This is work-in-progress of Barry's piano harmony course, with interactive elements
To remedy this, we are proposing a course that guides the student through the video archive in a systematized, progressive and cumulative way. This course will present the student with examples of Barry's most iconic exercises, accompanied by short verbal explanations and corresponding links to videos and timestamps that illustrate each concept. Most of the exercises will also be demonstrated in the context of a tune, either as notation or as a video excerpt with Barry on the piano.
Here is a table of contents that covers most of Barry's harmonic devices.
When a chord is specified in a lead sheet, the tendency is to play a particular voicing of that chord, and then wait for the next chord before changing the voicing. However, this makes for a static approach to harmony. One way to add some variety to that chord is to switch to another voicing, which may be more open (or more closed), more dense (or more sparse), or even an inversion of the initial chord.
Barry’s approach is even more rigorous. He associated every chord with scale. In this way, any voicing of the initial chord could be moved up (or down) the scale, thus creating movement without departing from the tonal center of the chord.
This advantage to this approach is that it creates very smooth horizontal movement in a relatively simple way, compared to the other methods mentioned above.
A good example of how this is applied is in the intro to Parisian Thoroughfare (by Bud Powell), where the F major chord is moved up and down the major scale.
Barry developed multiple exercises to explore this concept. He often used one of 5 or 6 different voicings and moved them up and down all 7 degrees of the major scale.
Voicing n. 1
This 4 note voicing is called a ‘drop 2’ voicing (the 2nd note from the top is dropped an octave).
Practice this in all 12 keys.
Voicing n. 2 is called a ‘raise 2, 3, add 1’ voicing (the 2nd and 3rd notes are raised an octave, and the root is doubled on top).
