I was working on this song with my student this past week. We were talking about various techniques that can be applied in order to fill things out with the melody and improv. A few things we covered were counterpoint, comping underneath the melody and two hand lines with left hand jabs. All of these techniques will be covered in depth in the upcoming solo vibraphone playing book. Writing this stuff out is hard though. Ha!Ha!

A simple, elegant, and somewhat underappreciated tune by Cole Porter.

"I'll Remember April" from last Saturday's gig. Always a fun night of playing by the fish tank. (The camera was on top of the tank).

Jobim's "How Insensitive" with Mark and I from our steady gig (over 8 years) at Li's last Saturday. Nice to play in a relaxed atmosphere and hang with friends.

This covers strictly the piston stroke-- the what and how of physically performing it.

Just kidding! This is pretty wild!

He sounds good right?

"When Sunny Gets Blue" - Working on this classic for the sabbatical project which combines solo vibraphone playing techniques along with various improv concepts. It's been really nice having the sabbatical to write and shed. But, I'm looking forward to getting back to school in the Spring semester to get back in the groove and see the students. It's energizing to be there and interact with the students. Keeps me on my toes. :) The two books (solo vibraphone playing and dampening and pedaling) are basically finished. I now have to go through and edit.

The start of an ongoing project! After parsing the physical skills, philosophical issues will get teased out, and then I'll create segments particular to drum corps problems. Hopefully a contribution of something new to Vibes Workshop!

Shawn