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The Sunset Bell by Gary Burton (solo composition as young player)

This is a wonderful video of a very young Gary Burton performing a solo piece. I think it's an original composition of Gary's. I'm sure he'll watch the video and comment here on it.

What was amazing to me is besides the haunting beauty of this piece was his technical facility at performing a rubato flowing piece like this. I think the dampening is incredible. Check it all the dampening he's doing with his palm.

--Tony Miceli

p.s. I forgot to give credit to John Daly who caught the video on tv and quickly recorded it knowing it would be valuable to the site.

Invitation by Ed Saindon & Philippe Mace, Paris Music Conservatory, 5/7/09

Here’s a clip of Philippe and me playing Bronislau Kaper’s composition Invitation. It’s an unusual standard in terms of the melody, harmony and form. The A section has long durations of minor 6th chords which allow for some nice, open type of playing. The bridge has more conventional II-7 V7s resolving to minor 6th chords. The melody is quite angular and filled with rich tension over the underlying harmony. That’s what makes it such a great tune to play. Nice melody and harmony. Not to mention the ABA form with a tag ending.

Almost 1 Year Old

August 1st vibes workshop will be 1 year old. It's been a very hard and fun year. I've mad so many friends from all over the world and we have this instrument in common. That's totally cool.

The site is slowly growing and things are starting to happen. I think next year will be an even better year. It's great that many of you are willing to support the site as you do. I think we're going to build something great.

The Music, You and the Night

I was practicing You and the Night and the Music, tonight and thought I'd whip something up for the site.

So here's a sort of duet. I figured out the vibe part and started messing around and adding some other parts and it turned into a sort of duet.

Also here is a practice take of me playing the vibes! I wasn't happy with the ending as you'll be able to tell by how I drop the sticks. Anyway, check out the etude and play along with the duet. It's lines and comping. You can listen to the midi part to see what it sounds like together and then play along with the 'no vibes' mp3.