Every once in a while I blog about what's happening deep inside of the site. I know there are a lot of members out there that are working hard, some don't live near teachers, or other players. I want them to know how much is going on here.

If you go to 'Recent Activity' you'll probably see all the posts and comments. A lot of this stuff is learning, critiquing and studying. We've really made a community of vibe players on the inside that is growing and is helping many players become better vibe players.

Use Invitation to study comping. A valuable lesson here, know the tune and then use for your practicing.

Finding time to listen to cds is pretty rough any more. Tonight though I'm trying to get in a couple cuts of some buddies cds. One of which is James Shipps cd.

I think you guys would dig it. I guess it's all or mostly Irish tunes? Jim's a great percussionist and vibe player and his girlfriend, Jo Lawry is a heavy singer.

Just wanted to post a couple sentences about the cd.

Here is my new recording of etude number 5 with more emphasis on dynamics. Please excuse the room noise towards the end but I think my roommate was making food haha. Thanks again for the suggestions and please let me know what else I can do to improve.

Sooo.... I was hanging out practicing and began thinking about Tony's great stride vibes recording of Cheek to Cheek. I've never really worked on that kind of thing, so I started wondering what I could do with that "signature style" of Tony's...

Guys!

For those who were present on our brother site www.thevibe.net some time ago, do you remember Roy Pertchick and his innovative instrument?

I just found this video today on youtube, and thought it would be cool to share it with you...

What do you think of his invention?

- M

Hello Everybody,

I'm still going on with the tunes a week. I'll just see who decides to join in and this will also be a place to gather recordings of everyone of a certain tune.

So, I got inspired by Emilie's post of 'My One and Only Love', so I decided I'd study that tune this week but I'm gonna ty a different approach this time. In stead of doing a duet or play along version I think it would be nice to record a solo version of this tune.

Hello everyone,

Here's a videoclip from a concert this past year.

The concert took place on February 2nd, 09 at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH and featured Dave Liebman on tenor and soprano, Matt Wilson on drums, David Clark on bass and me on vibes, marimba and piano. This was the first song of the 2nd set. We opened the set (minus Lieb) with an original of mine titled "Pure Spirit".