Lesson

Here is my Drop 2 version of "As Time Goes By". All I am doing here is playing the melody harmonized in Drop 2 voicing. When there is no melody, I fill it in a little but I was trying to keep it simple. I have attached the music to what I play in the video below in my comment.

This takes a lot of work to do smoothly on the vibes. It does not work for every melody, nor would you want to play like this all the time but I think it adds a sophisticated vocabulary to the instrument.

Here's some ideas to get started categorizing your material when your just starting out to play vibes:

1. Technique / Theory

A: Study the major scales and arpeggios(triads, 6th chords and 7th chords)
B: Study the dorian mode and minor 7 arpeggios
C: study the Myxolidian mode and dominant 7 arpeggios
D: Study the rest of the modes: Phrygian, Lydian, Aeolian, Locrian and Minor 7b5 arpeggio.

2. Four Mallet technique:

A: Study chord voicings in root position
B: Play a melody with a bass note of simple tunes
C: Practice 2-5-1 progression in all keys

This is the first part of a multi part series on modes. When I've posted everything you'll find it in the link above here.
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Chinese translation for Chinese students
有幾個方式去學調式音階，
第一種你可以想成都在C大調音階的關係（全部沒有升降記號）：
C音到C音Ionian,
D音到D音Dorian,
E音到E音Phrygian,
F音到F音Lydian,
G音到G音Mixolydian,
A音到A音Aeolian,
B音到B音Locian,

第二種方式，也是Tony喜歡用的一種方式：

把七個調式音階建立在同一個根音上，
比如Dorian就是把Ionian的3,7,音降低半音。
如果只是用第一種方式，沒有比較的對象，每一種調式聽起來都會只是在C大調中的聲音色彩。

Move those 5ths!

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Mike Pinto is a 3 mallet player. He was doing some really cool things today on Blue Bossa with the 3 mallets. A sort of parallel 5th thing that was totally cool.

Check it out here.

Begging, Borrowing and Stealing. Things vibe players must do to play the instrument!

Behn came over today to pick up some mallets we started talking about melodies and playing lines. So I asked Behn to play a tune with only melodies and lines, no chords and then talk about it. Here's what came out.

Here's another lick for January. It's in 2 parts. The lick is attached to each part as a pdf and I play it. I would advise transcribing the lick yourself first and then checking the music.

I usually don't even put the music up but this lick is a little more involved.