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Hi All,

I play regularly with a few drummers who can't read music, one most of the time and a couple of others on a fairly regular fill-in basis. I've been trying to get us to do some more formal arrangements of tunes -- nothing terribly complicated, just some accent points and rhythm breaks, added interludes and the like, although I'd like to get more complicated. I've been having trouble communicating these things to the drummers though.

im a true believe that the more the student practices ii V I progression and is able to recognize the progression on the fly, this will enable the player to play in most situations. Many times at jam session ive not known the head or did but not not well enough to play with the other players. so ill lay back and listen the the the form first, then the key, and then listen for turnarounds or odd changes, accidentals ect. once i have an idea where it is going ill dive in.

this play along is a cycle i use when practicing the ii V I progression ...

in 1995 the college i briefly taught at brought in Clark Terry to play for a jazz festival. I was the guy picked to pick him up a the Airport in Chicago.. what an adventure. the college was a couple hours from chicago and i had never been to chicago never mind drove there..finally arrived a the airport.. got stuck in the one way lane so it took me atleast an hour to get to the parking for pick up .. whew .. i pulled and met John, cant think of his last name, but he was clarks personal manager.. he brought clark out in a wheel chair... and as soon as clark got in the car ..

Here is a quick and dirty lesson on "Bubblehouse" by Medeski Martin and Wood from the album "Shack-Man". Stefan had requested more beginner stuff so this is what came to mind. It was a jammy-jam type of song that was popular when I was a tween in college. It was one of the first songs I heard and said "I can play that" and just walked over to the vibes and started banging it out. I busted it it out a few times when stuck jamming with rocker guitarists/bassists who don't know any songs. "Ok just play G minor.... :)"

Dear all!

Like always I have been closely following what is going on on the site and I enjoyed many many things! Tony and all of you are doing an excellent job!

But one thing that kind of bothers me is that there is not so much material for beginners/hobbyists like me.

I am aware that I belong to a probably very small group of people who is 35, started vibes about 2 years ago, has a fulltime day job and has an average practice time of 10 minutes per day.

Here's all the lessons and performances of Ed Saindon's tune 'Life's Blessings.

We spent the month of March studying Ed's tune and we had a blast. Check out all the comments. There's a lot of valuable information here.

Hi Everyone,

I've attached a chart I made of the appropriate tensions for each chord in Life's Blessing. Ed checked it out for me and made the necessary corrections and I thought this could be of use to anyone working on the tune. The tensions can be used either in voicings for comping or lines while soloing. Good luck everyone!

Jon

Here are seven choruses of improvisation on the progression of Life's Blessing.

Again, as I mentioned in the other video playing the melody, the left hand is functioning as accompaniment as well as helping out the right hand to execute lines.

Try to fill out the 8th notes between both hands as opposed to trying to carry everything with the right hand. Also, try to keep the left hand moving. Try to keep changing the spreads of the mallets in each hand as much as possible. For example, in left hand, you can play a whole step and then invert that interval to play a 7th.

Two choruses playing the melody along with the accompaniment.

Feel free to change the rhythms of the melody and try to embellish the melody with grace notes, passing notes, fills, etc.

In terms of the accompaniment, try to get the harmony (including tensions) across either with voicings or counterpoint.

Try to get both hands to help each other out. The left hand can come up to help the right hand play the melody and the right hand can go down to fill out a voicing along with the left hand. Also, dampening is important when playing counterpoint against the melody.

On this video, I'm playing the melody along with any bits of accompaniment that I can attempt to fit in without taking away from the clarity of the melody.

It's a good way to work on the left hand in terms of getting it to focus on melody and accompaniment at the same time.