This is a great exercise for all levels, but very good for beginning level players!

Had fun working on this one. Some great tunes written by Paul McCartney. Also some great tunes written by Lennon and Harrison that would be great on solo vibes. Use to play this on solo vibe hotel gigs way back.

I was practicing lines over one of my favorite tunes, "Pent Up House", by Sonny Rollins. My inspiration for this exercise was the melodic and rhythmic strength of Sonny's lines. He always plays the song and you can hear it in every chorus.
The second challenge for me was to make the harmonic movement audible with every line and phrase.
Not an easy task. And then, of course, there's the ultimate challenge when playing lines without accompaniment or a metronome; keeping the time!

Happy to share a new video from a concert earlier this year playing duo with LA based pianist, Josh Nelson.

This beautiful standard sounds pretty good on vibes. Unlike many standards, the verse hasn't been abandoned and is still played as part of the arrangement. The melody lends itself well to octaves in the right hand.

Hey Vibesworkshop,
Wanted to share a recording (unfortunately unmixed) of a tune I wrote called "Think as a Mortal". I recorded this with my jazz fusion group "MELA", who will be releasing their first album on July 1st.

The name of the tune comes from a saying from the Delphic Maxims, a collection of aphorisms written by ancient greek orcales, and was written to features MELA's Bass player Shea Glasheen.

Think as a Mortal - MELA
Frank Valente - Vibraphone
Paul Sottnik - Piano
Shea Glasheen - Bass
Allen - Guitar
Jake Payne - Drums

Trio exceptional, quality of recording, belissima musica (IMHO) Enjoy !

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Hardness Medium - Soft
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Hey Vibeworkshop,
Im currently getting ready for my recital and one of the pieces that I am playing on my recital is a reduction, I'm currently working on, of the ever popular Strange Meadow Lark by Dave Brubeck. As I study the piece and boil down the transcription to an honest reduction I really started to see the genius of Brubeck's solo playing. So today I would like to break down all the techniques and ideas he used while playing the melody of the tune and how we can incorporate those ideas to other standards and ballads.