Getting to meet the members of the site is an incredible thing. You make all these friends online and then here they are.

That is totally cool. Getting to meet Marie Noelle (and her best friend Bernard) after all the conversations online is a really great thing. Seeing old friends like John Daly and Tarik was great. Meeting new friends from the site, like Nico from France and the Friedman Clan (Simon and Charlie) is all a thrill for me. This is exactly my fantasy for the site, to bring us all together. To see all the hard work pay off is really cool.

Check out this etude. It's playin over the tune 'Do Nothing 'til You Hear From Me'. It's a 2 mallet solo however it's a melody and an accompaniment. It's really important to be able to make harmony work in the simplest way possible. Ultimately can you play a single line and outline the harmony of a tune? If you don't understand think about the Bach solo flute, violin and cello sonatas and partidas. Study them and you'll learn a ton about bebop.

Anyway, here's me playing an etude and below is a PDF of one you can work on.

Yep, there are several different blues scales. They each have a unique quality. Of course they do, any grouping of notes will have a quality that's unique and different from other groups. For instance play a major scale. Now flat the 3rd. Just changing one note is going to uniquely change the sound of that scale or grouping of notes.

Smokin' and LA who's who band

Hi All,

Here's a solo version of "Alone Together" for your consideration :-). I've been trying to get this together for weeks now, but have been battling technical issues and finally just decided to give up. There's some buzzing and clicking in the audio -- I have no idea where it comes from unless my computer just can't keep up with recording both audio and video. When I do just audio it's fine. Plus, I kind of spaced out on the melody in the last chorus.

But in the spirit of "perfect is the enemy of good", here you go. Comments appreciated :-).

Tom P.

Hi!

This is just another practice tape on Summertime actually the first jazz song I ever played in my life.

Well I also want to ecourage all of you who are amateurs like me and have not yet posted anything (remember there are 1000 people registered on this site)

Thanx for listening, critiques are welcome

Cheers Stefan

(Civil Engineer, 36yrs, from Europe, play vibes since 2006)

A Canadian player who has played with many greats includung Benny Goodman. Here it looks like he's having fun. Nice understated sound.

Hi,

I'm trying to upload a video, but it says that the size limit is 1MB. Is that true? You can't get much video in 1MB!

I'm trying to upload directly here -- I just want this to be available to VW'ers, not the general public -- so uploading it to YouTube and linking isn't really what I want to do.

Any help appreciated :-).

Tom P.

Here is my recording of the Dave Friedman dampening and pedaling Etude 20. Please let me know what you think. Thanks!

If you can deal with my singing, (it sucks) then check this lesson out on intervals. If you are having trouble hearing intervals then this way of practicing them might help you.

I always say if you're going to play this instrument, it's your obligation to work on your ears.

Good ears help you stay focused because you understand what's being 'said'.

My singing sucks, but this is how I practice intervals.