Check Out The Dampening!

So clean!

Tomas,

First, let me say that your rendition of this beautiful. It sounds clean (as Oliver noted) and precise. I remember - and was impressed by - your Adios Nonino performance as well.

Without being too much of a jerk I would like to make a suggestion on the dampening. I have been playing this piece for about 40 years and when I was unable to practice or play vibes because of my job or family obligations I would always try to play some Bach for a few minutes each week because I loved the sound of it on the vibraphone.

With that said, its true that our physical bodies are all different. Personally, I have had a lot of wrist and arm problems over the years while I believe you are much younger than I am and probably have not had similar problems.

For me, listening to you play this is great, but watching the way you dampen is a bit painful. In a nutshell I don't understand why you force one hand to do so much work to dampen notes while the other hand is doing nothing. It makes a lot of work for your joints and muscles which may cause you pain or problems down the line. This method of dampening makes for very unnatural wrist movements, and in the interest of ease of playing and developing an overall, let's say "universal" way for you to apply dampening in all your performances I suggest you make it easy on yourself and put both hands to work.

In learning a piece like this, it is different from jazz playing in that you are practicing your approach repetitively for maybe hours at a time and you want to reduce the stress on your muscles as much as possible. Maybe this is a one-off and you don't usually dampen this way in which case my critique is misplaced.

I would encourage to rethink your approach and use the mallets that aren't doing anything at the moment to do the dampening whenever possible.

Regards, Jerry

Thanks Tony to Share This!

Hermoso trabajo de Dampening, felicitaciones!!!