Vibraphone

Wow. I just got the new malletKat and have been playing it. I think Mario did it with this one. He's changed the feel of the instrument and put in Kurtzweil sounds. It's pretty amazing.

I was always a MalletKat fan, but thought of it as an addition to the vibes. I could go out with a band and play on only this and all would be good. The experience was incredible.

I'm thinking about recording some quick improvs to let you guys hear what you can do with this!

Just thought I'd post this.

Simple ideas that will help keep the harmony moving.

This is just to give you an idea of a concept and way of playing.

It eventually will let you play lines with two mallets while using your outside left mallet to comp.

Check out the pdf below.

You should know the tune. Write in the names of all the chords. Play all the voicings in time. Once you have it down, add rhythms.

Hey everyone,
I was just thinking/talking about phrasing and how many notes one can fit into a phrase.
I always remember teachers and mentors telling me to play fewer notes when I was in school, however I would listen to them play and there would be 4 million notes in a single measure. What i've learned since that time is that they should have told me to concentrate on phrasing. To Me, phrasing is the difference between an enjoyable and engaging solo/composition and an un-enjoyable one.

Here is take two of Autumn Leaves with some thoughts on improv. A simple technique is to play a motive and move it around the scale. The strength of the motive allows it to be played out of the scale of the underlying chord or used over a reharmonized chord. I'm doing this at the beginning of my solo. The motive is a simple three note scalar motive that I'm moving around. When it sounds out, I'm playing A, B, C# during the measure of the A-7b5. The dissonance creates the interest. If everything is always perfect and played in the scale with a minimum of tension, it can get pretty boring.