Hi Everyone,

Can't say I've written a blog before but there's a first time for everything. I was discussing this with John Piper and he thought it would be a great discussion for the community.

This site is obviously a great resource for all of us; looking to become better musicians, enthusiasts, vibraphonists, whatever...and there has been a TON of valuable material posted. I myself check the vibes workshop about 5 times per day to see what is new and what I can add to my practice routine.

I have been working on Tony's Vince Guaraldi etude and was reminded that Christmas Time is (almost) Here (http://www.amazon.com/Charlie-Brown-Christmas-Vince-Guaraldi/dp/B000ICL…) and and would need a couple months to prepare some tunes.

Wow! Check this out: http://vibesworkshop.com/shoutbox

That was the conversation from this morning with Joe Locke, Ed Saindon, John Piper, Myself and a bunch of others!

We're having too much fun. Everybody was drinking coffee and tea and checking out the Latest Joe Locke videos. It was great for me to see those Giants Talking with each other.

Joe practicing at home. Wow!

Joe has more videos up on the site for subscribers! A subscription is $19.95 a month and helps support the site and get MORE lessons up from more teachers around the world! We can't do it without your support.

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Joe's Performance and lesson on 'She's Always a Woman to Me'.

I have been working hard on this Etude but I have not been able to get through it solo without mistakes. I am trying to memorize it though. I decided to use Band-in-a-Box to cover my mistakes. I didn't really learn the 2nd part of the tune so I faded that part out.

I love this tune so I am still going to keep at it.

Here is my audio setup:

I believe there is a very interesting fundamental difference between improvising "lines" and improvising "melodies". What do you think? Is there a discussion here?

Here's a simple and fun challenge. For many, it will be very humbling. When we improvise, we're actually transcribing what we imagine in our head and playing it on our instrument. It's spontaneous composition. That's the goal (agreed?). So, this little beginning exercise is to just take very simple melodies and play them without "working them out" but just playing them as if we were singing them on the instrument. Attached is a list of a few tunes that are very popular children's melodies. There's a list that are diatonic and a small list of songs that use simple chromatic notes too.

After listening to John's ear exercices, I'm just curious about one thing: so far I thought that all Anglo-saxon people were always naming the notes with letters, and that only a few European countries like France were using the D'Arezzo system.

It seems that I was wrong. I had more had looks on scores with chords mentioned with letters, but it's the very first time I hear an English speaking person name notes :o)

So, are you all naming the notes with the D'Arezzo system, and just using the letters for chords naming? Or do you use both systems?

yo,

you have more privileges than any other subscriber. but you're a lot of fun to have on the site. if you want to meet live again, let me know. you should come in one day for a lesson. all that's on me.

you can upload video right to the video module and same with audio.

AFTER YOU POST SOMETHING you should see outline. for all your tech stuff, put it in the tech book. you'll have to scroll WAY DOWN THIS pulldown menu as you'll see.