It has been a frustrating ten days of working on chords to use as a left hand accompaniment to a melody line in the right hand. Six weeks till the sing-a-long at the Rehab Hospital. Working with a FAKE book "Ragtime and Early Jazz", I have a few songs memorized. But my pace is too slow. Tried sight-reading from the book today, and that seems to be coming along a little, but pace there is even slower. The new eyeglasses do help a lot.

I thought I'd share a pretty funny story from a gig last night:

I AM PRACTISING USING THE LEFT HAND. THIS LESSON IS BASED ON A PREVIOUS TOTM SOMEDAY MY PRINCE WILL COME. I THINK VIBRAPHONISTS WHEN WE PLAY MELODICALLY WE ARE MORE HORN PLAYERS. I WOULD LIKE TO STUDY HOW THE PIANO PLAYERS COMP WITH THEIR LEFT HAND...SO I CAME UP IN SOME IDEAS. THOSE IDEAS MABY HELPS YOU BE MORE CREATIVE ABOUT COMPING. I CAME UP WITH THESE RYTHMICALLY AND MELODICALLY MODELS AND POSSIBILITIES AND I HOPE YOU LIKE IT.

THANS

Yo, european cats,

There has been some talk about getting vibes in Europe lately.

We talk a lot about American manufacturers. For European cats it's expensive to get those instruments over.

But there are some great instruments over there for you guys as well.

I dig Premiere, although I can't believe they stopped making their portable instrument. WTF!!
I don't know a lot about adams but I'm sure they have good stuff. Do they make instruments for pros? The ones I've played on were tanks for a marching band. But if they had a good portable model that's cool?

Here's Ed Saindon and Joe Locke doing a great rendition of Stella!

Tony's description (and playing) of the "Batman Blues" finally got the idea of F7|F7|F7|F7|Bb7| etc. across to me. However, now everything I try to play in FBlues mode sounds like Batman, and absolutely nothing sounds like folks in the video listing of blues gods. Anyway, first Blog audio post.

Recorded (shared) headphone output from the Ketron SD2 Midi box attached to the MalletKat into Audacity running on the PC.

I've been getting up and playing a Parker tune or 2 to get my center. Joe Magnarelli does this and I've been trying to adopt it. Rhythmically Parker is pretty heavy IMHO.

Then I'm rehearsing for a string of gigs this week with the same group. It's with Tony Marino on bass and Todd Isler on drums and led by Diane Monroe. So it's going to be a heavy week I think. Marino is such an amazing bass player.

I'm trying to find what year my Musser m75 was manufactured. Does anyone know who to contact? The serial number for the instrument is 0476.

Thanks!
Ted.

This is a performance of a composition from a great friend of mine from Germany Matthias Schmitt.
While not vibes, it is a mallet piece with choir which in our idiom (jazz) seldom to hear.

I hope you enjoy it.
-Todd

I need to confess! I bought a pair of those Sefon Harris Mallets. Big balls, short staff (lol). You know what.... I pick up just 2 mallets every now and then and just play and it is SO MUCH FUN. I get why there are 2 mallet players (and 3 [Mike]). Playing with 2 mallets makes the instrument feel more like a set of drums, more percussion. Anyway that's my take. Any 2 mallet players or 'Bi'-mallet players out there who have anything to add?? 2 mallets seem very very sexy.