A huge part of the Jazz and Bebop sound comes from using chromatic notes but only if you do it the right way. Instead of just focusing on notes, you want to think in phrases. In this video, I’ll show you simple, practical phrases that you can use right away,to get that classic jazz sound that you hear from people like George Benson or Joe Pass. Your solos won’t really sound like Jazz if you don’t have phrases like these in your vocabulary.
Bebop Wants To Surprise The Listener
What makes bebop so amazing is that it is playful and rhythmic—starting and stopping in unpredictable places.
Bebop is full of small, dissonant melodies, which is exactly what chromatic phrases are. If you stick around, you’ll learn the right way to use these essential bebop techniques. Let’s start with the most important one!
Most Important Chromatic Phrase In Bebop!
The fact that this next exercise is not Barry Harris’ chromatic scale may cause a riot in the comment section, but this very simple exercise is used by everyone, including Barry Harris if you check out his solos, and we’ll get to his scale in a bit. This incredibly simple exercise is triad-based, straightforward, and maybe even a little boring, but it’s unbelievably powerful.
Let’s start with a basic C major triad:
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And you will be able to turn this in a lick like this:
At first glance, it might seem complex, but it’s all coming from this ascending exercise, which adds an enclosure around each note in the triad: a scale note above each chord tone and a chromatic note below.
Notice how the arpeggio moves up while each chromatic enclosure moves down. That contrast is part of what makes it sound great and makes it instant Bebop.
For the descending version, it works the same way—opposite directions: arpeggio moves up then the enclosure moves down.
This is incredibly simple, but the concept is used everywhere in Bebop, not only on triads or arpeggios. For example, here’s how it works when you expand it to a Cmaj7 arpeggio with some added scale notes:
With this concept for triads, it makes sense to explore Barry Harris’ Chromatic scale, and then we can add a bit of rhythm to the mix as well.
One Chromatic Scale To Rule Them All!
The weird thing about Barry Harris’ chromatic scale is that the exceptions are the ones I love and use the most. Strictly speaking, they are not chromatic at all, but they sound fantastic.
Barry’s system for chromatic notes is straightforward and flexible. Let’s start with a C major scale:
Here’s how it works step by step:
- When there’s a half-step between two notes (like C to D), you simply add the chromatic passing note (C#).
- But you borrow the scale note above when there’s no half-step (like E to F). In this case, you use G.
So, for the C major scale:
- Add C# to move from C to D.
- Add D# to move from D to E.
- From E to F, use G.
- Continue chromatically: F to G (F#), G to A (G#), A to B (A#).
- Finally, from B to C, use D.
This creates the following chromatic scale:
The truly interesting parts are the spots where there isn’t a natural half-step. While I’ve suggested using the scale note above, Barry often emphasized that you can use any note as a half step. That’s why, in the descending version, I tend to stick with the same choices—simply because I think it sounds better:
But theory aside, what really matters is how this sounds in action. Here’s a bebop-inspired lick that kicks off with a Barry Harris half-step and also has an enclosure:
And here’s another line, still rooted in a Cmaj7 arpeggio but with more half-step passages in there:
Notice how both examples use clusters of half-steps, which are incredibly easy to insert and combine with other blocks like arpeggios. These phrases naturally lock into bebop vocabulary.
Let’s take this a step further by adding the first rhythmic variation and covering something that is not a system!
More An Arpeggio, But It Is 100% Bebop!
The first rhythmic variation you’ll want to explore is one you’ve probably heard before—an arpeggio with a chromatic leading note:
This technique isn’t limited to a single chord. You can apply it to any 7th-chord arpeggio, making it a flexible tool in your jazz vocabulary. It’s also incredibly useful to practice this concept through the scale, something that I also learned from Barry Harris:
You’ll hear arpeggios played this way all over jazz. It’s a fantastic way to vary the rhythm, and if you take a closer look, you’ll see that I’m reusing one of the key building blocks from Example 9—this time, just an octave lower:
Let’s take it further by adding the two rhythmic chromatic phrases. This one is very close to a Barry Harris line as well.
Chromatic Triplets – Part 1
In Bebop, not all structures sound as great as triplets, but besides the arpeggios that you already heard, this chromatic enclosure sounds great:
You can use this in a line like this:
This is not strictly a system, but a way to take this enclosure through the scale could be this. This exercise is a bit long, but remember that you can download a free PDF of all the examples on my website.
And using one of the other enclosures, you can create a line like this:
Another chromatic phrase with a triplet isn’t an enclosure, but it is a nice concept to add to your solos.
Chromatic Triplets – Part 2
This technique is based on connecting chord tones in an arpeggio. I learned it from saxophone player John Ruocco while studying at the conservatory. I have heard it used occasionally but have never heard a lesson about it.
If you start with a Cmaj7 arpeggio:
You can connect from one chord tone to the next. The major 3rd intervals from C to E get leading notes like this: C D D# E,
Then the minor 3rd interval from E to G is chromatic,
then using the exact phrase as the first one to get from G to B, G A A# B,
And I also added the phrase up to the 9th: B C C# D
The whole thing would be this, and notice that you can do this with any chord that is a stack of 3rds:
On the Cmaj7 you can turn it into something like this:
Or use the connection between the G and B to lead into a descending Cmaj7:
Barry Knows Something About Bebop
A great resource that I only touched on shortly in this video is Barry Harris’s Chromatic scale, a concept that you can use to create a lot of beautiful Bebop lines with you want to dig into that because it will also give you some other building blocks that are a huge part of the Jazz and Bebop sound. Check out this video so you don’t spend all your time just playing the right notes but also learn to make them sound right!
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