Lesson

Check out the Dampening on the Mallet Kat.

im a true believe that the more the student practices ii V I progression and is able to recognize the progression on the fly, this will enable the player to play in most situations. Many times at jam session ive not known the head or did but not not well enough to play with the other players. so ill lay back and listen the the the form first, then the key, and then listen for turnarounds or odd changes, accidentals ect. once i have an idea where it is going ill dive in.

this play along is a cycle i use when practicing the ii V I progression ...

Here is a quick and dirty lesson on "Bubblehouse" by Medeski Martin and Wood from the album "Shack-Man". Stefan had requested more beginner stuff so this is what came to mind. It was a jammy-jam type of song that was popular when I was a tween in college. It was one of the first songs I heard and said "I can play that" and just walked over to the vibes and started banging it out. I busted it it out a few times when stuck jamming with rocker guitarists/bassists who don't know any songs. "Ok just play G minor.... :)"

Here's all the lessons and performances of Ed Saindon's tune 'Life's Blessings.

We spent the month of March studying Ed's tune and we had a blast. Check out all the comments. There's a lot of valuable information here.

Here are seven choruses of improvisation on the progression of Life's Blessing.

Again, as I mentioned in the other video playing the melody, the left hand is functioning as accompaniment as well as helping out the right hand to execute lines.

Try to fill out the 8th notes between both hands as opposed to trying to carry everything with the right hand. Also, try to keep the left hand moving. Try to keep changing the spreads of the mallets in each hand as much as possible. For example, in left hand, you can play a whole step and then invert that interval to play a 7th.

Two choruses playing the melody along with the accompaniment.

Feel free to change the rhythms of the melody and try to embellish the melody with grace notes, passing notes, fills, etc.

In terms of the accompaniment, try to get the harmony (including tensions) across either with voicings or counterpoint.

Try to get both hands to help each other out. The left hand can come up to help the right hand play the melody and the right hand can go down to fill out a voicing along with the left hand. Also, dampening is important when playing counterpoint against the melody.

On this video, I'm playing the melody along with any bits of accompaniment that I can attempt to fit in without taking away from the clarity of the melody.

It's a good way to work on the left hand in terms of getting it to focus on melody and accompaniment at the same time.

Hello everyone,

Here's the first video of me playing Life's Blessing. Please excuse the sound and video quality. I'm not too good when it comes to the technical recording and video stuff.

On this video, I'm doing one chorus of left hand comping in which I'm bringing out guide tone lines as well as some bass motion. I also use quite a few 10ths which seems to work well with this type of tune.

If anyone has any questions about this, just let me know.

Ed

This is from the album "Longing". If you don't have this CD you got to buy it. Joe doubles the sound of the vibes through midi on this track. It kills!

Giant Steps