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Here's a tough mental challenge.

Hey everyone.... This is my first blog on Tony's site and wow what an honor to be in such company as Tony, John, so many heavy hitters... very nice

Anyways. in the past couple months my life has been so hectic working working working that i have barely any time to play my vibes, which at first drove be completely insane. However, what i have found in the process i would like to share with you ...What i have found in my time away from play the vibes is alot of ear training, listening, and mental practicing.

Here's the complete Shapes and Patterns of Music book for Subscribers. Thank you for your support of the site!

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to share my enthousiasm on the program Rhapsody. It's a great program by Realplayer and let's you listen to loads of music(and a lot of jazz) without having to buy cd's or tracks! They have a subscription that is about 12 dollars a month and you can listen to full length tracks unlimited. And the good thing is that you can also download the tracks so you can listen to them offline.

I'm using this now as a tool to get to know a lot of jazz standards. You can search by track name and then you can listen to versions of a tune by many different artists.

The conversation that recently took place regarding improvising on the blues has given me food for thought for a blog. I think intellectualizing music through analysis is a good thing if fully understood. The process of analyzing music helps to teach and learn new things about music and often helps to find weaknesses and holes in our knowledge.

I was having some thoughts on transcribing so I thought I'd post them here.

So I was transcribing the Steve Nelson solo on Beautiful Love today and I remembered some guys here talking about programs to slow down music to transcribe and stuff like that.

My thoughts on that are that you shouldn't even want to use that kind of stuff to transcribe.

I love Steve Nelson. He has played a lot(and think he still does) with Dave Holland's band.

Check Nelson on Wikipedia:

check out the Steve Nelson Wikipedia

Hi!

For many years I am studying a guitar instruction book. This ia a sample of an advanced comping for guitar over a Bb-blues .

The author says that "every soloist will be gratful for this kind of comping" so I recorded the guitar for playing solo with the vibes - for download mp3 check the link:

http://cid-a149cbdffbb2d320.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Vibesworkshop/Bb|_Blues.mp3

I have some old Good Vibes mallets that are warped out of line about 3/16". I have newer Mike Balter mallets that have a slight curve also so I am assuming this happens with all mallets.

Do you try straightening them (steam them?), play with them as-is or go out and buy new ones.

Thanks,
Barry