Tony and VW guys, I hope the Virtual Day of Percussion went well today. I'm sorry that I couldn't be around for that. I was involved in a promotional video shoot for Berklee. The session included an array of percussion, drum set, steel pan and mallets. The piece was arranged by drummer Mark Walker who also played on the session. Dave Samuels played marimba and I was on vibes. The piece was titled Island Hopping and featured 6 segments of various grooves including Tango, Samba and Calypso. Lots of fun.

HERE IS THE PLAYLIST FOR PART 2 OF OF THE DAY OF PERCUSSION FEATURING THE VIBRAPHONE.

Playlist for Part 2

I'm trying the hangouts. i think you can get to it here: Google Hangout Page

At 5pm the site will be open to all. From 5pm to 7pm

I have been checking out the Gyil players and thinking a lot about what they do. I don't know how far i'll dive into it but I dig it a lot! I might actually try and transcribe some stuff, we will see.

But I wanted a first try at importing some of that in my playing. Maybe it shows, maybe it doesn't, but it is influencing me. it's more separation in the hands. That leads to more double sticking and even triple sticking. Sometimes it's a bit of a struggle to keep the melody in my head going. I think for me single sticking a lot is best for that!

I've been working on montunos and on soloing over modes, so I decided to put the two together and see what happened. I used a Latin percussion backing track from GarageBand, recorded a montuno pattern over it, and soloed on top. The form is AABA: the A section uses D Dorian and the B section uses Eb Dorian. Feedback appreciated. Enjoy!

I'm in a weird phase with sticking. I'm really messing around with combinations. If I had time (and I just might) I want to transcribe a great Gil player. Those guys have amazing independence and I think we can learn a lot from them.

Here are two exercises i did today. We should make a database of cool Warm Up Phrases (WUP's) :-)

Hey guys:

Nova Bossa by Dimitris Angelakis, played by Dimitris Angelakis, Miguel Cabana and Marosa Jazz Project