Man, I think he gets it, totally. This is really some amazing marimba playing! IMHO

Using the first 16 bars of Exercise #1 from Ted Reed's classic book, ideas are adapted to the balafon in a variety of styles to build independence.

Download the attached excerpt from Ted's book.

Play the head along with me.

Then we trade 8s. Remember it's AABA Dmin Dmin Ebmin Dmin
I'll start off the 8s. That means you are only soloing in Dmin. However you have to comp for me when it goes to Ebmin7. So work on your chords and solo in Dminor.

I can put up a version where you solo first that means you will solo in both Dmin and Ebmin

Get it?

Play along, record it and post it!

I kept my solo simple. Maybe you can transcribe some of my 8s? Do some ear training?

Its been a while since I've posted anything so here's a tune I've been working on, no comping on this just bass drums and vibes melody and solo. Feedback welcome Thanks

'Infant Eyes' through my eyes, incorporating the MalletStation with vibes and adding a groove to the well known piece by Wayne Shorter. This has been a pretty intense creative process: I was surprised to welcome Beethoven in it and it made me kind of emotional to realize that my teenage memories of Pink Floyd were still so vivid, awaiting an opportunity to be manifested!

"Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans? - dedicated to the late great pianist and music educator Ellis Marsalis. Having fun playing some traditional jazz on the marimba and hats.

This weekend at the first-ever online vibes bootcamp, David Friedman spoke about the importance of following the movement of the bassline and the harmonies when choosing chords for My Funny Valentine (and the same goes for many other tunes). That reminded me of a lesson Tony posted back in 2011, but it was audio only so I made this video to show at the vibes coffeehouse.

Pretty self-explanatory. Tony thought there weren't enough gongs on my last post.

Well... gong solo this time.

Need I say more?

My apologies to Juan Tizol. It was a great tune before this happened.

Recently purchased the Late Night mallets which arrived today. The heads are larger than I expected, which makes them a tad unwieldy, but used them for a while and I think I'll get used to them. Its sure nice to play my vibes with the resonators on in my apartment and not worry about volume. Btw; they sound amazing on suspended cymbal! These will be my go to mallets for orchestral cymbal work. No impact; just the sound of the swell. I'm sure they'll sound nice on low end marimba too.