Though Harris was a saxophonist, his intervallistic exercises were written for "all single-line instruments," making them equally valuable for trumpeters, guitarists, flutists, and pianists.
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To combat this, Harris developed a highly structured, mathematical approach to utilizing fourths, fifths, sixths, sevenths, and octaves. This became the basis for his self-published instructional books, most notably Eddie Harris's Intervallistic Concept , which have become legendary underground holy grails for serious jazz instrumentalists. Core Pillars of the Intervallistic Concept
The primary publisher for the saxophone-specific editions.
Perhaps the most valuable aspect of the book is its final instruction: "turn it upside down and play it backwards!" This isn't just a quirky final note; it's an encouragement to use the material as a springboard for your own creativity. The method provides the raw materials; you are meant to deconstruct and reassemble them to build your own unique musical vocabulary. eddie harris intervallistic concept pdf
Eddie digitized the notebook because he wanted the Intervallistic Concept to be portable, searchable, eternal. He scanned pages at midnight, refining scans into a single PDF that pulsed with annotations: margin notes in green, tempo sketches in blue, a page where he'd taped a concert ticket and labeled it "Proof." He uploaded it to a small academic server run by a friend and sent a single email linking to the file: for collaborators only, he wrote.
Take a three-note intervallic shape (for example: up a minor 3rd, down a perfect 5th) and move it up chromatically through all 12 keys.
Instead of playing a standard scale up and down, Harris would displace every other note by an octave or substitute it with a sharp seventh.
Harris organizes the study by intervallic distance: This became the basis for his self-published instructional
He wrote the Intervallistic Concept on a rainy Tuesday when the city smelled of wet saxophone. It began as a single line: intervals are not merely distances but conversations. From that seed sprouted diagrams where whole tones leaned toward semitones like old friends, where augmented fourths argued with minor seconds, each interval given a personality and a place in a grammar that could bend time in a solo.
. Below is an essay exploring the core principles and impact of this method.
Intervals like perfect fourths sound less anchored to a specific chord, allowing the player to imply complex harmonies over simple vamps.
Harris’s manual is famous for its rigorous and often physically demanding exercises. Key topics include: The method provides the raw materials; you are
Instead of thinking about scales, Harris argued that you should think about intervals (the distance between notes).
Apply wide intervals strictly within a single key signature to make the concept usable over standard jazz chord progressions. C to A →right arrow →right arrow →right arrow 4. The Benefits of Intervallistic Studying
To understand the Eddie Harris method, you must forget the key signature.