Blog Entry - Aug 9, 2017

Cherokee - this morning's practice focusing on playing 8th note lines using mostly alternate sticking.

Hi All,
Yikes, the August show is tonight, August 6th! Sorry for the last-minute notice. The month got away from me! Don't forget there is always the rebroadcast on the following Wednesday at 4:00p.
Tonight is 8-10p, www.wwfm.org. This is our new website that will take you to our stations, classical and jazz. Select jazzon2 to get to the jazz side.

Hi all,

I thought I'd share this link. It's a pretty positive review from Percussive Notes of a marimba piece I wrote about two years ago. It was recently published by Marimba Productions Inc. and performed by Gwen Dease at the past PASIC. It's being featured right now at the mostlymarimba website. If you're interested in playing it or know someone who may be, please pass the word along. Here's the link;

The recent post about piano players imitating vibes on an electronic keyboard got me thinking about grace notes.

It is my understanding that, in the Baroque era, these were mostly a notation shorthand. They were but one of many melodic ornamentations available. The playing convention was to give them a specific rhythmic value.

One of my favorite songs from Pat Metheny. A lovely song beautifully played by Pat. The album "Letter From Home" is also one of my favorites from Pat and his group. Here's my take on it. I was going for a subtle version with restraint and a focus on playing counterpoint using dampening. When Pat was playing with Gary in the 70s, I remember going to Gary's office at Berklee and many times seeing Pat dabbling on the vibes. He sounded good too!

Chinese translation is for Chinese students
這一集我們仍然要講intro，但是並不是要給你新的和聲進行，
而是要給你一個不同的概念，
我們之前講的都是和弦式的打法，但是其實你可以演奏線條性的旋律（lines），
只要非常清楚的讓大家聽到和弦的性質以及色彩，
小技巧是，在快要進入曲子的前一兩個小節，你可以開始演奏一些和弦（voicing），
讓前奏聽起來清楚，讓大家可以知道你演奏到哪裡。

Fairly easy drive into Boston this morning so I had some practice time before class. Warming up with a bluesy version of Duke Ellington's "Don't Get Around Much Anymore".