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This is a great exercise for all levels, but very good for beginning level players!

I was practicing lines over one of my favorite tunes, "Pent Up House", by Sonny Rollins. My inspiration for this exercise was the melodic and rhythmic strength of Sonny's lines. He always plays the song and you can hear it in every chorus.
The second challenge for me was to make the harmonic movement audible with every line and phrase.
Not an easy task. And then, of course, there's the ultimate challenge when playing lines without accompaniment or a metronome; keeping the time!

Hey Vibesworkshop,
Wanted to share a recording (unfortunately unmixed) of a tune I wrote called "Think as a Mortal". I recorded this with my jazz fusion group "MELA", who will be releasing their first album on July 1st.

The name of the tune comes from a saying from the Delphic Maxims, a collection of aphorisms written by ancient greek orcales, and was written to features MELA's Bass player Shea Glasheen.

Think as a Mortal - MELA
Frank Valente - Vibraphone
Paul Sottnik - Piano
Shea Glasheen - Bass
Allen - Guitar
Jake Payne - Drums

Improvising on the B Minor Double (Sonata II) from Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for Violin Solo. One of my favorite books of music from Bach which is perfect for vibists. Fun and great practice improvising over the changes to classical pieces like this. Sometimes I'll do this with my students at Berklee. We'll select a piece of music, analyze the progression, write in the chord progression and begin to improvise.

Here's an excerpt from a clinic where I talked about voicings and harmony. All the great players have a solid grasp of voicings and harmony. I remember Gary telling me in lessons way back that every voicing should have something interesting about it whether it be an unusual tension, shape, interval,...In a lot of solo vibe performances I hear the changes but the harmony is too bland. It's especially important to sound a tension on a Dom 7 chord. You wouldn't hear a solo pianist or guitarist sound the changes without any color.