by Henry Mancini

An improvisation from my CD called “Crafty Hands.” Using leather-headed mallets, I embark on a journey in F Lydian to play in a Balafon-like style, developing a few motifs and discovering where the energy and groove could lead.

“Emily” - composed by Johnny Mandel in 1964 for the movie “The Americanization of Emily”. The version from the great pianist Bill Evans is a classic. I learned a great deal from Bill. Everything from lines, voicings and harmony to touch and sound. I saw him many times in Boston at the Jazz Workshop. I caught the trio with Eddie Gomez and Marty Morell as well as the trio with Joe LaBarbera and Mark Johnson. With Joe and Mark, I remember sitting very close to the piano and was struck on how swollen Bill’s hands were at the time. In spite of that, Bill and the trio were playing superb.

Available here https://www.johnmarkpiper.com/pipervibe-store#

This is a difficult one.

Again I left the chords out. Get the real book out and write in the changes so you in some small way begin to think about the harmony. Look at the notes and enter the chords.

Can you see the different keys this goes through? Thanks to Bach and the Well Tempered system of tuning, or I think this tune would sound terrible in Midieval tuning! :-).

Play it slowly and work it up.

Here's a simple chord melody on All The Things You Are. I tried to incorporate many of the things we talked about in the Beginner's Course. Sorry about the pedal sound, didn't have time to mess with it today :)

Here's a little preview of a revised old piece I wrote for Percussion Ensemble many years ago. This is a scrolling score computer rendition of the main theme. I've changed a lot of this already but it took 7 hours to upload this little sample due to out limited internet on the ice. I like it and I hope someone else does too.

A classic ballad by Victor Young.

Here’s a brief clip of a dampening etude for the vibraphone titled “Spring” that I just finished composing. The piece features chordal playing along with the dampened stepwise movement of one of the four voices. This will be included in a new book that I began working on a few weeks ago. The book will focus on dampening and pedaling for the vibraphone. I have also been working on a book for solo vibraphone playing. Both topics definitely go hand in hand but I wanted to cover in depth the dampening/pedaling aspect of playing the vibraphone.