Most Popular Lessons

Check out Patty playing the Friedman etude No. 13. What's great is since her right hand is injured, she's using just her left. During her injury that lasted 6 weeks she practiced like a maniac with just her left hand. I BET HER LEFT HAND is pretty happening now! huh?

Another great lesson from Gary Burton! This is Part 1, so more is on the way!

This is a difficult chord study etude. It's straight eighth notes and based on 'Blues for Alice' changes. Definitely not a performance piece but it will get you moving around the instrument and working on chord melody ideas.

Has anyone seen this up on the site? I couldn't find it but found it over at larrysimprovpage.com

This is the first video I ever did. I got a lot of notice for the washer and dryer in the background. I had no clue as to what I was doing. I was trying to start QDV's! Quick and Dirty Videos!! Where nothing mattered but the content! That's so funny now to me.

Here's another great lesson from Joe Locke! This is great! I'm stealing it as you read this!!!! - Tony

Here is my Drop 2 version of "As Time Goes By". All I am doing here is playing the melody harmonized in Drop 2 voicing. When there is no melody, I fill it in a little but I was trying to keep it simple. I have attached the music to what I play in the video below in my comment.

This takes a lot of work to do smoothly on the vibes. It does not work for every melody, nor would you want to play like this all the time but I think it adds a sophisticated vocabulary to the instrument.

The best thing about a jazz swing bass line is it does 2 things. The first is it is supposed to outline the chord changes very clearly. The second is in it's main function it insists on being played on each beat. A great way to study chords and improvisation is to play bass lines. This doesn't have to be strict for our purposes. By this I mean you don't have to stick to the low end of your instrument. If you're not a bass player just play quarter notes and outline the chords. Below is an example of a simple blues bass line.

Victor Provost is a top notch steel pan player. He's joining vibesworkshop.com to create the pan part, which will be called panworkshop.com and reside along side of the vibe section. Here Victor talks briefly about the history of the pan.

Hey all, I'm starting a new lesson series with the goal of transferring some pianist language over to the vibes. I am a pianist and a vibraphonist, so a lot of my practicing has been doing just this.

The first is on Oscar Peterson, who is actually, I think, one of the best-suited pianists to adapt to the vibes, and I play with this stuff all the time.

This is a good example of a basic solo arrangement for vibes. Mallet dampening should be used on the first 16 bars of the melody to keep the notes from running together. You won’t be able to use the pedal because it will be down to allow the chord voicings to ring.

Print the head arrangement HERE