A key element if Barry’s style is his unique, smooth articulation (based on minimal finger movement), involving ghost notes, dynamic inflections (i.e.subtle accents), crush notes (often implying triplets), acciaccaturas and highly efficient fingering. These idiomatic elements cannot be notated, but only learned through aural, and, when available, visual media. They are learned through meticulous imitation.
Luckily for musicians wishing to further develop their proficiency in the bebop style, Barry’s piano style has been extensively documented, mainly through his discography, but also in his masterclasses in which Barry reveals the way he thinks about improvising over tunes. These masterclasses have been carefully documented with hundreds of hours of audio and video material. Most of Barry’s improvisation classes consist of Barry dictating, and often playing, choice lines and explaining the important underlying harmonic principles.
In this Introductory Module, we aim to summarize these principles and point the student towards essential listening excerpts that convey not only the notes, but Barry’s articulation, time feel and thought process as he executes phrases on the piano.
Below is a summary of the course chapters
