Practicing tunes in other keys is a great exercise. Recently Tony and I had a short discussion on the benefits of transposing. It reminded me of "Comrade Conrad", a beautiful Bill Evans tune that actually moves up a 5th to a new key every chorus! The transition to a new key is so smooth the listener may not even be aware that the tune is moving through all 12 keys.

Very simple but very powerful

Stéphane was a subscriber online here for a long time. He went on to focus on the hand drums, but he's a really good vibe player. Check him out. We miss him (known as Tifoo on the site)

I've lost a couple gigs recently because they Island I was to go to did not have a set of vibes on it! So I emailed Gary about traveling with a set of vibes. I don't think he'd mind if I posted his response. Sounds like the way to go is with a Traveler set of vibes and cases. Here's his reply:

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Hi Tony,

Hey all,

I ran into this clip on YouTube, and thought I should share it.

I love Hamp, but he was not a player I listened to a lot as a student. However, I appreciate him more every day and I found this clip to be awesome. Really in his prime here. Listen to how hard these guys are swinging!

SS

Ok, here's the first 6 mallet guy I've seen playing more like a jazz player and playing some lines. dritske posted a comment with this link. I thought I'd put the vid up here.

Here's one more tune from my 5-March gig -- "500 Miles High". With me are Doug Sondak on flute, Richard Hale-Shaw on bass and Ed Conley on drums. Enjoy :-).

Tom P.

Hi All,

I'm getting near completing the Vibesworkshop on Roku app I talked about earlier, but I'm not happy with the graphics elements that I've come up with. I'm hoping that someone here has more graphic design talent than I have and is willing to help out. There are four images that are needed, and they should carry common theme elements between them.

When things get slow around here I wonder what everyone is up to.

I think it's in all our best interest for all of us to work hard on this instrument and that's the goal of the site. I believe I get better when you guys get better.