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once in while i scan my pc for old files to delete. so i did today and found this practice video for the song nearness of you i recorded some time ago. i made nearly 10 takes of it. i watched this one and instead of deleting i liked it and thought to share it here. there is no theme because i just practiced the solo changes in a medium swing tempo.

The Chief is a really nice tune Pat Metheny wrote and recorded on a CD called Reunion, with Gary Burton. I made this video clip for one of Tony's Vibe Hangs, and decided to post it here too.

I've included links to the Lead Sheet and an mp3 of the Piano Accompaniment to use to practice the tune.

Cheers!

Here's what I was doing tonight. Just playing bach and then the blues. Trying to get something from the Cello Suite that I'm working in into the blues. Somehow the simplicity of and the magic of Bach's lines carried over at least in my mind. Then I decided to turn this into a lesson.

This is just a free flowing sort of lesson. I just 'ran the tape' and here's what came out. I hope some of you guys take a crack at this.

The Vibesworkshop.com on Roku application allows subscribers to create individualized channels of videos for display (see Check This Out for more info on the app). At release, I've seeded the app with channels for Ed Saindon, Joe Locke, Tony Miceli and myself.

Following after Behn's footsteps. He just finished a lesson on Sus chords and used Maiden Voyage to play over.

So I thought I'd follow up with a couple other exercises to use on the tune Maiden Voyage.

Learn to play over suspended chords

(Did I post this already?)

(Did I post this already? I don't think so.)

Playing beautiful 3 and 4 mallet chordal rolls is a goal all vibes and marimba players should work toward. Yes, vibes players mostly use the pedal to sustain notes, but sometimes using a roll is better. Here is a simple, easy to learn method you can use to play really nice rolls for 3 and 4 part chords. The trick is to have each mallet strike the bar at a different time, creating smooth legato sound.