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Hal Garper Master Class

tpvibes 14 December 2010

Todd posted this on Facebook and I thought it was pretty interesting. I think that the basic premise of you play what you hear is so true that it's close to a "duh!", but putting it into practice can be difficult.

When I play, I often feel like I'm three different people simultaneously competing for dominance. There's a panicked animal that's just trying to keep his place and not screw up. There's this analytical guy saying, "OK, V7 coming up, diminished or altered scale?". And then there's this touchy-feely guy who's trying to guide the whole thing and make art.

Bachianas Brasileiras no. 5 for solo vibes by Ted Wolff

tedwolff 28 October 2010

This is a really nice work for solo vibes. Originally written by Hector Villa-Lobos for voice and cellos, this is just one in a series of pieces that were an attempt freely to adapt a number of Baroque harmonic and contrapuntal procedures to Brazilian music.

The accompaniment is often just arpeggios, so let them ring. You'll need to mallet dampen the melody at several strategic places. The goal, as always, is to have the piece sound as full and clean as possible. Fullness comes from leaving the pedal down a lot, and cleanliness comes from pedaling and dampening in all the right places.

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