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Rockin Out On the Mallet Kat! by Tony Miceli (All done on the Mallet Kat)

I couldn't help it. I got up and was going to make a video on how to hold 2 mallets. I thought hey I'll set up the Mallet Kat and just play around with it. 4 hours later, I came up this. YOU HAVE TO PLAY IT LOUD! WARNING IT'S NOT JAZZ!

Holy Crap to be able to this with the Mallet Kat is amazing. I had chills while I was doing this. Deep down I want to be a total ROCKER. Live on a bus, NEVER EVER cut my hair or beard. You get the picture.... ZZ Top.

So check this out. All done with the Mallet Kat into Logic.

Comping Short Etudes

Here's a pdf and accompanying audio with some short 'etudes' on comping.

I have a ton of stuff stored up over the years from teaching online. These are some short examples of comping I made for somebody somewhere!

I have audio with and without the vibes. So you can work them up and play them alone.

Get the essence of them, and see if you can play them with no accompaniment but still here the band! In order to practice comping you need to be able to do that. Hear the music inside of you.

Double Stop Accompaniment

Here are some exercises from my old practice book. I was thinking about accompaniment with lines. I realized that you have to get the left hand sort of automatic and plopping down double stops and that will give the accompaniment feeling. I do it a lot when I'm playing faster tempos.

The pdf is attached below. Also I have an mp3 which is from a midi file where you can hear each exercise.

As Fast As You CAN!

An incredibly unmusical but important exercise. Start at the bottom of your instrument and play 1 bar of 16th notes on each note. Go all the way up and then all the way down! See how far you can go. When you can do the whole instrument your hands are in good shape.

I'll attach a pdf, but this should be pretty self explanatory.

This is Exactly What I Mean

Ok, when I say the vibes are more like a guitar than a piano, this is what I mean. Check this cat out and think about this. If that was a set of vibes and the same notes came out, can you see how we could totally do that on the vibes. It would fit all the parts he's playing, the concepts, everything.

That's what I mean, as vibe players that's what I think we're going after with 4 mallets. For me the piano implies separation between the hands and the vibes are about integration between the hands.

Here is the Dilemma!

At one time i knew every MONK tune by heart. I played in a Monk band and over 2 years I had every tune down. 6 months after the band stopped playing, I knew about 1/3 and now, not really any except the ones everybody knows.

This is something we all have to face and as far as I'm concerned there's only one true answer here. Anyone know of any others?