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That's not for jazz purists, but it's just fun.

I always wanted to test the material of plastic bottles (PETG) as resonance tubes. I have long searched for suitable material in the appropriate diameter grading.
Unfortunately, it is always the case that you have to buy a certain minimum quantitie per diameter. Since I finance all my handicrafts with my private money, I limited the test to only two diameters, but there are also suitable gradings for the tube-in-tube-concept with better fitting to the bar sizes.
The V5 frame with aluminum tubes weighs 20.3 kg, with PVC pipes 19.5 kg and with the PETG pipes only 15.7 kg.

I was working on this song with my student this past week. We were talking about various techniques that can be applied in order to fill things out with the melody and improv. A few things we covered were counterpoint, comping underneath the melody and two hand lines with left hand jabs. All of these techniques will be covered in depth in the upcoming solo vibraphone playing book. Writing this stuff out is hard though. Ha!Ha!

A simple, elegant, and somewhat underappreciated tune by Cole Porter.

"I'll Remember April" from last Saturday's gig. Always a fun night of playing by the fish tank. (The camera was on top of the tank).

Jobim's "How Insensitive" with Mark and I from our steady gig (over 8 years) at Li's last Saturday. Nice to play in a relaxed atmosphere and hang with friends.

"When Sunny Gets Blue" - Working on this classic for the sabbatical project which combines solo vibraphone playing techniques along with various improv concepts. It's been really nice having the sabbatical to write and shed. But, I'm looking forward to getting back to school in the Spring semester to get back in the groove and see the students. It's energizing to be there and interact with the students. Keeps me on my toes. :) The two books (solo vibraphone playing and dampening and pedaling) are basically finished. I now have to go through and edit.

My first post. Going through some old tapes I found a recording (1991) of my duo Mallet Unit. Roland Stolk wrote the piece and plays the vibes. I play the marimba on this tune Foreign Breakfast. Hope you like it.

I just attended PASIC for the first time. I enjoyed it, but for me there were also a number of frustrating moments that I wanted to give voice to, because I think frustrations like these are sometimes invisible if you're not experiencing them firsthand. Here's a link to my blog if you want to read it with photos and nice formatting. I'll also paste the whole entry here.

***Please note that this post may not reflect the opinion of all female percussionists and is not intended to; it is my own personal experience and observations.***

“I Loves You Porgy” – a great ballad by Gershwin. One of my favorites beautifully played by Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett. I’m using some chord changes from Bill and Keith as well as a few of my own. Also using voicings from by book Voicing Concepts for the Jazz Vibist.