Blog

Hey guys,

This is a GREAT exercise for writing, improvising, and tune learning. The idea is to write a new melody over the chord changes to an old standard tune. You can alter the harmony a little bit here and there to fit your new melody but the idea is that you could call a standard tune everyone knows, but it will sound completely different.

Hi everyone, I'm attaching a pdf hand out I used recently for a clinic. In it I go through an example of how one might use a combination of Cells and Upper Structure Triads to create tension and release for playing melodic lines and phrases through your improvisations!

If there are any questions please do not hesitate to ask!

Enjoy!

Hey Vibes workshop!

Just wanted to apologize for being out for a while and letting some of the books content back up. With everything from college auditions, internships and being in a world class indoor drumline that rehearsed all weekend every weekend for the past 6 months I've been a bit overwhelmed.

In the good news section, I'm going to Miami University (Miami of Ohio) for percussion and composition and I also recently traded out my Dynasty 4.3 synthetic marimba for a Demorrow 5 octave rosewood practice marimba. Hoping to get some stuff up for you guys in the next couple days.

Ok, I know I come up with lots of ideas, and some don't make it. But heres another one.

I think I'm going to try and do office hours, like we do in college. Maybe pick a night and do a few 45 minute sessions with anyone that needs help with something.

Don't think of this as a lesson exactly, this is where I just help you with one thing you're working on. Maybe try and get you over a hump.

I saw a workshop with Joe Lovano in my neighborhood last week and something he said kinda stuck with me. It was a little question and answer session between the sets and someone had asked about this apartment that Kenny Werner had in Brooklyn (I think this was in the 80's)that they used to hang at. It was surrounded on all sides by a vacant lot, so they would hang and play all night long. What this reminded me of seems really simple, but crucial; they used to play ALL THE TIME.

Once again it's the end of the semester and I'm going nuts. However I'm thinking to the summer. You know guys, I would really like to work on connecting us all in some way. But it requires effort on all of our parts. For instance, what about a weekly hang, we just get on livestream or whatever and just play some stuff and talk. it could skype, whatever.

Which one are you and why?

I'm a 2 and 4 guy, but today I was messing around with 1 and 3 and digging it and seeing the possibilities.

There's been some talk on the site lately about what should a beginner do around here. First off if you're a beginner, you need one thing on your side. That's time. You have to have a lot of time on your hands. You need to be able to go slow.

I think just tackling the mechanics of the the instrument will take at the very least a year. Scales, arpeggios, dampening and pedaling. That's a year of hard work. Add to that learning some simple tunes, the blues scale, chord inversions and a few other things and you are one busy cat!

Just a heads up. If you're planning on coming to the Delaware workshop, it's starting to fill up. There was a lot of advertising outside of Vibesworkshop so between that and VW members it's inching it's way up there. If you're a VW member and want to attend, let me know and I'll hold a few spots for a couple weeks while you're getting your application in.

A guy calls the local musicians' union to get a quote on a six piece band for a wedding.

The rep says: "Off the top of my head, I'd say about two thousand dollars."

The guy says: "ARE YOU KIDDING? —— FOR MUSIC?!?"

The rep responds…

"Let me suggest that you call the plumbers' union and ask for six plumbers to work from six to midnight on a Saturday night. Whatever they charge you, we'll work for half!"