I'm actually excited for Thursday and to go to Nico's toy shop. A buddy or mine was in New York recently and was at a studio. He emailed me and said he played this instrument and it was so beautiful. It was a VP. He said he was mesmerized by the bars.

So this is an exercise I've done a lot. There's actually 2 exercises going on here.

First I'll take a ballad and play as simply as I possibly can. It's a great way to work on your concentration and even technique. Technique? Yes because every thing is going so slow,you can really work on independence and 4 mallet ideas. But that's also the hard part, that everything is going so slow. Because now the notes become sooo important. You really have try and hear melodies in your mind and play from there. It's an incredible way to practicing improvising.

I got together with my Dad, on Father's Day today and recorded "Loss of Love" by Henry Mancini, as a Bolero.

Barry K - Vibes
Paul K - Accordion
Band-in-a-Box - Bass, Drums, Strings

This is basically a practice recording for me, trying to figure out what to do to comp.

Suggestions appreciated.

Barry

P.S. The title has no meaning to me. I just like the song.

This is a wonderful video of a very young Gary Burton performing a solo piece. I think it's an original composition of Gary's. I'm sure he'll watch the video and comment here on it.

What was amazing to me is besides the haunting beauty of this piece was his technical facility at performing a rubato flowing piece like this. I think the dampening is incredible. Check it all the dampening he's doing with his palm.

--Tony Miceli

p.s. I forgot to give credit to John Daly who caught the video on tv and quickly recorded it knowing it would be valuable to the site.

We did the workshop in Ireland at the Peter Dee Academy of Music. It's a really nice building and we had a lot of fun! I'm doing a workshop now with a bunch of Irish musicians, who are really talented and then off to the workshop in Holland.

Stefan plays "All Blues" with the group, at the conclusion of the two-day vibes workshop.

Tony joins the quartet for "Alone Together."

Peter played bass for our afternoon quartet, and John Daley plays drums.

Stefan and John work hard in the workshop.

John Daley, of Limerick City, a teacher at Peter Dee Academy of Music, organized and arranged the entire workshop, which was held at the school. John obtained both electronic and printed media attention for the event. What a man. Here is John, playing "Blue Bossa."