(root position of a diminished chord starting on the second scale tone of whatever key you're in)ģ. Engage pedals 5 and 6, move the bar two frets up, and play strings 7 through 4. Play strings 7 through 4 with no pedals (root position of a sixth chord in whatever key you're in.)Ģ. To get this scale harmonization on the c-6 neck with 'standard' copedent, do the following:ġ. in the key of c you get the following: 'c, e, g, a' (root position of a c sixth chord), 'd, f, g#, b' (root position of a d diminished chord), 'e, g, a, c' (first inversion of a c sixth chord), 'f, g#, b, d' (first inversion of a d diminished chord), and so on alternating through all four inversions of a major sixth chord and a diminished chord a whole step above that! if I play it on piano or guitar (or any other instrument) I immediately hear movement from a I chord to a V chord and back to a I chord with every chord change. if you do that, you get an alternating sequence of inversions of the same major sixth chord and diminished chord. I've thought of this as 'the be-bop scale' and used it for single-note soloing concepts on guitar, but I've never thought of what would happen when you harmonize the scale by starting on any one of the eight notes and picking every other note to build a chord. In the key of c, what I'll call Barry Harris's sixth-diminished scale has the following notes: c, d, e, f, g, g#, a, and b.

It's a sound that I've heard a lot of old C6 players utilize, and though I'm not sure they're thinking about it this way, it's how I (an admittedly music theory-obsessed person) now think about it. I wanted to share something that has really opened up my c6 playing, and jazz guitar playing for that matter.

Barry harris 6 chords dim