I love, love, love Steve Swallow's playing and his compositions. Thinking out Loud is a tricky one to improvise on because the keys change frequently and go all over the place. The goal is to try to improvise logical phrases that define the changes AND make sense melodically.

Analyze the changes carefully, figure out what chord scales you want to use, and practice moving from one to the next smoothly.

A PDF lead sheet is attached

Here's an Etude for Here's That Rainy Day. Print out the parts and 'get to work'!

I used lots of space in this etude. Short notes with rests. I like playing like this and I like the sound of the instrument like this. It's so easy to play too much stuff and VERY hard to just play a little.

The percussion part is a little different as you'll hear. But don't you think it's cool to play with simple percussion and ALL the music is there? The time, the rhythms and the harmony.

"Danny Boy" for St. Patrick's Day. The inspiration for this rendition came from pianists Bill Evans' and Keith Jarrett's beautiful versions.

This is a past Percussive Notes article from 2000 that addresses a variety of Tension Resolution techniques for jazz improvisation. Tension Resolution is one of the chapters in The Complete Guide To Improvisation Volume 1.

Here's the link to view and download the article:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0TwrpqjL6dQfnZ1RGJMSC1wMVJWVzZ…

Vibe hang this Saturday! March 21st. Then after Arthur Lipner will give us a password to watch his documentary 'Talking Sticks'.

Vibe Hang 1-3pm
Talking Sticks 3pm

All U.S. East Coast Time (New York Time) UTC/GMT -4 hours

Hi guys !
I recently saw Mathiaus Haus in concert at Spring Vibes Session in Wuppertal playing a Musser M 55 with KandK Sound System with Audio Midi Interface. The mix of acoustic vibes and Midi banks was beautiful !
Mathias said to me after the concert that KandK had been cut off the Midi Interface just after it came out, kind of 20 years ago.
I own a Musser M48 equiped with KandK piezo mics. It works great for acoustic amplification ! No need overhead mics.

This is a sneak preview of a new trio album I just finished mixing. The rhythm section consits of two of the "rising stars" on the german jazz scene, Oliver Potraz, bass and Tilo Weber, drums. This is a tune of mine called, "Thursday Lines". Hope you enjoy it.

Here are some beautifully improvised choruses by Gary which were recorded during a 1985 clinic in Argentina. Gary was talking about improvising with motives. Gustavo had this tape of the clinic and transcribed the choruses from the clinic.