Lesson 45: Bird Line
Bird may be my all time favorite melodic improvisor. His sound, feel and ideas still seem fresh and alive and I enjoy him more and more the older I get. I’m always shocked when I put on a side I’ve
Lesson 44: Simple ii – V7
Often when I’m home improvising over a tune, I’ll stumble upon a simple melody and wonder whether or not I can play it through the keys. I might be able hear the melody clearly in my mind, can sing it
Lesson 43: Diminished
Here’s an intervallic diminished sequence that I wrote while in Leipzig on a short avant-garde tour in the late 90’s. We had many long days of doing nothing before the sound check and gig so I composed this short melody
Lesson 40: HW diminished
The use of the “half -whole” diminished scale over a dominant 7th chord can create some interesting and complex sounds. This “octatonic” scale outlines specific tensions – b9, #9, #11 and natural 13. There are a lot of possibilities for
Lesson 42: Synthetic Scale
Sometimes working with a synthetic scale can be rewarding and help free you from your normal melodic ideas. I still have a 12 sided die from the Dungeon and Dragon days of the early 80’s and by assigning 12 notes
Lesson 41: Shell + Tension
Oftentimes, as a single note improviser, it is difficult to recognize harmonic tensions by ear. For example, when playing just an A natural, it sometimes challenging to hear that note as a 13th on a major #5 chord or as
Lesson 24: Major Melody
This is a very simple melody that clearly outlines the major 7 sound (with a passing natural 11). First learn to sing the melody in one key to get familiar with the sound and help internalize the phrase. Singing is
Lesson 39: Bach Cello Suite
Here’s a very simple lesson taken from the 1st two bars of the second Bach Cello Suite prelude. The melody outlines the chord progression i minor to V7 b9. First, sing the melody until you hear it like a nursery
Lesson 1: Spread Triads
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"La Commune"
~Click here to buy from iTunes~ “La Commune” is a suite that I composed as a tribute to the Paris Commune of 1871. The Paris Commune began as a working class uprising; Paris was seized and controlled by workers for
Josh Welchez "Lost and Found"
Josh Welchez, a fantastic Los Angeles based trumpet player, composer and educator, has recorded and released his debut album. It was a pleasure to play with Josh and I hope we can record again in the future. The recording was
Q Trio, Vol.1
Click Here To Download Q trio was recorded over a three day period in December of 1999 and features Danton Boller on Bass, Qasim Naqvi on Drums and (myself) Matt Otto on tenor sax. We had just finished the album
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