Hello Vibesworkshop,

I recorded this some days ago... It's me practicing on "Nearness of You", a ballad I personally love.
I just used the aebersold play along for this one... When practicing the first I didn't even know that it switched to bossa, then samba !!!!

Hope you will enjoy it !

Nico Farugia

ps sorry for the big hesitations at the end, I didn't know what chords where used in the outro, so I just tried to figure out and do the arpeggios...

Here a recent take of Wine & Roses (to get going with posting here)
Through practice of permutation from Bergonzi's Melodic Structures I recently started finding a way to bridge the "gap" between playing the head with chords (I generally start out learning a tune by fitting the chords under the melody first- as written on the pdf) and horizontal lines, in other words: move on from a "stiff" head to being able to improvise over the changes.

The steps I figured out playing more freely & horizontal were:

I got a call sometime back asking if I was interested in playing the percussion book for Bye Birdie at my alma mater Upper Merion High School. They're putting on the show March 18, 19 and 20. They've hired a choreographer and the pit orchestra is made up of some good student musicians plus some professionals. I said yes without even thinking because this is a great chance for me to get my hand back in playing multiple percussion, something which I have been doing with a community symphony orchestra I am involved in.

It was Saturday evening, my mobile phone rang with a SMS from my guitarist friend Bernard: "Turn on to France 2!" (French TV channel) So did I...

It was the French music awards evening "Les Victoires de la Musique", the overture tune. They had chosen to make a little medley in tribute to Michael Jackson, with a bunch of French musicians of the moment.

Aug 1st - 6th Worskhop at University of Delaware with David Friedman and Tony Miceli

This is the official announcement of the University of Delaware Workshop with David Friedman and myself.

I found this on YouTube the other day. It's a nice piece, but I don't know the group.
Anyone know?

Listen to this. I've given examples before. This works perfectly on the vibes. Can you imagine playing a jazz ballad with this 'style' of playing?

There's so much to learn from Bach. He's figured it all out. So maybe the vibes are not like the guitar or the piano, they're like the violin!!!! :-)

On Friday I was expecting the delivery of my M44. But it did not happen. But to save the day Tony had shipped my mallets so I had a chance to check out grips. That's what I did much of Friday evening and Saturday.

I had already seen most of the videos on VW about grips and tried all that were mentioned.
What I discovered is that the Burton Grip is the easiest/most comfortable for me.

But I've observed one problem I'm having.