Watch The Barry Harris Workshop DVD and The Harmonic Method Step by step teaching a. Legendary jazz pianist and educator Barry Harris teaches mostly in his NYC studio and he's also. It simply starts with the basics (C major 6th chord, C E G A, for example) [PDF with examples here. Reading Rhythms 101.

This is a PDF I wrote up about Barry Harris's line concepts. I've been playing jazz for over 15 years, and had never encountered these ideas quite the way he puts them. I learned (as I'm sure many of you did) from the Mark Levine books. While chord scale theory can work great for modern, non-functional and Modal harmony, I've known for a long time now that it doesn't work for playing on standards, or anything with functional harmony, but I hadn't really found a system that worked for playing on that sort of music other than playing chord tones and approaching them chromatically. Learning about these Barry Harris ideas has totally opened up my playing, and I know it can do the same for you.

I wish somebody had sat me down and explained this stuff to me in middle school, but better late than never.