I just bought a used A=440 Yamaha YV-3710. Love the sound, and the motor is absolutely silent. I am playing along with iReal Pro live in the room from my computer speakers picked up by my AMT 404 mics -> Mackie 802-VLZ3 mixer -> Focusrite Scarlet 2i2 -> Audacity. Mike Balter 23BB mallets.

Enjoy,
Barry

Hey All,
I'm just holding myself accountable here by following through with posting assignments Tony has given me on my zoom lesson with him from Sept. Tony has been great in helping me stay focused with my practice time as I continue to try and learn the vibes.

1. In my last post I shared a bebop etude. This is the duet that goes with it that I overdubbed over the original. Same rules apply here. I have to look at the page and not the instrument while playing.

2. Here are links to David Friedman's dampening etudes 5 and 6:

Hey everyone,

Here's part two in this mini-series. In this one, I focus on dominant 13 (#11) chords, explain where to play them, why they exist, and how to solo over them. And, most importantly, why you have to treat every dominant chord you encounter differently, depending on context.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Hello all,

This is a topic I've been wanting to cover for awhile, and I finally made a video on. I think this is something that jazz education (at least in my experience) hasn't covered enough. It's how, in the key of C, you need to play differently on an E7, compared to a Bb7, compared to a G7, compared to an F7. They all have different scales and extensions that accompany them.

It's not all hard science, but a lot of it is! I heard someone say once that 99% of music is teachable, mathematical facts, and 1% is magic. So learn the 99%!

So I teach some Argentinian students online. We always put on live captioning in Zoom.

Maybe you guys know this, but why not turn on zoom when you are watching a VW lesson.
Screen share the screen. Now you can watch the video and see the live captioning below.

Is that a good idea? Just thought I'd pass it on. It does not translate (yet), but you can at least here and read the english.

What do you think?

So, one of my early mentors was a pianist in whose band I played several times a week. Often we would be rehearsing one of his new tunes and he would comment on my solos. More than once he said some version of "Yeah, I hear that you're playing all the right notes and the changes, but I need to you tell a story. I need your phrases to make sense and mean something."

It was a thing. Your statements as a player were expected to sound meaningful and progress in a way that made sense.