Vibraphone

“My Foolish Heart” - Vibraphone Masterclass – Playing the melody while adding color to the harmony via various techniques. The clip features one chorus of the melody on this classic ballad. My favorite version of this song is from the great pianist Bill Evans. One of the things that my students and I work on when focusing on solo playing is to play the melody along with various techniques of accompaniment. Those accompaniment techniques help to support the melody, sound the harmony and keep the flow going. The left hand is so important in this regard.

I've probably said a lot of this before. Consider it a refresher course :-).

Here is an invaluable lesson. When you listen to someone play, vibes or any instrument, especially when they are playing solo. Listen once and then go back and snap your fingers. Listen to the time. Is it ok? Does it suck?

I record all the time at home and then go back listen and snap my fingers. Once in a while (ha ha, more than once in a while) I get done and snap and realize that that take SUCKS. Why? because my time sucks. We have to keep time, internal time.

So by keeping time with other recordings and video you are learning to keep internal time.

Thinking of Oscar Peterson’s song “Hymn To Freedom” today on MLK day. Oscar's composition was written in 1962 and was and still is a very special song for its beauty and message.

Hello all – it's been a long time since I've posted and I'm hoping to visit this website more frequently during 2018 as there's so many great musicians that take the time to criticize and encourage each other to become better artist/human beings!
Here is a piece that I recently published titled "In the Night" I was fortunate for the University of Southern Utah (under the direction of Dr. Lynn Vartan) to learn the piece and perform it! Lately, I have been getting into composition and utilizing the vibraphone in a contemporary setting!

"Oblivion" by Astor Piazzolla - It's been nice having some time off from Berklee. It's been so cold here to go outside so the only thing to do has been to practice. Ha!Ha! I'm a huge fan of Astor Piazzolla and his music. This is one of my favorite songs from him.

Improvising on this classic with a focus on incorporating deadstrokes, ghost notes, accents, dynamics, varied sticking and dampening to enhance the line, phrasing and time feel. The vibraphone can be a difficult instrument in terms of playing it with expression and getting subtleties and nuance from it.

There is a good book called Develop Sight Reading which is great for reading as well as working on these musical elements since the pieces have a lot of phrase markings, dynamics and include many passages with varied articulation. Highly recommended.

Hey Vibes Workshop