Intervallistic Concept by Eddie Harris is a comprehensive instructional series (often found in three volumes) designed to help instrumentalists and composers break free from traditional linear patterns and embrace an "interval-centric" mindset. Core Content & Topics
Traditional jazz education relies on the "diatonic system" (Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do). When a traditional musician sees a Cm7 chord, they play a C Dorian scale. Harris argued that this creates predictable, "inside" playing. eddie harris intervallistic concept pdf
Word spread in whispers. Some claimed the concept could turn any mechanical run into speech. One drummer said it let him hear melody in his left foot. A pianist swore the charts taught her to color chords like stained glass. Eddie laughed and kept writing, loving the way a pattern revealed a new route through a solo the way a city alley revealed a mural at its end. Intervallistic Concept by Eddie Harris is a comprehensive
Interval Studies: Exercises designed to help players leap between notes with precision, breaking the habit of step-by-step motion. Lines are created by jumping between intervals rather
Altissimo Mastery: Harris was a pioneer of the altissimo register, and the book includes dozens of studies for extending the saxophone’s range.
Eddie Harris was not just a legendary jazz saxophonist (famous for Exodus and his electric Varitone sax), but also a brilliant musical theorist. He disliked the rigid, academic way scales and modes were being taught, so he developed the Intervallistic Concept to focus on the space between notes rather than the notes themselves.
Harris loved lines where the left hand (or lower register) moves in one interval while the right hand moves in the opposite.