My Dad's birthday passed recently and, true to form, I gave him some customized music. Most of it was classical pieces I had prepared on marimba and vibes: Chopin Prelude in E minor, Bach Prelude in C minor, Mozart Violn concerto (the one from the Goldenberg book) and a few jazzy numbers. To pad the disc I did an improv on the marimba where I had no pre-conceived notions when I pressed record other than I wanted to play something pretty/beautiful. Did it work?

A friend of mine sent this to my Facebook page. Enjoy!

I've got me a guitar player ! This is way better than being always alone with Band In A Box. It's more human. Caz Cazorla is the guitar player's name. His real first name is Jean-Michel, but I told him with such a name he wouldn't go anywhere. So "Caz" came down today over his lunch break and we did Invitation. This is after studying Tony's stuff. Tony, if you listen to this, I hope you will hear I've been doing my homework (in spite of my years, ha ha). Sorry it's a bit long (6 choruses) but we were having fun. Bass and drums are Real Tracks.

Ok, so trying to run a site and practice can cause marital problems.

My wife was on my case big time about not doing enough around the house. I don't have time, I said. But she kept the verbal abuse coming. So I bought a Roomba.

As I write this I'm actually cleaning my upstairs. You see I told her I'd take over the vacuuming and she agreed. So I went out and bought a Roomba which is a robot vacuum cleaner. So now I can practice and clean at the same time.

Now she's saying that that doesn't count, but she's not going to win that one!

This shows the leg frame that I've put on my personal instrument. You'll notice that there are no casters and a lighter-weight leg frame than the piper vibe. I changed my Piper vibe over to this so that I didn't have that extra weight, clumsiness and noise of the casters. Since the instrument is only used by me, I don't need the height adjustment so I just cut the legs to the size I needed and got rid of about 30 pounds. The casters were replaced by furniture skids made from Teflon. They move easily enough across a stage or carpeted floor but are much more steady for the instrument.

The springs on the strings have always been a pain. They scratch the bars in transit and take forever to change when your string wears out. This way, you don't need springs and you can get the string as tight or lose as you like in less than five seconds. You can also maintain a long length of string on one end and when the string starts showing signs of wear, just pull it thought and cut it off. Check it out. It should be on every instrument. I don't think I've ever shared these pictures on the site before but if I have, please forgive the re-post.

I have been playing drums 45 years most of the time pro . I have always loved the vibes, for a short time in the late 70's i had a few lessons but due to being on the road i never had time to stay with it. back then i had a set of jenco. i am looking to start playing and want to get a good set of vibes. Because most of my work now as a drummer is electric (roland TD20 sx) I picked up a malletkat pro ws and a kurzweil sound mod. I am now looking for a set of vibes for my home studio. I was looking at the musser 55 pro also looking at the musser 58m piper, any advice on witch way to go?

This is a sweet little Aria Bach included in his "Notebook for Anna Magdelana". It translates well as a solo piece for vibes. I used to play lots of short pieces like this for restaurant gigs. They really helped to fill up the tip jar!

A pdf of the arrangement is included. Merry Christmas everyone!