Here's a 4 part lesson on solo playing. I just turned the cameras on and just went with the flow. They do show some of the techniques I use to playing chordally. I don't even know if you call them techniques, I don't know what you'd call them. I do know they came out of just playing and playing. They developed that way, without a lot of thought.

So I had fun experimenting with a new camera angle. I hung a cam from above and played Blue Bossa. Hopefully you guys find it of use. Maybe it will give you some ideas. Let me know what you think.

The more I teach and the older I get I feel that it's all about being simple and getting your point across.

Blue Bossa is a great tune to make a study of. Here are some things to do from easy to difficult. You should work on some of these ideas and then post them online here.

1. Memorize whatever you do.
2. Learn the melody
3. Learn the chords
4. Play a chord tone solo
5. Do all the above in all keys
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1. Make an arrangement of the tune. NOT a strict arrangement just work out ways to play the melody and accompany yourself.
2. Do this in all keys.

Here's me playing Blue Bossa for jl12 here at the online school. I thought I would post it for everybody. I tried to play very simple, and i shot the camera from above to see if that would be helpful.

jon,

here's a post. i know you probably get all this. but anyway. here's a post. you can reply below and annotate the lesson, etc etc etc. let me know you got this.

btw what's your skype name?

I talk and think about this all the time. You'll hear me bring it up over and over and over again. I never totally liked the analogy of comparing the vibes to a piano. When every I'm playing solo it hits me like a brick in the head.

Now there is plenty to learn from the piano, after all this is set up like a piano. So cool. Also many other vibe players compare this to a piano. However many of them did not grow up playing classical piano and classical guitar. I did and I can do an interesting comparison between the two.

I did some 'free' flowing vids the other night. More advanced stuff. I need to edit them now and get them up.

The real thing I'm thinking about is getting you guys to post some stuff. Subscribers that is. As the site grows this will happen naturally but I want to encourage some of that now! So I'm thinking of ways. Maybe I'll pick or post a duet and get a few of you guys to download my part, record your part and send it back to me! Then I can edit them together. Might be cool!

Ok, last night was a hard night. I have never had these bandwidth problems, but usually everything I do that is live is on Sunday nights. Maybe I should stick with them for now. I'm going to have to look into the bandwidth problems with streaming live.

I love the idea. That is to create a place where vibe players can get together and play and hang. Show youtube videos, maybe get some interviews going etc. So I'm going to stick with it and figure out what's up here and make the next hopefully better!

Just started working on Etude 5. A few mistakes. Need to work on dynamics and get more comfortable with my left hand chords with two mallets.

How do you like my newly polished bars? Found a tip on TheVibe.net to use Mothers Mag & Aluminum Polish. Found it at Walmart in the automotive section.

Does cleaning the bars affect the tone? It may be my imagination but they sound a little brighter.

Mario is the ulitmate electronic percussion geek! He even owns a company that makes electronic percussion instruments! The mallet kat is way cool and Mario not only builds them but he can play them as well. Check him out in this episode of Percussion Geeks.