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Here are some pdf files I find usefull when I'm trying to organize my practice time. The problem with practicing when you don't have all the time in the world, like most of us, is that you often don't know what to practice and also keeping track of what you've done and what you haven't done is sometimes difficult.

The pdf files I included here are lists that I use to keep track of technical exercises that need to be repeated to show some progress. Below is how I use these:

Scales.pdf

http://www.steveyeager.com/Home.html Says it all. Check him out, I think you'll love Steve's playing and if you haven't heard him already, this should be a treat. Also a real nice person and we'd love to hear from him at www.vibesworkshop.com

check out samples at his web site and then... (buy something)

Trying to regulate email from the site is pretty tough. So here are some options.

Click on 'my account' under the menu that's under your login name on the left side of the page and then click on MANAGE MY SUBSCRIPTIONS.

There you'll see 3 (at the time of this writing) newsletters. One if the VIBES NEWSLETTER, that one won't come more than once of twice a month to your inbox. So if you just want us to check in once in a while check that newsletter.

The TELL ME EVERYTHING newsletter. Well, you get it, right? That one will go more frequently.

I believe there is a very interesting fundamental difference between improvising "lines" and improvising "melodies". What do you think? Is there a discussion here?

What a great day. I picked up Joe Locke early today we had lunch and talked about stuff then picked up Patricia Franceschy and turned on the cams.

Joe is a wealth of information and a very courageous vibe player. Ask to him play and he'll just start. He has a very modern approach to harmony which was really exciting for me to hear.

He talks humbly about his 4 mallet playing but wait until you see some of these vids. His 4 mallet solo playing is spectacular.

He's had a GREAT career and has so much to offer.

Check out the audio clip I have attached this article. I think sometimes students don't get it, that is how to really study something. How a little snip it can be so valuable. I spend 2.5 hours on this snippet tonight. First I love it! It's from Brad Meldau playing Anthropology. The whole solo is from another planet.

Hey Tony,

I told you about the theater show I'm gonna do from January untill april, right?

Anyway, I got all the music and it's about 42 pages of music that I have to play by heart... and it's drums, Vibes AND marimba. The composer is this famous dutch classical composer and the music is really Heavy Metal Reggae stuff and also classical combined... I looked through the parts this week and man, it's some difficult stuff!
The vibe parts are ok, cause that's mainly beautiful sounds and stuff like that. But the marimba parts are some fast mo' fo' passages(excuse my language... haha).

Hey Tony,

A few days ago I got a call by some 60 + jazzband and I have a gig with them on the 2nd of november. They're probably not that good, but hey this is a good way to get a tune list going. They sent me a list of tunes, and that's the tunes I'll work on now. an, I love Rhapsody! Just downloaded a lot of versions of different tunes and I can also listen to them offline... Oh yeah, I'll post about that on the site also.

The conversation that recently took place regarding improvising on the blues has given me food for thought for a blog. I think intellectualizing music through analysis is a good thing if fully understood. The process of analyzing music helps to teach and learn new things about music and often helps to find weaknesses and holes in our knowledge.

I was having some thoughts on transcribing so I thought I'd post them here.

So I was transcribing the Steve Nelson solo on Beautiful Love today and I remembered some guys here talking about programs to slow down music to transcribe and stuff like that.

My thoughts on that are that you shouldn't even want to use that kind of stuff to transcribe.