What do you see when you play the vibes. What's your perspective?
I always saw it as a guitar or even a violin (after studying Bach). Never really saw it as a piano. But yes it looks like a piano and there are many similar things. I guess since I great up playing guitar, that that's where that comes from.
Playing 'All God's Chillin' Got Rhythm'. Practicing my up tempos. As I'm playing I'm thinking wow, this is a drum. I was getting into this whole drum thing on the vibes and it was so cool. To play with just 2 mallets and think of this as a melodic drum was a great experience for me today. Really exciting. I know many of us say it's a piano (which it's not). I think of it as a guitar (which it's not), but today it felt like a drum (which it's not).... Well today it was!
Why don't we all answer these. Here are my answers
Where's the dividing line between playing a melodically interesting accompaniment and overpowering the soloist?
I'm going to put the word out to Behn, Ted, Mike and all the other guys for comping lessons. I'll also do some as well.
Let's start off with questions? You have any questions about comping??
I always tell my students that everybody should always have questions about everything in music. Even the pros. That's the sign of interest, I think. If you're interested in something you think about it and have lots of questions.
So...... Have any questions??? :-)
A while ago John Keene was recommending Rhapsody the music streaming service to us all. I disagreed and thought it was better to buy the mp3s. I thought a streaming service was not cool. Man I was wrong.
I pick a tune do a search for it and play along with track after track. All these different versions and interpretations of the melody. I'm using Spotify and I pay the monthly fee. It's so worth it.... and great for practicing tunes!!
Thanks John!
OK have we looked at chords and harmony enough? Not including all the other stuff on the site that would fit into this category. There's a ton now about chords and harmony. We've analyzed tunes, broken harmony down. I think we've done a lot.
So I think we should now start comping. I think more than how you solo it matters how you accompany others. In fact if I was a better soloist than you and you were a much better comper than I was and you took decent solos, I think you'd be in a better position to work than me. That is as a 4 mallet player.
Recently upon reviewing some transcriptions I have done, I stumbled across a very simple and clear example of why transcription is so important I thought i'd share.
The transcription is of John Coltrane playing his composition "LazyBird".
Ok, stop, freeze. What's the last vibe cd you listened to???
For me it's Jim Hart's Narrada. Guys were talking about him in the shout box so I put him on while I was folding clothes. Great stuff! He's a great player.
Your turn.
Sorry to get all cheezy, but there are some players on this site doing cool stuff.
There are some really talented players here!
I'm amazed because I've seen some of these guys for almost 5 years now. I've seen the progress and what can happen if you just pick up the sticks and practice on the instrument.
I'm truly inspired tonight. Right on guys!
Cool few days. I play duo with this alto player Aaron Irwin and we have a lot of fun playing tunes. Well we've started to do a study of Parker tunes. We took Blues for Alice, Donna Lee and Anthropology and soloed on them through the keys. It was hard and fun!