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Twitter is one of those web apps where it's kind of hard to find some meaning and usefulness. I always feel a little vain when I Tweet. But I recently found a good use for it especially if you don't mind sifting through some stuff.

Put in Coltrane or Milt or Hindemith (like I did) in the search box and search through this gigantic database of 140 character tweets (as they say). I found out some websites, some great cds and a few facts about Hindemith.

I'm starting to think that it's a really great tool for getting info.

Back when I played my company's holiday party, the clamp that holds the legs on my 1959 Deagan 580 snapped. I tried fabricating one, but it didn't work out. I emailed Gilberto Serna at Century Mallet. He had them in stock, for only $5.00 each! I ordered two. Received them quickly.

http://www.centurymallet.com/

Barry

I was chatting with my Dad tonight and he mentioned he heard Skylark on the radio and thought it would be nice to learn.

I couldn't find it in my two fake books, which I am surprised. I thought it was a popular standard.

I started doing some research and hit on this album from Boz Scaggs, who I remember from the 70's ("Lido Shuffle", anyone?).

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001J10RLG/ref=sr_1_album_12_rd?ie=UTF…

The interesting part of all of this was that I heard vibraphone in some of the songs. It was Mike Mainieri (vibes/marimba).

I am working on "Somewhere In the Night" by Milton Raskin and Billy May. I first heard it on Cal Tjader's "Soul Sauce" album. See "Check This Out" link. I can't find the sheet music so I am trying to figure out the changes. I stopped listening the recordings and just played some chords that I thought sounded good with the melody. I don't know if I have the changes right or not. I'll work on that more another time. I put these chords into BIAB and started jamming with it. Spent a couple hours tonight. Had fun. Here is a snippet from my jamming and the backing track.

We're starting the new week with a load of work ahead, unfortunatelly hardly any work this week is scheduled for production of the vibrahones themselves.
We're gonna spend a lot of time on finishing our pre-production glockenspiel which we made in conjunction with Fall Creek Marimbas. About 95% of the instrument is done, just a few things still to be produced.

I've designed the instrument such that all parts are machined in our magical CNC-machine in which we also produce the vibraphone bars. This reduces the labour to just assembling the glocks.

I was practicing, and as it often happens, I played a few notes that sounded familiar, but I didn't know what it is. Then I recalled it was from the Cal Tjader Soul Sauce album. The song was "Somewhere in the Night".
http://www.vibesworkshop.com/amazon/cal-tjader-soul-sauce/tonymiceli/03…
I listened and played along with that version a few times and wanted to hear other versions. So, I did a search a found a couple vibes and organ versions.

I've been transcribing parts of a Chick solo. What's great about these programs is that some of Chick's licks are hard to play. Now I can slow everything down and play the line and then work up the speed.

I thought that might be a great way for some of you guys to learn hard tunes like Donna Lee.

My keyboard is set up to send instructions to Amazing Slow Downer, so play the lick and then hit a key and it speeds up. That's how we practice anyway right? Play it slow and then a little faster and then faster until we have it up to tempo.

I just got all excited because I counted 560 Lesson on this site. It's a rough count, but even at 500, that's amazing. I really think there's 3 or 4 years of study here now!

I just got the update to Band-in-a-Box. First impression is that it is really cool (as if it wasn't already cool). As usual, you enter the chord changes and BIAB automagically generates an accompaniment of bass, drums, piano, guitar, strings, etc. With the update, instead of using MIDI instruments, there is an option for BIAB to extract pre-recorded audio of session musicians playing real instruments over certain changes.