Blog

My student Dan Neville is an amazing student. He works his butt off. I'm really happy and proud to be working with him.

Check out here how he's working on a tune:
https://www.vibesworkshop.com/blog-entry/little-suede-shoes-all-keys/vi…

For many years now, I've been working with a local arts organization, the Hopkinton Center for the Arts (https://hopartscenter.org/). For the past several years I've organized what we've called the Sunset Jazz Concert series -- 6 to 8 outdoor jazz concerts during the summers on Saturday nights.

Two years ago, through some herculean fund raising, the HCA managed to complete building a new performance/gallery/instruction facility. At this time I added a monthly jam session, now on the 2nd Friday night of each month.

who's the guy who has the alternate set up for mallets. no spaces all the notes are rearranged. anyone know where the videos are? who is the guy?

Thanks!
Tonh

I'm thinking about teaching people and thinking about what I teach them and explaining things to them.

It hit me, that you can't teach experience and that's the thing that's most important of all. Experience is being on the gig, playing with others. Experience is making mistakes in front of people. Making bad decisions and good decisions.

That's the most difficult thing when I think about this. When I tell students to get out and play and they don't, but they say they want to be good players, I don't know what to do.

I'm conflicted right now, what should I do about my vibraphone part?

— Sean081799 (@Sean081799) August 3, 2017

@mikebalter Every time I'm feeling sad, I will play the vibraphone with my Tony Miceli 46R mallets to cheer myself up.. #MBMTweets pic.twitter.com/UfSSXK6YCL

— Matt Law (@lawmatthew830) August 18, 2017

I got the idea to do a series called "a Little Bit Goes a Long Way".

There are some simple things that I learned that really branched out into many other things. Kind of like launch pads for so many other things.

I would argue that just about everything we learn can go a long way. But there are special things that really do.

I remember playing a simple progression Amin7 and Bmin7 and then coming up with all these ideas just using those 2 chords.

Do you guys have any simple things you practiced that went far in learning to play the vibes??

I was in the studio with my Omega (Morningstar Studio). The engineer walked in the room to make sure I had AC for my motor. Why, because he couldn't hear the motor in the mics.

He came in the room and looked at my instrument and saw the wings moving (wings are how Omega does tremolo). He said "OMG your motor is on. I can't hear it in the mics. That made me feel really great about my instrument. He's used to noisy instruments and this is the first time he has heard a very quiet instrument.

So.....

I thought it would interesting to try something out next year. A workshop in the mountains of France (Near the Alps) and one in Napa Valley at a Vineyard.

Why? Because there are vibe players there and they are willing to host us and help us. I think upping the game of workshops brings more visibility to the instrument. We have our steady places, Limerick, Ireland and Wuppertal, Germany. These are homes for us, but it would be nice to branch out and spread the word. Also, do some workshops in some cool places around the world.