How did you come to the vibraphone? (question for all, pros & students)

I came to jazz before I came to the vibraphone. My parents had always played Maynard Ferguson and Dave Brubeck around the house when I was little. When I was in 6th grade I started playing drums along to Led Zeppelin/Lenny Kravitz but my sophomore year of high school I got "Kind of Blue" and started playing jazz drums.

When I got to college my freshman year I thought I was gonna be this super hip, swingin' jazz drums cat. I realized very quickly that there are a LOT of people that play drums and it put me off a little bit. I always had more of an affinity to keyboard percussion anyway (lots of marching music and 4-mallet marimba in my background) but I still liked jazz more than anything. Vibes seemed to be the natural progression.

About a year and a half later I feel like I'm on the right path.

Ditto for me.

Except the part about guitar and piano. I started on piano and moved to guitar.

Everything else, the same... Particularly the part about getting high.

When I finally came down, I had more vibes gigs than drum gigs. I am not sure what happened.

:)

Although I've tended to resign from playing vibes these days, I initially got into the vibes as a result of growing up hearing those '60s-era Herb Alpert albums with the late Julius Wechter playing the mallet parts. However, at that age I didn't actually know that I was listening to the marimba rather than the vibes. I bought my first set of vibes (Jenco) in 1970 after hearing the Canadian rock band Lighthouse use the instrument, and two years later traded up the the Deagan that I still own 40 years later.

It's interesting that today is Terry Gibbs's birthday, and after 16 years of diddling around on the instrument (from 1970 to '86) he was the one who took me on as a student in 1986 and really showed me how to play the instrument in a way that could generate some excitement. Most important, he taught me a lot of stuff that I've applied to keyboard instruments, so the instruction went far beyond just the vibraphone. Basically, it's all about stance and getting a tone. I'm eternally grateful.

Growing up, my dad was ALWAYS playing jazz music around the house, so it sunk into my blood pretty early. In 4th grade, the high school jazz ensemble performed at my elementary concert, and I absolutely fell in love. I swore to myself that I would get into that jazz band no matter what. In 8th grade, I almost dropped out of band because I was a shy girl forced to play mostly mallets because the boys didn't want to and- not to be big-headed- I was a good mallet player (but I wanted to play drums!!!). I still don't really like playing concert mallet percussion instruments, but I REALLY HATED it in middle school.

So anyway, high school came and I worked my butt off on drum set and finally made it into the jazz band in 11th grade. My band teacher always chooses two drummers for the band, so we had to take turns on set. When we weren't playing drums, he encouraged us to try other (mostly) auxiliary instruments, but one day he pulled out a vibraphone feature called "Good Vibes" and asked me to play vibes on it. Suddenly, here was this mallet instrument I actually LIKED playing because 1) I didn't just have to read all the notes on a page and could make up my own, 2) It was my used in my favorite music genre, and 3) It was something most girls didn't play so it made me kind-of unique. I still love drum set, but vibes are number one. I wound up taking a jazz improv course in 12th grade and playing more vibes, and figured I'd continue in college, BUT THEN...

I got to college and really learned how much I love the vibraphone because...it wasn't part of my curriculum at all!!! I was somewhat forced to take a jazz hiatus when I was told I was only allowed to study classical percussion and would have to make time for vibes on my own (which is close to impossible when you've got a full plate of classical assignments to work on). Not being able to play made me realize how much I love that instrument, so junior year I asked a grad student to help me get better so I could at least get into jazz band (I could never get in on drums because unfortunately for me there was a really kickass drummer in my grade who I could never beat...). I made history senior year and became the first vibes player in the jazz ensemble who hadn't gotten in through a drum set audition.

Now I still have a lot to learn, but I would be perfectly happy if I never play classical percussion again, as long as I have my vibraphone...

I initially played trumpet. I started in middle school in 6th grade in the band. I hated it. And I was a little brat in middle school, so I thought it was so lame to play trumpet (no one ever showed me Miles, Freddie, or Diz). So I never really got into it. I was going to quit going into high school, but my parents and a specific teacher forced me to stay with it for at least one more year. So I was in the marching band. I still hated trumpet, but I noticed the marching snare drum, and thought that was really cool. All of those rhythms. I had no idea what was going on but I liked it. I learned how to play snare drum and joined the drumline. I still didn't really play any mallet instruments.

At some point in hs I got really into classical music. Someone showed me the Mouldau and I was floored.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdtLuyWuPDs

And so I decided I wanted to major in percussion to be in an orchestra and do percussion ensemble on the side. In college I joined the steel band and wanted to learn how to improvise. I took a jazz theory class to start to learn how to improvise on steel pan. My teacher asked me if I played vibes. I didn't, nor had I really heard anyone other than lionel hampton. He showed me Milt Jackson and I knew that's what I wanted to play.

I always wanted to do something creative. My whole life. My brother and dad are super analytical people. Less artistic. I think that I didn't want to do something in the sciences because that would be like Michael Jordan's brother wanting to play basketball. When I found improvising, I knew this was what I wanted to dedicate a lifetime too. I'm still in my adolescence, but I still feel the same goosebumps about what improvising and this music almost every day.

Since ever my parents played music at church: simple and from the heart. With my older brother we all listened to very different types of music and there were many intruments in the house. Still I have a very, very limited knowledge in music theory.

October 87, I was hardly 18. There was that local feast with music. I remember sitting on the grace. And there... I saw this guy of my age awesomely playing this incredible instrument... it was a real shock... Today I'm more than happy not to have recovered from it!! :o)

Still it took me some 23 years of waiting: listening, attending many gigs with that French vibist, joining the forum 'thevibe.net', having a few lessons of discovery in 2002 but with nearly no practice... then being invited by Tony to join Vibesworkshop in 2008... to get to that Sunday 2010 August 22nd and finally see entering my house... my own vibraphone!!!

1. I like to play melodies and harmonies

2. I like to hit sonething when I play music(but not drums)

3. I like jazz

My wife and I were watching a home decorating show on TV and the background music was piano and vibes. I already had a piano, and said to my wife, I NEED a vibraphone!

So, for a few years, I had been thinking about it, searching eBay, etc. I finally found one, got permission to get one, put in my bids, and doh!, sniped right from me, with seconds to go. I was determined I wouldn't let that happen again, so I found another set on eBay some months later, made a nice offer, and around November 2007, at age 43, I received, my sweet Deagan 580.

I wish I could remember the show I was watching so I could find the soundtrack that started it all for me.

Barry

What a great topic. (Hey We all like talking about ourselves right???!!!)

Anyway I have only been playing music for 5 of my 52 years. My brother played organ when we were kids and he showed me a few chords and things but I never had any real knowledge or ability. At age 47 I took up the piano, having always loved all the keyboard instruments. I was not brought up on jazz like so many others. I was a typical rock and roll nut like most my age then, and my parents were into pop and swing... I'm still finding new material every single day, but nowhere near enough time to learn all these tunes!!!

Back to the vibes....
I have a friend, Jerry Staples, who kind of took me under his wing as my "musical coach". Here is Jerry's website for his main band, the Free Agents Band. Jerry is really cool songwriter. His dad had been a jazz pianist / vibist when alive and Jerry had his old Deagan set literally under his bed. One day he mentioned them to me and I thought they would be fun to try out, so he let me take them home and I started practicing with him and another guitarist, Norma, who have a duet. That was about 2 years ago. Now the three of us have evolved into the eight of us. I'm in a really neat little band called Woodhouse along with Jerry and Norma, my partner Denise (vocalist), a pianist, Norma's two sons (bass/drums), and to make it all crazy crazy, we have a guy who plays chromatic harp and banjo! I know, what the #$*% is a banjo doing in a jazz act...???? We play mostly originals and a few of the standards (I'm Confessin', A Train, Ain't Misbehavin, At Last etc).

Until earlier this year, I was just goofing around without any real focus on vibes. I found a few videos on the web and learned the "Burton Grip"... Then as a new years resolution, I decided to take some lessons. It was my teacher, Stewart Hoffman, who got me on this site! It's been a great experience but I'm finding my skills are improving at about 1/10th the speed I'd like.

The main reason I like playing the vibes is that it's a bit different from most. I am the only vibraphone player I know in Toronto, other than my teacher! How many guitar players do you all know?!

Please pray for me to win the lottery so I can start my new career as a jazz vibraphone player!!!

Scradley

started playing piano at age 5 . moved to drums and then marimba i high school .. but college is were my vibraphone addiction started .. heard a recording of the modern jazz quartet and then david friedman i was hooked.

My parents forced me to take piano lessons when i was 6.My teacher was around 453 years old,and she did not have the slightest resembance the tattooed redhead college student I asked for..

I had to tolerate this for 3 years but after way too many battles,I was finally triumphant!I got rid of her!

Then I had a music-free break for about 5 years,in order to concetrate on my career in basketball and modelling...but the music bug was still in me,and I started banging on things..I wanted to be a drummer,and asked my parents to fetch me a drums teacher.- my parents feel about music exactly the same things Nitche is feeling about religion-so they said I should learn to play "MUSIC",not just the drums.

So they insulted me by suggesting I should choose some horrible sissy instrument like the violin,but there was noway I would allow this to myself.And so I started taking classical percussion lessons,which was ok,at least I had snare drum lessons,so my drumming technique improved,and finally I was much more popular in school!

So I came across the vibraphone and the marimba by accident!They were close to the snare drum in the practice room!"They chose me!"..snif

In high school, back in the 1960's almost everyone I hung around with was into music in a very big way. Most of them played guitar, and there were drummers around, but not too many bass players so I ended up beginning with the bass by default. I played through the 70's and into the 80's but slowed down and stopped when I finished my "art major" and teaching degrees, got married and started a family. In 1989, while working at Fullerton College in Southern California, I visited one of the school's warehouses to take a look at pallets of "obsolete equipment", which by law the college had to make available to the public through an auction. There were plenty of cool things to bid on... a five foot long, classroom demonstration model of a Pickett slide rule for example.... but what I was most interested in was a pallet that had three brass sousaphones (dented, but complete, including the mouthpieces) and a destroyed Jenkins vibraphone. These poor instruments barely survived the band room. I bid a hundred dollars for the whole pile, and a week later I owned the lot. The vibes had all of the keys, and the frame was solid (but ugly), so I decided to attempt a restoration. I had to find ways to replace the pedal, felt, wheels, motor and a few other minor things, but after a year it was done. There may be pictures of that restoration on the site somewhere. I think I posted them once long ago. As I was restoring it I naturally started to listen to more vibes music and when it was completed I decided to teach myself what I could. I used the Dave Samuels videos and books. It went along like this all through the 90's... but I didn't get too far. In 1999 I met my first "live" vibes teacher, Dave Gerhart. Dave was a percussionist and teacher at USC and Cal State University Long Beach. Like many teacher- musicians, one of his day gigs was to travel with a percussion group to present jazz to students in elementary schools. I got a chance to talk to him after his band was finished playing at the school where I was teaching. I told him about my interest in the vibes (which had grown a bit over the decade), and he suggested lessons at the University on weekends. For about two years I studied with him taking a lesson every two weeks or so. We worked out of the Friedman dampening book and The Real Book (even though I could hardly read music) so when I finally moved on I had a solid footing. Dave also worked in a music store so he helped me buy an M-55. During that time I discovered vibe.net and started attending the annual LA Vibe Summit gatherings. I have been able to meet and be inspired by many of the world's great players at these vibe hangs... Burton, Gibbs, Emile Richards, Dave Pike, Charlie Shoemake, Larry Bunker, Tommy Vig, Joe Locatelli, Nick Mancini.... wow. I also discovered VIbeworkshop.com when it was very young (I remember when the stride vibes video was new) and it has been one of my MAJOR inspirations. Honestly, while raising a family and working full time I have had to approach this as a hobby, so after twenty years I still have a lot to learn. I have to go easy on myself sometimes for not "knowing more and playing better" by now.... but I just came to it late, so whatever. Now that I'm retired (from teaching at least) I have more time to put into it and that's what I'm doing. I've also picked up the bass again. Where did the sousaphones go? I sold them all to a brass instrument repair guy who shipped them to Brazil. Didn't win the slide rule. The Jenkins? Sold it in 2000 to get the down-payment for my Musser. It's been fun thinking about this... where does the time go???

This goes a long way back. Both my parents were professional musicians- classical wind players-and I started as a trumpet player at about 5 years old, enrolled in the state conservatorium,
learning my scales and orchestral excerpts...

When high school came around, I went to a specialist music school, and was told to choose a second instrument. As a 12 year old, already starting to tire of as strict diet of classical music, my first choice was drums, but this was vetoed as it didn't fit with the ethos of the school... I was offered percussion instead, and as I already had a good theory knowledge, I was steered to the keyboard percussion section. I kept this up through school and uni, and some professional work.

I never got around to buying my own vibes, and went on to spend years working as a trumpet player.

After a break from playing for some years, I decided to pursue the vibraphone again, and so 18 months ago I bought an old M55, and am enjoying that fact that I can play chordally as well as melodically, and I don't have to keep in absolutely strict daily training to produce any sort of reasonable sound...

I've already told that story here on the site, but let's go for the short version :
When I was 7, one of my elder brothers made me listen to the MJQ album "PYRAMID", and the sound of the vibes stopped me in my tracks.
Some time later my parents offered me to learn to play an instrument, I answered "the vibraphone", but after a search there was no vibes in the area (I come from a little town in France), that stopped all.
Years later (around my 15) I started to play drum and later guitar. When I moved to a big city I became professional jazz guitarist.
When I got 30 years old, I was playing a year-long gig in a hotel in French Guyana. Having spare time and money, I bought the only vibe avalaible (a 444Hz Tama) and started to play two mallets, totally self-taught. At that time I never had seen a musician play vibes, and never had seen a real vibes (only pictures...), totally unaware of what vibes technique could or should be...
12 years ago vibes slowly faded out of my musical life, I almost quit (1 or 2 gigs a year...)
In March 2010 I suddendly falled on Gary Burton's video where he explains his grip. That was a tremendous shock for me, it opened a new world, and few monthes later I discovered Tony's QDVs, and VW.com. It took me another 6 monthes to suscribe, and the first big surprise was the dampening technique....
I bought 2 vibes, a John Piper prototype (marvellous instrument) and a M55 for the gigs.
Now I'm studying seriously, it took me 51 years since I first heard Milt, better late than never, and that was the best move in my life since many many years !!!

My story is less dramatic than most others. I started on marimba at age 6, and added vibes a year or so later. How did a 6 year old come to pick mallet instruments? I didn't. My parents did. My folks wanted the three children in our family to have music lessons, and my older sister had started taking piano lessons. They looked around the town we lived in at the time and discovered there was a teacher of marimba and vibes nearby. So that's where I was taken to begin lessons. For my first lesson I learned Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. At my first recital later that year, I played Parade of the Wooden Soldiers. The teacher, Evelyn Tucker, had about 50 mallet students and at the time was one of the largest dealers of Musser instruments in the country (she sold instruments to all her students). When I started taking lessons in 1949, the vibraphone was about twenty years old, still a new instrument in the music world. When I was eight, my parents took me to DuQuoin, Illinois to the so-called National Marimba Camp, hosted by Claire Musser himself. About 50 participants came from around the country. I won first prize, and still have the little gold trophy. The vibraphone has come a long way since those early times. - Gary

Hey Guys,

for me it was like this:

I have been a drummer since I was born I guess. My mom lost me when I was 3 years old and found me in the middle of the drum band with my new toy drum playing along...

I had classical lessons from the age of 9. Started with snare drum, then timpani, and then xylophone(George Hamilton Green Stuff). In the meanwhile I played my ass of on drums at home, but not in my lessons. So I got my first lessons on xylophone in the music school around the age of 11 I think. But just a few. I did play some vivaldi stuff in my local drumband on marimba, but that's just once or twice.

I did love the sound of the vibes from the first time I encountered it in local drum bands. But I did not get to studying vibes untill the 3rd year in college(at age 20/21, I think in 2002?). From then on I was hooked on vibes!! I met Tony online a few years later I guess and started studying with him.

I think my first vibe cd was the Jeff hamilton Trio with Frits Landesbergen called Dynavibes. This is really an awesome cd!!!! Frits plays really amazing on that cd!

So that's how it happened with me...

I started on guitar when I was real young, 12 or so. I stopped playing as much between 18 and 21, when I started getting into some bad stuff. in and out of jail a few times, I had more than enough of that lifestlye. I used music as a tool to get myself out of the rut i was in. I ended up taking a Jazz Improv class at the local Junior College playing guitar, and there was a Beautiful Musser sitting in the back... I was so intrigued, I had to learn how to play it. I picked it up pretty quick, and ever since then playing vibes had led me to many good things in life, and I'm sure it will continue to.

Two of the earliest record albums I bought were Space by MJQ & Gary's Genuine Tong Funeral.
A couple years ago I decided I wanted to play chromatic harmonica, my teacher kept asking if I visualized a keyboard, i own a piano? I began to visualize a keyboard eventually, spent more time plunking at the keyboard, learning chords and theory. What's a vibraphone, a big keyboard and only four notes possible, piano simplified. One day I googled vibraphone and found what was available, then I found a thing called an Omega that at the time was only a early prototype, I ordered It. Then I found this site & met Tony at the NewArk, Delaware vibes workshop. That gave me a great start. So the chromatic harmonica got me to the vibes?

What a great topic. (Hey We all like talking about ourselves right???!!!)

Anyway I have only been playing music for 5 of my 52 years. My brother played organ when we were kids and he showed me a few chords and things but I never had any real knowledge or ability. At age 47 I took up the piano, having always loved all the keyboard instruments. I was not brought up on jazz like so many others. I was a typical rock and roll nut like most others, and my parents were into pop and swing... I'm still finding new material every single day, but nowhere near enough time to learn all these tunes!!!

Back to the vibes....
I have a friend, Jerry Staples, who kind of took me under his wing as my "musical coach". Here is Jerry's website for his main band, the Free Agents Band. Jerry is really cool songwriter. His dad had been a jazz pianist / vibist when alive and Jerry had his old Deagan literally under his bed. One day he mentioned them to me and I thought they would be fun to try out, so he let me take them home and I started practicing with him and another guitarist, Norma, who have a duet. That was about 2 years ago. Now the three of us have evolved into the eight of us. I'm in a really neat little band called Woodhouse along with Jerry and Norma, my partner Denise (vocalist), a pianist, Norma's two sons (bass/drums), and to make it all crazy crazy, we have a guy who plays chromatic harp and banjo! I know, what the #$*% is a banjo doing in a jazz act...???? We play mostly originals and a few of the standards (I'm Confessin', A Train, Ain't Misbehavin, At Last etc).

Until earlier this year, I was just goofing around without any real focus on vibes. I found a few videos on the web and learned the "Burton Grip"... Then as a new years resolution, I decided to take some lessons. It was my teacher, Stewart Hoffman, who got me on this site! It's been a great experience but I'm finding my skills are improving at about 1/10th the speed I'd like.

The main reason I like playing the vibes is that it's a bit different from most. I am the only vibraphone player I know in Toronto, other than my teacher! How many guitar players do you all know?!

Please pray for me to win the lottery so I can start my new career as a jazz vibraphone player!!!