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!

Hi Workshoppers,

Just stopping by to say Happy Holidays to all!

I am by no means a composer but I have decided that I should start getting into composing a little more. This is a run through of a tune I am working on. I would really be interested in hearing your feedback before I try to finalize my stuff. The playing of the tune isn't the greatest especially on the solo section (I haven't quite figured out how to solo over my own changes, haha). Also the intro was completely improvised, I figured I'd just mess around with some ideas.

Did anyone see today's Dilbert?

I don't know whether to laugh or cry :-).

Tom P.

Here is a live performance of an arrangement of My Funny Valentine. This was the first tune we played at this gig and we were having all sorts of issues with sound and monitoring levels ...... basically we couldn't hear each other so its pretty loose at first, but thought I'd share it anywyay to give you an idea of the sound of the group and concept of my latin jazz project Latin Vibe. Plus my piano player kept comping all the time even though we worked out to take it in turns !!!

Dave Kemp's arrangement of Milestones for his Latin Jazz project - Latin Vibe. Live performance at the Valley Jazz Festival 2009 at the Judith Wright Centre in Brisbane Australia.