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Bemsha Swing by Tony Miceli

Check out Pianist Tom Lawton's solo. Tom is a true genius like Gary.

Tom transcribes and memorizes solos by playing along with them on the dashboard of his car on the way to gigs.

He can do tricks like play a tune and play each hand in a different key, take solos and everything with each hand in a different key. He can hear anything and play it back and transpose things like Bartok excerpts on the spot and put them in solos.

For those of us in Europe

Hi all!

A few days ago I received the Vic Firth Gary Burton mallets - 2 pairs for a total of Euro 65,- Including shipping + import sales/purchases tax + handling by the Austrian mail services. Here in Austria, if the price of an item is less then Euro 150,- there is no duty!

Thats a bargain since a single pair costs about Euro 55,- or more(check out thomann and all the others).

So my recommendation is to order by one of the big shops. I ordered at Steveweissmusic which I can recommend, but there are others.

The only con is that it takes some 4 weeks to get the stuff delivered.

Did You Ever Try This?

Sometimes, well many times, I listen to music that I want to influence me. I'll do this and then go play the vibes. This really helps me. Listen to Debussy for a while and then start playing your instrument and improvising. What's going to come out? Well, your reflections on what you've just heard.

We're are all influenced musically all the time so use that for your practicing.

Upgrades and new instruments

Apart from the regular production, last couple of weeks we spent a lot of time on redesigning the electronics for the motorsystem of the LW-series, and finishing the new 3 octaves vibe model.

Both are done now, and the first LW with the new motorsystem goes out this week.
The upgrade is huge!!!

With the previous motor system, the software controlling the motor itself was spread over 2 parts/devices, being the touchpanel taking care of the user interface, and the servo controller taking care of everything involving driving the motor system.