Watch Alternate Mode's TV Station right here!

This vibe hang we're doing on August 27th.... I talked with Mario over at Mallet Kat. We're old friends and we think alike in many ways. He wants more people to know about his electronic instruments. Not just for the money, Mario BELIEVES in them. He can play the crap out of all those instruments he sells. He loves them. He is one passionate guy!

I thought it would be great to tie in with him and have a real mallet night once or twice a month. I'm sure we'll have kinks to work out but we'll work them out.

Two things are on my mind. One is an etude of a tune that I wrote called 'Vince Guaraldi'. It's a waltz and I decided to make a study around it. So i'm writing a simple version of the tune and then we'll talk about it. Then I'll write a more involved version and a solo section.

I'm also thinking about Donna Lee and Blue Bossa (one's easy and one's hard) and making a study out of that. All this should happen next week.

I'm excited about the 'vibe hang' next wednesday night and eager to make that a regular event where vibe players can all come and hang out.

Just started learning the Friedman Etude No. 1. I need to work on getting more legato (dampen simultaneously with hitting the next note), dynamics and bringing the speed up.

Ahhh, welcome to the first etude of the Friedman book. You're about to embark on a really great journey!

On the last day of the workshop here in Ireland, we took Donna Lee and Analyzed it over 2 hours. Everybody was really into it and we barely scratched the surface so I'm thinking of doing a weekly lesson when I get back and we can all just tear apart that tune. Bar by bar.

We took each lick and worked on it, studied the harmony and tried to worked on the chords.

So I'm thinking of spending a few months studying that!

All the English accents! Pretty funny to hear all the accents in one room and all the slang and all the curses! I had a student who was from London and it was very hard to understand him.

The 3 musicians I'm playing with are real pros and sound great. You know you're always worried about that when you're far away. That is how is the band going to sound. It can be a disaster, but this worked out well. The trick is to bring really good charts with everything laid out well. I didn't but it didn't matter cause these guys were great players.

The workshop in Ireland is great. I have some footage i'll upload probably when I get back. I do have audio from the workshop that I'll post when I get back. I'll have to edit some of the mp3s to make them more concise.