I really want the TOTM to succeed and for you guys to memorize tunes. I think you'll be happy you did!

I'm trying out yet another web conferencing package. This one looks cool. If it works we could meet once a week or once every 2 weeks and work on the tune, live.

The problem is the audio, as we don't need great video, but we need decent audio. I'm assuming it won't be up to par, but I'm working on it.

We could attempt to do this in ustream, it might be a little clunky but it could work.

Anyway I'm still at it.

I broke down My Romance into sections. Try this approach, take little chunks of the tune and work with them. I have six sections below that cover each little part of the tune. See can understand the harmony of each one of these sections, and be able to move the harmony around in different keys. The idea is that you study one little section and that section makes sense to you, and then he studied the next, and then when you put it all together you you understand the whole tune.

VW is excited that we will be included in the syllabus for the percussion department at the University of Delaware. Harvey Price and all of his students (21) will be subscribers on VW. This is exciting news to us, because one of our goals is to get universities percussion departments involved in the site.

In the two years I have run this site, I've learned that the end of August is a pretty quiet time. I realize people are on vacation, students are getting ready for college, people are just basically chilling and waiting for Labor Day, and then to get back to work, school, etc.

I've also watched the site grow for the past two years, and checked out the community of vibe players that has built around all this. It's not nothing short of spectacular. The fact that we have almost 1500 members from all of the world on this site is truly remarkable.

okay, so her two weeks into the tune of the month. I'm curious as to your thoughts of what's happened so far, what's happening to you, and what you think of this process.

I know for myself that just thinking about things changes my direction and give me things to learn. I personally got way more into tunes based on the tune of the month club and have altered my practicing and am studying lots of tunes again. I know for myself this is been a great thing.

Here's a little suppliment to the 2nd lesson on My Romance.

Below is an etude I wrote to go along with the lesson.

Consider this a more advanced lesson or a supplement to lesson 2.

i was inspired by behns post playing a tune with just lines and as i was currently practicing donna lee i thought to use this tune for it. here´s the result with some blue notes in the theme...like always...

p.s. next is working on different keys...i know. working on it.

Florian messing around on the vibes... :o)

- MN + F

I'm inspired by the TOTM gang.

I used to have a database on my palm phone with several hundred tunes on it. I knew almost all of them at one point. Then I switched phones, got a palm pre and didn't switch all that over.

However you guys inspired me and a week ago I installed a DB program on my Iphone. I put in about 200 tunes and am building the list again. I have a DB set up with a few different views.

All tunes
Swing tunes
ballads
up tempo tunes

Then I have a pop menu for each tune. Either I know it, have to refresh it (means I can fake it if I have to), or learn it.

I was practicing a few weeks ago and when reviewing some of my taping, I really liked this one for some reason. It is quite short so I decided to share it. it was practice with some different goals, most of which were accomplished.

BruceW :-)