So I've played for a few years and never had a problem breaking strings (although I've only been doing professional gigs for about 8 months). I got a set of Albrights recently and have broken the string on the vibes 3 times in the past month. I had a gig last night where we played 4 sets and I was using a set of med soft albrights. they are pretty soft so I have to hammer the notes out a bit, but not ridiculously. During the second set I realized that the string between my F# and Ab was near failure.

Yo guys,

One of the requests I get for the vibe hangs is that I'll devote time and answer some questions that people might be having.

I'm thinking about setting up some times 'office' hours. I can go online live for an hour here or there and if you guys have any questions we can talk about them. for now, i'd probably do it like the vibe hangs and you guys would have to type the questions. But I think we could get 3 or 4 of us on skype and try it like that sometime.

I play in a band called Monkadelphia and we're making a new CD. This is one of the tracks that most likely will not go on the cd because it's on our last one. Although I want to put it on this one also. The last one was actually a melody.

What I like about this tune and the way we're playing it is that this is one of those tunes where you could just go out and play 'anything'. We all really attempted to play on the changes.

I started working on One Note Samba by Jobim. I am happy with my arrangement of the A section, but the bridge is 8th note scales and sounds thin. On the first note, I play root/5th to fill it out a little (where the 5th is the first note of the melody), but from then on it is single notes. Is that OK? Any other ideas?

Thanks,
Barry

John Brought this video up in another Warren video I just posted.

Check this out. This is a cool video. Warren is on the street, jamming. 2 mallets and he plays like he's on stage somewhere.

I think the playing is really good, and I'm floored by how he uses the 2 mallets. I dig this guy!

I think this is a good track! I dig players that have and lived through the old school and are also trying the new stuff. the combination of it is really cool.

I also dig the showman stuff. He plays and looks at the audience and smiles, neither of things i do on stage. So this is pretty cool to me.

Another bablafon player. I love listening to this and hearing the kids in the background. Folk music is really cool. Ultimately it's what music is really about right?

Mike Balter's Joke of the Week.