

Suddenly the musical ceiling gets raised and points us back to the purpose behind this book. It’s not that the classical folks don’t play chords, they just know something about getting from one to the next in an unobvious manner. When was the last time you listened to the symphony, for instance, and said oh yeah, Am7b5 – D7. In fact, I prefer to think – movement-to-movement – as opposed to chord to chord. As well, one realizes that the interesting spots in music, whether you are comping, harmonizing a melody or writing an arrangement, are the places in between the chord symbols. The “mover” on the other hand, understands that chords come from scales and thereby learns to approach chording in a more fluid fashion. These vertical groups of notes are “hit” or “struck” on the instrument – with no thought to creating movement. The “hitter” sits up and works out a couple of beautiful sounding voicings for each kind of chord (or worse, learns someone else’s from a method book) – and from that point on, plays them exactly the same way. Either one becomes a “hitter” or, one becomes a “mover”. Imagine, a system for learning jazz harmony that actually embraces the concept of improvisation.Īs I see it, there are two paths for a chord player to go down. What you will find herein are the structural components, as mapped out and developed by jazz giant Barry Harris, that will guide and aid you on your own personal road to discovery. You won’t come out sounding like everyone else – and that’s the good news! Studying the concepts put forth in this book will not teach you a set of hip sounding voicings.
