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I am still working on Sword of Whispers. I am internalizing it a bit more but my timing and hand independence could use some work. I was trying to keep a pulse in the left hand, using the rhythm of Vince Guaraldi's "Cast Your Fate to the Wind", which is syncopated like Joe's gentle intro in the lead sheet.

I started working on a solo version of "Spring is Here". I am finding it very difficult. I can't think of much to make it sound interesting or good. Any ideas?

I am arpeggiating with mallet 1 2 3 and melody in 4. I am also using drop 2 voicings on the ascending lines. Nothing cohesive yet. Just working on ideas.

It's originally a ballad. What do you think of making it a Bossa Nova or other style?

Here's a PDF with the G half whole scale. It's a scale that outlines a G7 b9 chord. I ask the question what if the chord was a G7 b9 #5, what would the scale be. Write it out and send it to me!

Here's all the Friedman Dampening and Pedaling vids and audio lessons on the site. This a book all of us should work through and master.

If you play any of the etudes not on the list. Please record yourself and post your performance!

Click here for the Friedman Book: Dampening and Pedaling

I banged this baby out. Really fast. But it looks ok. Let me know where the mistakes are.

But it's a lesson in drop 2 voicings. Now that I know what drop 2 voicings are I see them everywhere! How about choral writing. Big band charts.

I have had an ongoing discussion with the handful of students and friends who have come to me over the years about the nature of what we are doing as jazz musicians, how to study it and how it fits into the whole music in general. Recently, Tony and I were discussing some of this offline and he encouraged me to put this out here in this forum for discussion.

I love that idea.

Ok, I know Barry is a sentimentalist. So I'm going to try and crank out a drop 2 arrangement of 'Oh, Danny Boy'.

Then we should all work on that, solo on it and post it for Jon Daly and Ireland.

Maybe then we need to have a vibe hang with Pints. Although In my house I might have to do Non Alcoholic beer, but I'll still act drunk if you want.

Hopefully tonight I can crank Out Danny Boy in Finale.

Anyway let's see what kind of arrangements we come up with.

Here is a great analysis of the Steely Dan "Mu Major" chord.

http://jmdl.com/howard/steelydan/mu-major.html

I just tried it on the vibes and it sounds cool.

Barry

Hi!

Encouraged by Tony's call to put up some personal recordings I put up this blues here. I recorded all the instruments with overdubs. Overdubbing is quite difficult to me even tough with metronome since I have a lack of "rhytmical stability". The recordng is about a year old and I think that my vibes playing has improved since then - at least I hope so.

Cheers Stefan

When I did my arrangement of White Christmas, I used an open voicing on the Cmaj7. Turns out that it was a Drop 2 of a Major 7th (Closed G B C E -> Drop 2: C G B E). Now I can put a cool name to that voicing.

Since St. Patty's Day is coming up, I started working on Drop 2 voicings for "Danny Boy". I am starting out with a closed voice arrangement. I will use that for the first repeat. On the second repeat, I will play the tune again with the open Drop 2 voicing. It is starting to sound really nice.

Barry