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White Christmas

In a lot of my tunes lately, I have been using mallet 4 for the melody, which is not the normal stick for the Miceli grip, which I use. I have been doing a lot of 3 note chords/arpeggios with mallets 1,2,3. This is another example of me using mallet 4 for the melody (I think I am playing it a little too fast).

I referenced Tony's intro to his grip in the "Check This Out", above. He talks about how different grips lead towards different styles of playing.

Barry

Sticking Exercise

Here is a little piece of music(see attachment) from a theater show I'm doing n Januari. This is a short introuction to the third part of the show. I thought this would be a good exercise for sticking.

A lot of guys are always asking: "What sticking should I use?" The thing with sticking is that you can always do it in a lot of ways.

Here's a Quick Practice Tool - One and One

Real simple. Pick something. Play it and record it listen back and do it over and over for an hour or so.

Record then listen to it. Just keep the cycle going and don't interrupt the cycle.

Real simple real easy. Maybe a head to a tune? maybe a solo? Maybe a written out piece.

Play and record it. Sit and listen to it back immediately and then play and record it again and do this over and over.

Miceli Grip with Mallet 4 Melody

When I started playing with 4 mallets, I had to choose which grip to use. I decided to use the Miceli grip because it seemed like an intuitive transition from using 2 mallets, where the inner mallets (mallets 2 and 3) usually handled the melody and the outer mallets (1 and 4) helped with the harmonies. It seemed to me that if you wanted harmony, it would be above the melody (e.g., a third), with mallet 4. As I understand the Burton grip, the melody is usually played with mallet 4. It didn't seem natural to me so I stuck with the Miceli grip.