I often practise montuno because I love that music. I used to play them only the melody with the left and right hand. In this montuno I finally manage to work on how the left hand can accompany the montuno played by the right hand. Studying solo vibes really gives you freedom to do stuff many styles.

Thanks

Dimitris

This is a series of performances about Tune of the Month – Solo vibes. You can criticize my performance or you can even use these posts as lessons since I play step by step the development of solo vibes according to what I practiced so far.

It’s up to you…

Performance 1: The left hand plays a 2note comping but it has more but it has a more rythmic accompanimment idea than harmonic one. It is some kind of a ghost note thing that I took playing the piano.
The right hand only soloing with one mallet.

Feel free to comment or post

Thanks

Anyone playing the 2nd weekend of November? I think I'll be in NYC then!

This is an exercise that i decided to write down, in order to share with everyone here. The title " Keeping It Close," is a reference to a concept i try to keep in mind when i improvise, especially on fast tunes with many changes. In essense what i set out to do it play all of the changes of the tune with in an octave of the vibes, without jumping around at all. this concept came from listening to horn players like parker and coltrane, taking notice how fluid there lines are in a very small range, but yet they place the notes so the harmony of the tune and also a line is created.

Here is another tune that I am working on for my accordion/guitar jam. It is a Bossa Nova called "My Little Boat" by Roberto Menescal. This is a neat tune where the changes descend chromatically, so you get a chance to work on multiple keys within the same tune. Here are the changes that I worked out. Please correct me if I am wrong.

|BbMaj7|BbMaj7|Asus A|Asus A|
|AbMaj7|AbMaj7|Gsus G|Gsus G|
|GbMaj7|GbMaj7|Fsus F|Fsus F|
|Dm7 |Abdim |Cm7 |Adim |

Barry

Here is Gary France, our Australian member on his mallet kat playing life his composition "Repercussion".

Gary commented for us this picture from his Face Book album: "Repercussions was a film that I composed, a 42 min sound track. We then presented a version where I played a set of digital instruments, mallet KAT etc live with the film, along with an actor and dancer. I have quite a few more projects that I will post from time to time."

Very cool huh? Go Gary!! :o)

Man...I think this blog thing is really helping me. Tonight I wasn't going to spend a ton of time on Afro Blue, but then I said "No, I've got to work on that transcription so I can post!!!".

Let me introduce you to Gabriel "Slam" Nobles. He's a fine vibist from what I call the "Vibe Summit" team. He lives in California and I totally dug this picture of him! He nicely allowed me to post it here... to join the 'Picture of the Month' section of our next Newsletter! Go Mr. Slam!! :o)

Had the chance to see Chick Corea and Gary Burton and the Harlem String Quartet in Burlington VT last night. What a show. Great tunes, beautiful arrangements and unreal musicianship. The best part of the show, besides Gary Burton's unbeilably fluid lines (how can lines be so smooth?) was that all the musicians really wanted to share their music with the audience. They were into it! Thank you to Chick Corea and Gary Burton for continuing to Tour!