Piano class: Giant Steps

see probably it's probably another step before you do it but I don't think horn players are supposed to be involved in that that's the only thing wrong I know it but you know what but you know where the horn players always end up the hit would kill me about it the horn players end up in the first place they learn about the PR the first thing they learned is how to play and they think that's the end of the world dee dah dah dah dah dah then they got a plane they got to play that and they don't know that they don't know how to improvise they don't use you you you can't learn improvisation from knowing chords on the piano that's what's wrong you know like it's like they pick chords on the piano they say oh yeah so everybody writes like that nowadays you know like they write they write exact chords and you have to play exactly what they wrote and that's that's that's ridiculous that's that's taken away from the music and then the horn players gonna come up and he's gonna play he's gonna play the notes in that C and that's what that's where the problem comes in C they end up being players like this that's the way they play they couldn't they couldn't run giant steps to save their lives it's impossible they could they couldn't just come up and play afraid so you should be able to take a phrase see the me I can't supposed to be able to do something like go if I started here and I want to play some rhythm and b-flat I should be able to play rhythm and b-flat let's see what happened I should be able to start there and play rhythm and b-flat and you should be able to do you should almost be able to do giant steps like that let's see this like you know you feel you should be able to do it the same way but that ain't the way cats try to play it but see they tried to play and thinking of chords and and you can't think about chords man you can't think about chords like the only way I could see that I was telling the earlier only where I can see the play giant steps is you play one beat of B and immediately you play D so that if I say now if I hit that note I got immediately go to D I immediately went to D now listen now now if I can't believe it one more note of this gene I can't play but one note I got to play two notes what another reason I plan one over B is that I hesitated now watch now that's the only way I could play that song the only way you could possibly play that song way it'll sound musical we are not at that well that's just well I wouldn't want you to do that all the way I question you on that you know I'd question you on that but but but see what you have to do you have to do are you talking about there you're talking about getting off that be oh you're definitely right quick know if I if I do this no nothing I mean you gotta go deep wife immediately watch now what I gotta be b-flat that's the only way I can make this thing sound like instead I think of t1 s WC it you I see a cat should be able to run it like that like I like I said you should be able to start I don't know now you you know I gotta immediately change these things you have to you have to be immediately changing you can't think of you can't think oh if you're gonna do that's what it's gonna sound like you gotta say that see that see that happen but since I went I went through it but that's the only way I could see you really playing the song you have to think 2 beats 1 beat it almost like one and now if I do this morning I gotta go to deed see what I mean see what I said c CB has got notes in common with D denotes all see every course got notes around anything any news got some around it so if I say did I say C then that's it now look and I went to I went to it so I always got to say I'm in B immediately I'm indeed a museum in the D I'll need know the song well that go dicks how do I do this let's let's get this song show me the song what dinner now what in the first place I show you what I don't like about the song right quick this if I'm gonna go from E flat for one thing I would never play that like that I would never I'd have to play you know what I'm talking about that f7 to the 3rd of D I wouldn't play Oh Wow let's play together not one lesson first I've ever tried to play it cuz I'm never one to learn the song no way do it do it slow dude do it again one two three four I didn't like it something if you called if you said have you done it like that one one two three four see even evil from the G even from the gene the G to the B flat immediately b-flat you know but that's the way I see he's doing it better than anybody ever played that's just about the best right there it's like one beat it's like it's like you got to really make it I want to hear melodic if I if I just stood up just mess around like that I can play Oh I gotta I gotta start to slop over it to really start feeling what it's like you know but I know the closest I've come and then I want to hear some triplets say I don't want to hear just eighth notes I want to hear a cat playing like he's playing I want to hear I want to hear as if you play you I want to hear some triplets stuck in there somewhere one two three four what would one to do for work you know one thing about the song let me show you about some see it used to be it used to be a cat a piano piano player in a piano playing Detroit named will day was used to end songs like this literature I used in the song he'd say that's insane you know that's what he used to him the song there was like oh that was like a ending thing you know but I'd have to really see I've never said it I've never been with anybody really played it like with a rhythm section you know like really play the song and then see what comes if I was if I really had

Channel: BarryHarrisVideos

Views: 1,179,767

Rating: 4.9408026 out of 5

Keywords: Barry Harris, BarryHarrisVideos

Id: uTTNL-RHEMs

Length: 14min 23sec (863 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 11 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/ArtieEvans]

"Explains" meaning mumbles in jazz terminology and keystrokes

[u/Picant-A]

Fuckin LOVE Barry Harris. If you like him check out his course materials he developed with Howard Rees.

[u/The_Piano_man33]

Who is this ?

[u/dictionary_hat_r4ck]

This is great. Can any one help explain better why he wants to go from F7 to the third of D (obviously the F is the third of D but I don't get why he wants to go specifically from one to the other)?

[u/DiversityAlgorithm]

If I had to briefly paraphrase, he's saying: Do not try to outline each chord (which is a commonly taught approach). Instead, basically hit a note of one chord, then immediately approach a note in the next chord, etc. That gives an improvised melody that sounds natural, vs a bunch of arpeggios.

One of his points is that this is how one would approach any other tune, so just do the same thing with GS. It sounds like that's more important in this tune partly because of the typical tempo (meaning each chord "immediately" goes to the next one). But also because the tonic centers are constantly changing, which requires more "setup" than normal for it to sound melodic.