Hey Tony,

This is the best of the Rainbow attempts I've made in the last few days. I tried to incorporate as much as I could from the ideas you gave me in the lesson. I'm still a little confused though about the substitution going on in the first few bars....the A-7b5 D7b9 G-7...but you're right, I have heard it played like that before.

I'm actually pretty jammed today...do you have any time available tomorrow? If not we can do it early next week...I have plenty to practice until then :-)

(This is a piece I wrote and have named it after the great composer Vince Guaraldi. The lead sheet is here, as well as an etude where you can work on different aspects of solo playing.)

This will be a multi part lesson. The actually lessons are listed right above here.

Part 1 is the arrangement with no chord symbols. You try and figure them out.
Part 2 I'll add the chord symbols.
Part 3 I'll play the piece and solo on it for you to hear.
Part 4 I'll write out a single line solo for you play and study

Made you look!

I decided to go back and transcribe Coltrane's Giant Steps solo again. I did it a LONG time ago! It's like when you re-read a novel that you read 25 years ago, it's kind of like new, but there's something familar as you go along.

I'm doing this and thinking about all the guys who say, don't transcribe and I'm thinking, wow, from my perspective that's so ridiculous.

I dig logging in here and seeing 4 to 8 guys online going around the site. That alone gives me a good feeling.

I took a break this week from putting new video up and I've been experimenting with ways of putting it up quicker and easier, but still decent quality. I'll get a decent system down.

But I know there's a ton up here now and plenty to work on. Some of you guys are commenting on stuff, I'm getting Skyped, and IM'd, getting questions. It makes it all worthwhile.

you still working on friedman?

check this out. blue bossa stuff.

you got all my stuff? everything cool on your end? got stuff to work on? i'll listen to rainbow now, see if it's fixed.

Just got the Garritan Jazz & Big Band sounds for Band in a Box and decided to try it out with Blue Bossa. I am getting better an memorizing the changes and trying some improv.

Still finding my way around.

However, Tony is offering you guys some valuable avenues to obtaining musical knowledge and information, as well as unifying a community of musicians. My experience has been that vibe players are "outsiders". Yes we provide music, good music, good additions to bands but we were never the band, mostly the guys who "stand over there someplace." "Find a spot over there" etc., etc. Things are getting better and Tony is leading the way in understanding the complexities of being a vibraphone player.

Here's a lesson from a Percussion Geeks Episode on dampening. I think you'll find it pretty helpful.