Vibraphone

Ok, I finally got the courage to video myself practicing. This is my attempt to play over the changes to "The Best Things in Life are Free" with my usual band-in a box partner. I'm still working up a good version of the head and some comping chords, so maybe it will all come together later. I found that it is funny to watch myself groan at the bad notes, but also discovered a learning tool that I hadn't taken advantage of. This garage is where my vibes live, they've never left this space since I bought them 12 years ago.

Ok, I have what I'll consider my first solo gig coming up. I've done a few before, but I did them because I needed the money and didn't a you know what about them. One was in a clothes store playing Christmas music. I was soooo broke. So I did it and hated every second of it. The others were a couple cocktail parties or worse Barmitzvah's. Sorry to my jewish buddy vibe players, but I HATE Barmitzvah's. A room full of kids high on soda running around like fools is not fun when you're an adult. I know it's fun for them. Ok, I digress.

Hey,

those of you who took a look at my playing along with 'the weeping song' probably read that I was going to try a soloversion of another 'bad seeds' song : the shipsong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4VWKbZkIcM

I already started it, but now I was thinking that, for this community, it might also be interesting to show my workingproces. So here is my blog where you can follow and comment (please do) how I try to build this from scrap to song.

Hey,
I had this amazing skype lessons with Carolyn and Badu. The great thing about it is that people from all over the world can comunicate and share their interests and questions. Ofcorse Tony is a great teacher since he sees everyone as a different personality. Having that in mind it not just a chat but a real expirience of practising and learning. He also put assigments to each one. I have to practise How deep in 12 keys. It really gives you a motive to learn and practise more and more stuff.

Hallo everyone, thank you for such great time last week. You filled me up with soul, spirit, music ,... .I met so many wonderful persons and they all play vibes!!!! It was a pleasure to be your host and I hope you had a good time. I want to share video of my trio-concert from frieday with you. Have fun, I had a lot!!! looking forward to meet you all again, Matthias.

http://youtu.be/yI29QyxWzEU

Here you go Carolyn!

Hey everyone,

I had the great opportunity to do a Skype lesson with Tony, Dimitris, and Denis today (who knew Babu's real name was Denis...learn something new everyday!). Denis mentioned a lot of the reasons why it was cool in his post, but I want to highlight some things:

1) You don't need a camera on your computer to participate. If you only have a microphone on your computer, that's totally okay!

Hey guys, we just had (Dim, Carolyn and me) a skype lesson with Tony. All went good, sound clear.
That's fascinating to be able to meet people from several countries (USA, France, Greece in this case), as if everybody was in the same music room... Technology at it's best.
I think this is the future for music teaching. No one vibist will be let on his own, trying desesperately to learn alone... The vibes's malediction is over !
And all that because of M. Tony Miceli's vision years ago, hard work and generosity. One more time, thanks Tony !