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My office got wind of me taking vibraphone lessons and asked if I was interested in getting together with some colleagues to play our company's annual Christmas party cocktail hour.

It might end up with just vibes and bass but possibly also with sax.

What tunes would you play at a Christmas cocktail hour?

Thanks,
Barry

Check this out!!! Please feel free to let me know of any mistakes. I'll appreciate it!!

Simple Introduction To Chromatic Cell Structures

It should be understood that these techniques cannot function by themselves and that an understanding of traditional harmony is needed to truly make these techniques come to life. If there is no common ground of harmonic knowledge, only chaos will ensue.

So I see a bunch of University Professors here and some have been hanging out quite a bit.

I would love to try some stuff with all this technology with your percussion department. I think we're ready to design an online jazz course, we can certainly do workshops.

In fact if a few of you 'guys' wanted to test things out, we could meet online and I could show some stuff. I've been using Skype and Ichat to teach lessons all over the world, and so far so good! There's also a few other sites which deliver video and have chat rooms.

Here are some pdf files I find usefull when I'm trying to organize my practice time. The problem with practicing when you don't have all the time in the world, like most of us, is that you often don't know what to practice and also keeping track of what you've done and what you haven't done is sometimes difficult.

The pdf files I included here are lists that I use to keep track of technical exercises that need to be repeated to show some progress. Below is how I use these:

Scales.pdf

http://www.steveyeager.com/Home.html Says it all. Check him out, I think you'll love Steve's playing and if you haven't heard him already, this should be a treat. Also a real nice person and we'd love to hear from him at www.vibesworkshop.com

check out samples at his web site and then... (buy something)

Trying to regulate email from the site is pretty tough. So here are some options.

Click on 'my account' under the menu that's under your login name on the left side of the page and then click on MANAGE MY SUBSCRIPTIONS.

There you'll see 3 (at the time of this writing) newsletters. One if the VIBES NEWSLETTER, that one won't come more than once of twice a month to your inbox. So if you just want us to check in once in a while check that newsletter.

The TELL ME EVERYTHING newsletter. Well, you get it, right? That one will go more frequently.

I believe there is a very interesting fundamental difference between improvising "lines" and improvising "melodies". What do you think? Is there a discussion here?

What a great day. I picked up Joe Locke early today we had lunch and talked about stuff then picked up Patricia Franceschy and turned on the cams.

Joe is a wealth of information and a very courageous vibe player. Ask to him play and he'll just start. He has a very modern approach to harmony which was really exciting for me to hear.

He talks humbly about his 4 mallet playing but wait until you see some of these vids. His 4 mallet solo playing is spectacular.

He's had a GREAT career and has so much to offer.

Check out the audio clip I have attached this article. I think sometimes students don't get it, that is how to really study something. How a little snip it can be so valuable. I spend 2.5 hours on this snippet tonight. First I love it! It's from Brad Meldau playing Anthropology. The whole solo is from another planet.