I did a study of this tune over the last several days with some specific things in mind. Here's what I did and here are some practice tape versions of the tune.

1. I fell in love with the tune
2. Downloaded Tony Bennet singing it. Ahhhhh
3. Watched youtube versions of the tune, listening to the guitar and melody, etc.
4. Learned the tune
5. Tried to make a solo version where I captured as much of the rhythmic element as possible. I'm on my simple kick so I tried to play bare minimum and focus on the time and rhythm. In head I kept thinking of the surdo.

Sorry to re-surface this lesson but for some reason it was listed as "new" in my posts and when I checked on it the accompanying PDF was missing. Just thought I would fix it.

Here are a couple bars of the Chopin Prelude no. 4 using different sets of mallets.

Maybe we can have a mallet exchange and write up our experiences and post samples.

Barry

I took on the challenge of learning the Chopin Prelude no. 4 that Dana posted (See Check This Out). It looked relatively easy. Nice and slow, not so many notes. But, it was really tough for me. I needed to do some revoicings because some of the notes fell below the low E. I also spent time analyzing the chords and wrote names above the measures. There are some awkward arm positions where I needed to hit notes that are close together, on the ends of the bars, and got some clunkers.

I always tell my students to transcribe Cliffords solo, especially the first 2 or 3 solos. It's a masterpiece!

I just got off the phone with Terry Gibbs and we had a GREAT talk. He's such a hip guy.

I thought I'd pass along a compliment. Terry said he loves the site and he especially loves all the knowledgeable vibe players on the site. He said he thought our discussions and comments were very intelligent.

I'd have to agree with that. A lot of you cats are pretty wise!!!

I ordered his book and am excited to read it and maybe discuss it here on the site!

I've posted several of these videos. What a great team Terry and Buddy make! They swing so hard. Check out this ballad.

On fire. This is so swinging I'm dying!! Check this out! What a team, Terry and Buddy.

A great video with Terry and Buddy. Check out Terry's solo! Smokin'!!!

Isn't Adrian the real first vibe player? Check this out. I wonder how old it is? And he's playing with 4 mallets and seems to be pretty good at it.

This is a great video!