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

Here's the second hour, again divided by a few seconds into two half-hour segments.

Hi All,
I am attaching the February Good Vibes program online. In it I talk about the First World Vibes Congress last January and play some music from most of the attendees. It will be in two postings. This is the first hour, which is divided by a few seconds into segments 1 and 2, each a half hour. Listen at your leisure.

Watch Joe Pass. I say guitar players have basically the same problems as vibe players. We can play most of what guitar players play. Not exactly but they're a great source of learning for playing our instrument!

So I was just thinking...

This weekend Tony is organizing a Virtual Day of Percussion featuring the vibraphone. It sounds like it'll be great, but I think the real success will come from how many extra people we- the vibes community- get to participate. At the World Vibes Congress we talked about how important it is for us to promote this instrument, and the VDOP is a perfect opportunity to do that. Unfortunately I won't catch any of the VDOP because of another event, but I'm doing what I can to spread the word and get people to check it out. Here are some ideas: