Free Jazz Education and Music
When I lived in New York City, I had the transformative experience of taking lessons with Lee Konitz. In his remarkable Central Park apartment, which had a grand piano in every room, he guided me through exercises that left a
This lesson covers one possible pattern using the Cycle motion concept through the modes of Harmonic Major. This is a short excerpt from a new book on using 4ths and 5ths in improvisation that I’ve been working on for some
In this lesson I explain how to find and practice the 96 melodies for any 4 note structure or 7th chord. In this example I play the 7th chord through the modes or chords of the major scale. This method
This video outlines one of the main practices I’ve used over the years to help me develop a conditioned relaxation response triggered by holding the saxophone. This is an ongoing practice as the tension and stress associated with performance and
Etudes are a great way to learn new ideas, phrases, concepts and vocabulary. This is a short 12 bar etude I wrote and have been digesting over the last 6 months or so. Memorizing the etude is just the beginning,
This is part 3 in my video series on Countdown. In this lesson on Countdown we’ll continue looking at ways of thinking about, conceptualizing and improvising over Countdown. This method uses minor triads over each chord of the progression. On
The b9 is not commonly over a Major 7 chord. This melody is one a wrote to help me incorporate it’s use into my melodic improvisation. In this context it functions as a passing tone between the root and the
Pentatonic scales are amazing 5 note sets that are comprised of stacked perfect 5th or stacked perfect 4ths. They can be used in a variety of harmonic contexts. Keep in mind that the Major pentatonic and the (relative) minor pentatonic
The 4 note cell or Tetrad using 1, 3, #11, 5 has many harmonic contexts and can be used for creating voicings, improvising melodically and composing. This lesson outlines one simple melody from the tetrad the descends skipping voices. After
Etudes are a great way to work on new material, vocabulary, phrasing and a whole host of positive musical skills. Here’s a one chorus etude I wrote for Bari player Andrea Edwards who is earning her Bachler’s in jazz at
In this video lesson I’ll demonstrate a few ways to practice the minor pentatonic concept outlined in the first video (Countdown Part 1). I start with an brief overview of the last lesson and than play examples of sequential ideas
This is a 3 part series on ways to practice and think about Countdown my John Coltrane. This is on of his challenging tri-tonic tunes based on the song Tune Up. Countdown is one of those tunes that, depending on
Passive Ear Training: A Natural Approach to Hearing and Understanding Modes. This innovative ear training method, which I call “passive ear training,” mirrors the natural process of language acquisition. By emphasizing repetitive listening and imitation, it cultivates a deep, intuitive
Here’s a nice major melody I wrote today at the piano and began learning, singing and playing through 12 keys. This short two bar melody incorporates several nice upper structure alterations including #11, #9 and #5. The phrase starts off
While rummaging through my attic, I stumbled upon a treasure: a cassette tape containing practice sessions recorded during my time at Berklee around 1987 or 1988, when I was about 20 years old. The tape captures a series of short
As a creative educator in improvisor, I often enjoy working on Cycle 4 and Cycle 5 melodies. This Etude is a vertical melody over the Giant Steps progression (John Coltrane). Each melody starts on the root of the chord and
Another CD is now out on Origin records. “Otto is a true original in his compositional efforts. He sounds like no-one else. Free? Sort or, and laid back, with a beautiful sax tone. It sounds like he is laying out
Here’s the track “Esthesis” from the album: https://mattotto.bandcamp.com/album/notebook This new recording features two groups; essentially two EPs put together. One group is a tenor trio the other a quintet with the members of the band Esthesis. Quintet: Tina Raymond –
Here’s a pdf and video of a contrafact I wrote over the Sam Rivers tune “Cyclic Episode”. I love working on improvising over this progression because it uses all 12 minor 7th chords; making it a lot of fun to
Passive Ear Training: A New Approach to Mastering the Modes of the Major Scale. Buy Here I’m excited to share a new ear training series I’ve developed with saxophonist Xose Miguelez. We’ve created something that I think will really help
This recent CD is my first standards album. As jazz musicians we arguably spend most of our time improvising over the jazz cannon; old show tunes and jazz pieces written by our mentors and heroes. This album is a collection
Here’s a short tune of mine I recorded on Aug 3rd 2022. It based on an augmented major 7 melody. I wrote the melody from those four notes and harmonized it afterwards. Jeff Harshbarger plays bass and John Kizilarmut plays
Several of my students have been asking about various Barry Harris approaches to playing changes and creating strong melodic lines with chromatic notes (non-scale degrees and non-chord tones). Although I love Barry Harris as a playing and improvisor I never
Here’s a brief look at another great Charlie Parker tune based on the Blues. I learned this out of the Omni Book when I was young and it turns out that a lot of the notes on the melody are
My friend Richard Giddens came out to KC for some gigs and recording summer of 2022. Here’s a take of Soul Eyes by Mal Waldon we did with Doug Auwarter on drums. Doug is an amazing drummer steeped in the
I wrote this song in 2001. Wanjiku was inspired by the book Pedals of Blood, recommended to me by my step-father Bruce Baron, who studied with the author while doing his undergraduate degree in education. I recorded the song in
In the video below, I explain a few ways to conceptualize the Sus chord. Sus is short for suspension – in church music, the “ah” in “Amen” – is an example of a simple 4 to 3 “suspension” sound; the
The 4 note structure or tetrad made up of 1, 3, #11 and b7 is a very useful note set for voicings and improvising over all sorts of dominant 7th chords. These 4 notes are common tones from both lydian
This is a short melodic phrase that I wrote that includes use of the #9 on a major chord. I often think of this sound coming from the 6th mode of harmonic minor which works nicely over a major 7
In this live discussion I outline the entire process I go through when I work on a new idea. In this case, I have written a short 7 note melody which comes from the Altered scale (also called diminished-whole-tone or
Yesterday I wrote a short 3 chord tune by writing the melody first using a minor pentatonic scale. Many great songs use a pentatonic scale (or relative minor pentatonic) as a theoretical basis for all or part of the melody.
Here’s a simple progression with a chromatic melody. It’s in the key of G starting and targets iii minor (maj7) and I using substitute secondary dominants. I became interested writing really short form tunes by both Monk (Light Blue) and
This cell phone recording was from a quartet gig on Aug 15th 2019 at Ca Va in Kansas City. Matt Otto – tenor sax, John Kizilarmut – drums, Seth Lee – bass. (Stephen Martin was the band leader also played
Here’s a transcription of my tenor sax solo from the Alliance album (2020). This is over the chord changes to Woody and You (Dizzy Gillespie) on a contrafact I wrote called Woods. In the transcription I tried to notate what
In this short video I attempt to demonstrate how I like to practice Major Scale melodies. Often times we practice the same way we practiced when we where young, only faster. That is, instead of learning better melodic material as
I took off a small phrase from a Chet solo today over just friends. This was a good period for Chet, he had gotten out of jail and although was still learning to play on fake teeth an addict he
I came up with this easy ear training exercise today in which you sing each tension over a dominant 7th chord from easiest to hardest. In this order natural 9, natural 13, sharp 11, sharp 9, sharp 5, flat 9.
If you’re like me, you may often listen back to one of your solos and think, ” I am playing too much, I’m not leaving any space and I’m not listening to the band “. I think that the main
In this lesson I’m practicing playing the natural 9 on every chord of the standard Have you met Miss Jones?. I’m using a displaced quarter note triplet rhythm starting on the 2nd 8th note triplet of beat one. After being
In this short video I’m playing the nine on each chord of the song I’ve Never Been In Love Before. This vertical practice can help your ear and your mind and leads to some interesting abstract intervalic melodies. I use
Here is a short yet beautiful improvised phrase sung by Varijashree Venugopal over the song Naima by John Coltrane. Varijashree is an amazing, world class singer and improviser and I highly recommend listening to her music, some of which is
You can use the major Triad add #11 tetrad or four Note cell in a variety of harmonic context. There are 96 ways to order any four notes within and octave and a half and so there are a lot
I discovered this warm up with some help from my friend Peter Schlamb. I did if for a few days before a gig and was shocked at how it changed my entire time feel and attention to the groove. I
This new CD features some of my favorite musicians playing seven of my original compositions. Each track has a different configuration of players. You can get the CD on Band Camp here. . Alliance by Matt Otto .To support mattotto.org
This is a simple educational play along – blues in all 12 keys – swing at 144 bpm
Two of my friends, Peter Schlamb and Matt Villinger, mentioned working on Blues for Alice by Charlie Parker during Covid. They’ve been playing it through the keys, one key per week, really trying to get it down. I thought I’d
I wrote a short original piece for my friend and Marimba player Michael Compitello. Mike is an amazing musician whom I’ve had the honor of working with at KU. This is a duo piece which is a study in cycle 5 motion using minor harmony.
Covid19 has ended my gigging life for now and so I have more time to teach. Skype/Zoom/Hangouts are great ways to both teach and learn from the comfort of your own home. I charge 30$ for a 30 minute lesson
A warm up that activates both your ear and your sound. Trying to discover smarter ways to warm up and do ear training is often on my mind when teaching. Many students spend time doing long tones but still have
A Simple Major Melody: Exploring Diatonic Enclosures and Descending 6ths I’ve been working on a little melodic exercise that I think you’ll find really useful. It’s a simple major melody utilizing an enclosure and diatonic 6th and is grouped in
This is an original composition of mine using a common writing tool. all the chords and melody to this piece come from one major scale.
Harmonic Major modes over 2-5-1 in Minor. I’ve been working on using the 7 modes of Harmonic Major over various chords as alternate scale choices. The example below uses two scales over a minor 2 – 5 – 1 –
Steve Cardenas, one of my favorite guitar players, taught me how to create a 7 note diminished scale. These scales work over Dominant b9 (half/whole) type diminished as well, but we’ll look at regular Diminished 7th in this example. There
Here’s a blues etude that uses some different 4 note cells (tetrads) and various scales. By writing an etude you can learn to hear melody that specifically reflects an underlying concept and later improvise using the concept alone. The original
I always enjoy writing contra-facts over chord progressions I like to improvise on. This is an easy one that is based on the Gigi Gryce’s song Minority. Gigi writes great tunes; always melodic and fun to blow on harmonically. I
The CD is pressed – here are all the tracks on one post. You can also listen to the whole album for free or buy it on Bandcamp here. Matt Otto: tenor sax.Andy Ehling: alto sax.Leonard Thompson: piano.Brad Williams: drums.Ben
This piece is based on a re-harmonization of the chord progression to Dave Brubeck’s song, “In Your Own Sweet Way”. I added an interlude of descending Sus Chords as an alternative solo section as well as simplifying the chord changes
I composed this song in three for the recording date. The composition is two distinct melodic phrases set withing a simple harmonic progression. The solo sections are distinct and only reflect a simplified version of the harmony heard during the
I wrote this piece specifically for this recording project. The dedication here is to the Enso Ring which is often seen in Japanese Zen. Ideally the Enso ring is painted by a Zen master while maintaining an empty state of
Using only the 1,3,#11,7 Tetrad (or 4 note set) I’ve been using this 1, 3, #11, 7 Tetrad (4 note set) for years in both composition (voicings for big band or small group part writing) and as a group of
Azul is the 4th track from the album “Ring”. The piece is a simple blues waltz. The introduction and outro features three short melodic phrases written in rhythmic/melodic counterpoint. The chord progression is a slight variation of a standard blues.
Mind’s Ear pg.1 Mind’s Ear pg.2 This is a piece dedicated Bruce Adolphe’s book, “The Mind’s Ear”. This book is an excellent guide to improving your ability to “audiate” or hear music in your mind. This piece is loosely based
This second track from the album “Ring” is dedicated to Rosa Luxemburg (1871 – 1919). Here are a few quotes from her speeches and writings that I found inspiring. “Only to the rude ear of one who is quite indifferent
Alto saxophonist Andy Ehling and I finished recording our 3rd album and are releasing the tracks one at a time over social media. We are joined by the same ensemble from the Reunion album; Leonard Thompson on piano, Brad Williams
This is the last lesson outlining various ways to work on improvising over progressions like Countdown, Giant Steps, 26-2, Satellite etc. Start by playing the 18 orders of notes for the minor triad over the progression based on the system
