Free Jazz Education and Music
Scales have been a popular thing to practice in both the jazz and classical world for years. Playing through scales as been compared to a painter mixing paints from the primary colors. Scale practice can help you hear subtleties in
This is a short, 1 chorus etude over John Coltrane’s Giant Steps progression. It incorporates a few different conceptual ideas which I find useful. In bars 1-2 and bars 5-6 what is sometimes referred to as a “classical augmented” scale
I’ve always found it effective to work on a specific melody in order to incorporate a general concept into my playing. For instance, when learning to use the #5 on the dominant 7th or i diminished as a substitute for
In this lesson we look at embellishing a triad with specific upper and lower neighbor-tones. The bulk of the exercise will focus on a major triad with surrounding embellishment from the major scale although the concept can be applied to
I’ve put together mattotto.org blog lessons 1 through 22 in a 60 page, 8.5 by 11, spiral bound book for easy reference. I did omit the Long Tone and Drone exercises since they don’t include written material, but I’ve expanded
I played a gig a few weeks ago with a wonderful alto player from NYC named Logan Richardson. While playing over Without a Song in Eb using Joe Henderson’s changes, Logan played a nice pentatonic idea over the concert B
Dayna Stephens, a great young tenor player is in need of a new kidney. Even a small donation helps… check out the NPR article, the video and link below. http://www.helpdaynastephens.org/ NPR Article To support mattotto.org please visit the store: https://mattotto.e-junkie.com/
Here’s a quartet album we did on Origin Records. We recorded it in 1999 and released it in 2005. You can download this for free by clicking on the album cover below. ~Enjoy! Matt Otto, “Red”Origin 82445 click
Chromatic and diatonic enclosures are a great way to begin working with melodic embellishment. In this exercise the 3rd of both a major triad (with an added 9) and the 3rd of a minor triad (with an added 9) are
Finding melodies on a single note instrument that really bring out the sound of more complex types of harmony is often a challenge. Here’s a Major 7 #5 melody I found the other day while doing some slow improvisation. It’s
Here’s an easy way to begin to introduce some wider intervals into your improvisation while still maintaining melodic and harmonic integrity. This exercise uses a dominant 7th chord, and also includes it’s upper-structure tensions (9, #11, and 13). The melody
The sus4 chord can be found in most genres of music; blues, jazz, rock, classical, folk, hip hop, etc. In a normal C7 chord, the 4 notes are C (the root), E (the major 3rd), G (the 5th), Bb (the
