Finally an occasion to start blogging.
Tomorrow I think end of the day Tony is arriving here, of who I'm excited to meet in person.
So, this is my first blog entry and I just wanted to let you guys know how much I appreciate this site. I have learned a lot from this site since I joined not too long ago. What a great Atmosphere!
Alright so I'll get to the point. Earlier I posted a few videos of myself playing some 2 mallet stuff working on lines and such and I got lots of great critique and pointers. One specifically was to ALWAYS use 4 mallets (If you want to be good at 4 mallets that is). I took that advice and now any time that I play I am holding 4.
So I'm heading out this week to do workshops in Ireland and Holland.
This is great and I'm psyched. In Ireland I'll have a very small group of vibe players, maybe 2 or 3. However I'm also doing an improv workshop which will have about 8 or 9 students after the vibesworkshop. We'll work for a few days and then do a concert. I'm excited and love teaching improv workshops.
Then I head to the Vanderplas factory and we should have about 5 or 6 vibe students there.
I have seen mallets numbered from left to right as 1-2-3-4 and 4-3-2-1.
To me, 1-2-3-4 makes more sense since that is how I read, from left to right.
What is the reason for numbering 4-3-2-1?
Since there seems to be no standard labeling, we should preface anything we write regarding stickings with the mallet numbering system is being used.
Barry
Angelo the 91 year old vibe player (maybe the oldest professional working vibe player) write me now regularly. He always asks me to post the letters for everyone to read!
here's the latest. he's really interesting and his advice is good! He always reminds me to eat from all three food color groups as in this letter.
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This in an ebay listing for a 1920s Deagan Vibra-Harp. It was designed to be attached to an organ and is very different than today's instruments. The listing contains a lot of interesting information and many photos. It's worth a look.
Argentina Diary 2 (cont.)
Days 5 and 6
Man I just read Dana's blog. he's right, the opportunity is here, we should ALL be blogging. Well no should's or shouldn'ts as my wife would say. But blogging would help the learning process here.
I wish the pros would blog more often. Just talk about what's up and talk about what's going on in there heads.
I can relate to Dana listening back to himself. I always said, if I had my own music college:
Mandatory recording device for each student.
Mandatory Journal (daily)
Mandatory Recording yourself playing several things each day.
You've been very gracious to share so much about your life in music. I am hoping you might share a bit about two of your more unusual recordings, "Tennessee Firebird" and "Time Machine." I have always been fond of both. How did you collect all those Nashville musicians in one place? Who is Walter L? Overdubbing was still in its infancy when you recorded "Time Machine." How were the people at RCA to work with? And one last question. Was that you carrying the vibe bars on the cover of your first album "New Vibe Man in Town"?
Argentina Diary
Day 1
6:40am. I stumble off the American Airlines flight from Miami after a mostly sleepless flight. The first thing I notice is that all the airport workers are wearing medical masks and rubber gloves. Guess they’re taking the flu seriously down here. In the baggage area I am concerned because there are no carts in sight. I have five pieces of luggage (three vibes cases, two personal luggage).
[Reminder to self: call Mark, my trusty case maker in Massachusetts, and order a replacement for the large case. This one won’t last much longer.]