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When I was a young kid I used to listen to Buddy Riches LPs awake and asleep so I could capture everything he does and the other players too. I could literally sing every solo on my favorite albums.

Even today I will often put a song or songs on loop on my iPhone and sleep with earbuds or just let it play next to me all night long.

In spite of not intentionally listening, it is my belief this helps subconsciously internalize the music.

I'm big on getting my time together. I have very little of it now and I must use it wisely. I need to practice 2 hours a day minimum, or I'd rather donate my body to science and spare a few bunnies what they have to go through. I can't stand when I don't practice.

I'm always checking out productivity business cats and learning from them. I also frequent the site Life Hacker. There are MANY great tips on there. This latest is a good one I think.

Here is something I would like to talk about and open up for discussion.

I think with every lesson and study that there is a hidden field that doesn't get talked about quite enough, and the hidden field is average time required for the lesson. We can pick a general number for this, that is the amount of time most musicians should put in for the required task or study.

Ok we need to pick the next tune.

who should pick it? Me? You guys? should we vote?

You want an easy tune like Blue Bossa? Just to see all the parts at work? Miss Jones? invitation?

the thing about You Stepped Out Of A Dream is we have a duet with me and Dave and tracks for some play along. It is a Tune guys play a lot but it's not on the top 20! But Maybe top 50 or 75.

Thoughts?

Hey any of you subscribers hand drummers also? If so email me if you would like access to our new hand drum site and I'll tell you what's up. Pretty cool stuff.

tony@tonymiceli.com

I'm thinking of doing the next vibe hang October 10th. Who's in?

Any European guys??

I think if you have a laptop and a video cam, it will work pretty good.

Hey who wants to meet up for dinner and then go see Bobby Hutcherson play?

Let's make a list here, then we can find a restaurant nearby and have dinner.

We'll go dutch, I'm too broke to pay for a bunch of vibe players!

I'm in.

Leave a comment and let me know if you're interested.

We got a who is. Why not a 'Why Is It....' Series.

Things that are difficult and unexplainable... sort of.

At least from the perspective of the person posting.

My first 'Why Is It...' is:

Why is it so hard to play four mallets on a swing tune where the melody is in the upper octave.

I've been playing 'Long Ago and Far Away' for a while now. I'm in G and trying to voice nice chords underneath the melody which I'm playing in the upper octave.

ALSO the frickin melody starts on the root. That makes it ever tougher to voice.

There's the first why is!!!

BANDSTAND: The area furthest away from an electrical outlet.
BIG BAND: Nowadays, an aggregation consisting of two musicians.
BROADWAY PIT JOB: A prison sentence disguised as a gig.
CABARET: A venue where singers do songs from shows that closed out of town.
CARPAL TUNNEL SYNDROME: God's way of telling you that you've practiced too much.
CATERER: A man whose hatred for musicians is unrivaled.
CHANTEUSE: A singer with an accent and no sense of time.
CLASSICAL COMPOSER: A man ahead of his time and behind in the rent.

Ok, so I just checked my gig calendar and untill halfway through november I counted a total of 66 gigs!! Oh man this is crazy! But guess what, I'm playing vibes in almost al of those gigs!

I really feel bad not being on the site that much lately, but I'm just so f'n busy... Unfortunately it's not all standards/jazz stuff so I have to try to work on that when I get time in between....

Anyway, I'll keep you guys posted on stuff.