VibesWorkshop people!! This Wednesday, November 14 the Millersville University Percussion Ensemble will premiere Tony's composition "WEISS GUY" dedicated to Steve Weiss. Through many rehearsals, rewrites, and student input I think the piece is in a pretty cool place. It certainly showcases Tony as a soloist and has plenty of very hip ensemble moments. It has been a pleasure working with Tony on this venture and the kids have certainly gained a considerable amount from the experience. If you are in the area and can make it out please do, you will not be disappointed!!

One more for my accordion/guitar jam. I worked on this a couple of years ago but I think this one is much better, with some ideas from Behn's licks.

Question: How do I sound less choppy on the solos (e.g from 2:09 on)? I think the head is fairly smooth because I was using dampening, but when I solo, it sounds very choppy. Is it my technique, or my instrument? Do I need reverb?

I was noticing how beautiful Rusty's sound is in
http://www.vibesworkshop.com/video/chovendo-na-roseira-samba-jazz-syndi…
and

Hello fellow vibists,

I'll be leading a group of Berklee faculty for a performance on Saturday, January 5th at the 4th Annual JEN (Jazz Education Network) conference in Atlanta, Georgia. The group will feature Matt Marvuglio - flute, Marco Pignataro - sax, David Clark - bass, Ron Savage - drums and myself on vibes. The conference takes place from January 2nd through the 5th. David Clark will be assuming the bass chair for Barry Smith who can't make it.

Marie suggested me to record a tune with the metronome.
Sorry for the singing and tss tss stuff.
I'm desperately trying to eliminate this in my playing without any result.
When I shut my mouth, ideas don't come ....
Wierd !

Well...it's been a busy start of the month, and Afro Blue took a seat on the backburner when I had to learn new music for jazz ensemble very quickly (concert coming this Friday already!). Over the past week and half I've listened to Afro Blue and played the intro. and head almost every day, but I didn't start tackling the solo until yesterday (but on a marimba, so today was the first time playing on correctly spaced bars!).

Here's my approach to the solo:

Hey everyone,
Here's some info on the December Good Vibes radio program, the first and only broadcast program totally dedicated to the vibraphone (marimba and xylophone included). I've got a minor holiday thing going on for December with Stefon Harris, Christos Rafalides, Randy Sutin, Johnny Lytle, Arturo Serra ("Peace" by Horace Silver and Chick Corea's "Children's Song #9) and two Romanian carols by Alexandru Anastasiu.

Forgive the mistakes at the end of the video. I don't talk about phrasing much near the end, and I meant to... All of these neighbor tones can lead to "1". But, they can also be placed anywhere to disguise the arpeggio by not having the start of the arpeggio (C in the example) start on the downbeat, or a strong beat. The latter being which is how I hear them used more often.

One side of technique seems to be about faster harder and louder. On most gigs I do there's at least one tunes per set, usually that require fast loud and hard. People talk about these tempos and volumes as being unmusical, but I don't think they are. Especially when incorporated in a set of music, they seem to fit well. It's when the whole set becomes fast loud and hard that things get to be a drag. If my wife is in the audience, when I get through the set she usually says to me, that was a lot of testosterone being thrown around that stage.