It's interesting to note how the physical attributes of players influence how they approach the instrument.

I'm 5'7" when I get up in the morning and probably 5'6" by the time I get home from work to practice. I'm also overweight which puts a bulge in front of me with my belt line right at, or just above, the bars.

The tyrannosaurus rex and I also have something in common. My short arms.
My hands are also relatively small as well. So as you can imagine I'm not exactly a chick magnet. But I have spent the night at a Holiday Inn Express.

I won't be writing stuff out. We're going to use our ears. I know already that that's very difficult with 15 vibe players in the room, but the alternative of writing stuff out just doesn't work for me.

You might want to get into the swing of things by transcribing a little bit each day. Take a solo and just go 1 bar a day.

We're going to sing also, so you might want to put on Aebersold and start singing solos and getting into the swing of things.

More to come!

This old thing was recorded around 1973 using a low end Sony reel to reel and 2 very inexpensive mics, so I apologize for the audio quality. Still, the sound is clear enough to hear the 2 instruments pretty well. I remember having to practice the page turns (there were 3) just as hard as practicing the lines. The bass player was playing a Hofner Beatle bass - remember that? Vibes and Electric Bass doing Bach is weird, but I was into weird back then.

Hey everyone,
I haven't posted in a while but I'm really going to try and start posting more. This is Joe's solo on Verrazano Moon from his gig at Dizzy's on Jan. 30th, 2010. This was definitely a big challenge for me but I had such a great time working on it.
Thanks!
Andrew

I met Gloria through Randy Sutin. Gloria might be the only radio DJ in the world with an all vibes show!!!

Anyway Gloria, a "Who Is" is a post where you can tell us about yourself. So I hope you don't mind Gloria but tell us about yourself and your radio show!!

My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition.

Indira Gandhi

Tell me how long you've been playing. Are you in college?

I'm just curious as to how long you guys have been playing? Who's in college, etc.

Hello Everyone,

This is a six mallet marimba solo. This video is from a tour about 2.5 months ago. This show was at 11am, and I did not feel the greatest, staying up all night before, typical tour! We were abit late getting to the place so we only had 25minutes to unpack. No time for warmup of any sort.

I find tours very interesting. You have to play your best no matter how you feel warm or cold. I think it's a very good experience touring it really forces you to be on your A game.

Things aren't always what they look like.