Here are some 4 mallet exercises I made a long time ago. These are just some ideas of how to create exercises to practice 4 mallet playing. I hope you like these. See the attachment for the pdf.
Deconstruct Summer Time Harmony
Man! Back in the day, I used to teach Behn Gillece. He came over today and recorded some lessons and a piece for the school and I learned a ton. Behn has come into his own and is a top notch vibe player! He talked about solo playing and then how to practice chord voicings.
I added some of the stuff to my practice routine! It came around in full circle. Amazing. To be honest he's the best student I ever had. He practiced EVERYTHING I gave him and came back with ideas and questions. Some lessons he'd be talking through the whole lesson. I'd just listen to what he did.
This is a pretty arrangement of Burt Bacharach's Alfie. It's a timeless tune with a great lyric. Check out Stevie Wonder's version on Youtube. It's killin.
A pdf of this arrangement is included. Remember.....make it sound beautiful!!
This is beautiful. Listen to David's ballad playing. The way he comps and solos.
I love the clarity of the chords, the way he I can hear melodies in his chords. The way his lines move the ballad in his solo. This is great stuff.
Don't use the pedal if you don't want to. This is just an exercise in some alternate 4 mallet sticking. Not single lines, but 2 note voicings.
I was messing around with these ideas this morning. I banged this puppy out before heading out to class. I'll double check it later.
Your job is to figure out what standard it is based on, analyze the voicings and play it.
You can name the tune here. It should be obvious!!!!
I added a track with some percussion. This is an etude that should just give you some independent 4 mallet ideas.
Here's something I'm posting that I think helps students to understand how different keys relate to each other (modes, major keys, relative minor etc). It also helps teachers when teaching it.