A good friend of mine is studying the tune Black Orpheus. He asked me to to come up with a little etude to help him work on the tune. So here it is.

Again I left the chords out. You should put them in and then study the changes and what's happening. Then play the etude. It would be great if you memorized at least the first chorus.

I'm really excited because our first 'classroom' is up and running.

I love working on music and playing. I used to go to my mentor Steve Giordano's house once or twice a week and we'd play from 9 at night until 5 in the morning. Sometimes later. I loved driving home in morning while everyone was on there way to work, knowing that I had the opportunity to stay up all night and play and study music. That was worth a lot or money to me! That is the sacrifice of a steady income, which is a very difficult way to live.

I definitely don't want to play with him when he's 15!

What's really cool is he didn't know how to play 4s and was just learning on the gig right there. But this is a little Gary Burton on Guitar.

Remember he's 11 years old.

I'm sure it's no suprise to any of you that I'm not too cool with holidays, especially birthdays.

But now that I have all these friends and have to run this site, I decided to be cool. And as an exercise I thought I would thank everyone in Marie's birthday post this morning. Hopefully I didn't skip anyone!

The great thing about this birthday, is that I have hundreds of new friends and they're all vibes players! that's pretty cool.

So Thanks guys.

There would be so much to say about Tony Miceli…

Hmm... sure he’s not (yet) a super star. Not a top model. He readily and openly describes himself as a little overweight and sometimes even a bit tactless. He only has his little basement and his strange tee-shirts to show. No crown, no strass, no show off attitude.

But man he holds a real treasure inside: a big bear’s heart, an unfailing sense of brotherhood, honesty and bravery, a great sense of humour, far enough madness for fun… and a huge talent as vibist, musician, and teacher…

I just got the update to Band-in-a-Box. First impression is that it is really cool (as if it wasn't already cool). As usual, you enter the chord changes and BIAB automagically generates an accompaniment of bass, drums, piano, guitar, strings, etc. With the update, instead of using MIDI instruments, there is an option for BIAB to extract pre-recorded audio of session musicians playing real instruments over certain changes.

Hey everybody,

I've not met a lot of you, but this may be a chance for those in/near Philly. My "Combo" from the US Naval Academy Band is playing Rose Tree Park (near Media PA) on Wednesday July 1st at 730pm. I hope some of you can make it. Please come up and say hello if you're there.

Thanks,
Blake Cramer

(ps. I play vibraphone.)

Hey Guys! I had such a great time with you all!

I'll be setting up the classroom very soon. So the workshop is not over yet!

I'll post again when the classroom is set up.

This last week was a great week for the mallet instruments here in Boston. Gary was in town two Saturdays ago with his quartet and they put on a great show.

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