Marimba

I was practicing You and the Night and the Music, tonight and thought I'd whip something up for the site.

So here's a sort of duet. I figured out the vibe part and started messing around and adding some other parts and it turned into a sort of duet.

Also here is a practice take of me playing the vibes! I wasn't happy with the ending as you'll be able to tell by how I drop the sticks. Anyway, check out the etude and play along with the duet. It's lines and comping. You can listen to the midi part to see what it sounds like together and then play along with the 'no vibes' mp3.

Here's an interesting study. Print this etude out and learn it. At some point you should realize what tune it is.

Then realize that there are no roots in the chords except at the beginning and at one spot where I added it by mistake. Hopefully this should give you some insight into some of the things we've been talking about. That is playing chords without the roots and using the upper extensions to make the harmony.

Ok for subscribers, here's the PAS article.

Here's another etude over the tune 'My One and Only Love'. You put the chords in. It's a chord etude based on quarter notes.

You can see the top note of the chord and the up and down of the melody. You can see where there's a chord and maybe it doesn't have an important note in it, but then on the next beat that chords there. You'll be working on inversions and voice leading.

Here are some ideas for using voicings made from 5ths and 6ths. There is a pdf file that goes along with this that gives most possible interval combinations. Some of the last few on the pdf are very dissonant but might have their use. If you come up with some more ideas for chord/voicing relationships, please "pass them on in".

PART 4

Academic but still might be interesting to anyone studying Giant Steps.

Doc Chittum is a very loved faculty member at Uarts. He does a lecture each year where he ties Giant Steps all the way back to Mozart. The lecture is pretty amazing. This is a 4 part excerpt from the lecture. In the lecture he hands out music and shows this lineage that's really incredible!

From a recent online concert.

Here's the mini workshop from after the concert we did the other night. Steve talks about bass lines, playing without a bass player and learning tunes.