

[@neverdiminished]

When you have time could you do a video of why there is a m7b5 scale? I thought one of the things about Barry’s system was that you could think of m7b5 as an inversion of a m6. I’m a long way from being good enough to use it, but still keen to understand what this is adding.

[@tioliak]

Hi Chris. This is a great lesson! Do you have this exact same lesson but in the key of C?

[@dry509]

When you say you have to be able to play that and then I see you playing single notes are you saying that you have to know how to play the arpeggio of the chord to get from one chord to the other?

[@aadityakiran_s]

You talk like Barry Harris also.

[@lascellehewitt3542]

wats your name

[@johnrothfield6126]

But HOW do you get from one chord to another? LOL

[@chrisperera3910]

That's the big question which remains unanswered

[@holdfast6882]

Man I don’t have a clue of what it is you’re talking about 🤔?????