I thought of two tunes from the early 70's which feature vibes fairly prominently. The first is a one hit wonder by a singer/songwriter/guitarist named William DeVaughn entitled, "Be Thankful For What You Got." I had heard it driving to a gig last week on WXPN's "Funky Friday" program. I remember it from high school. One of the lyrics: "Diamond in the back / sunroof top / digging the scene with a gangster lean" became a catchphrase and appeared in numerous rap/hip hop records of the '90s. DeVaughn, a Washington, D.C.

We have John Piper's plans and video for M-Braces. Could anyone make me a set? I'll pay for your time. I'm just not very handy!!!

Check out Lem Winchester!

Lem is on the left.

Lem Winchester was a great vibe player from Delaware. He was a cop and played on the side but was trying to get his career going.

He used to do a trick with his gun, put one bullet in the chamber spin it and shoot himself in the head. The one bullet always fell to the bottom so he always shot an empty chamber into his head.

In Chicago he grabbed a gun that he thought was exactly like his but it wasn't. But bullet did not go to the bottem it went to the top and his trick did not work!!!

My First Vibes Gig - Jan. 11, 2009
(Amateur Night at the Mansion)
by BarryK

Man, I wish we could build sections on all these different vibe players. Put tons of info, links etc, about each one. we sort of do that, but i would to see a huge archive start. there's so much to learn about the lineage of the instrument.

If it wasn't for you guys I'd never know who Lynn Blessings is. Actually thanks to paps.

I always thought, yeah we're hearing some incredible guys, like Burton and Hutch and Milt, but I also bet there are a bunch of others just as good, and just didn't make the front page. Know what I mean? Who are these guys?

just found this amazing video of milt from 1990 and HAD to share it!

HERE'S THE LINK TO WATCH TODAY

Ok, let's do the next vibe hang on Feb, 8th.

ok, SO FAR: PATTY, MIKE PINTO, MAYBE BEHN GILLECE, ADAM LAST NAME? FROM TEMPLE UNIVERSITY (REALLY GOOD) TEXAS? DANA AND FRIENDS? Dan Mcarthy? Blake? James Shipp! Jackson Greenberg!

Make sure you get set up and test your set up: Read this: FAQ on how to do this

I've seen players put the sticks in some pretty weird positions to acheive difficult voicings. But actually you really never have to stand in any sort of weird way to accomplishing difficult voicings on the vibes. Here's a little PDF to check out with some photos and the positions.

In order to learn a blues, you'll have to get some sort of system to help you remember the notes as well as to help transpose them into different keys. There are a few different types of blues scales, however in this podcast we'll focus on the minor blues scales. In the key of F the notes would be: F Ab Bb B C Eb F.