"Like Someone In Love" - Playing with Expression on the Vibraphone

This clip shows the playing of lines with expression over the song “Like Someone in Love”. Focusing here on using dynamics, varied articulation, touch and nuance in playing the lines. There are a number of areas to think about in terms of this topic. Examples are: thinking about not only the attack of the note but also the length of the note. Many times, the vibraphone is played with too much of a constant sustain of the note which negates any use of space between the phrases. As with say a saxophone, there is a variety of sound and articulation. We want to maximize the potential of varied articulation with the use of dampening including the use of deadstrokes. Dampening can be effective in sounding very legato lines as well as slurs which can add more interest and nuance in the lines.
A variety of pedaling is also important whereby some notes are allowed to ring together while others are not. In terms of dynamics, each note in a phrase can have its own dynamic level. One note may be accented while the next one in the phrase might be “ghosted”. An entire phrase (like a chordal arpeggio) may be ghosted which is something like Charlie Parker used to do in his solos. We can really increase the impact of a phrase by the incorporation of nuance and dynamics. We might use a crescendo for a phrase or a diminuendo. Listen to pianist Keith Jarrett and how he can play a very simple phrase and make it sound so powerful and expressive.
Our goal should me to make the instrument "sing" and play it with a vocal quality as Gary Burton used to say so often in the lessons. We should try to play the instrument with a very wide dynamic range and not dynamically flat. It’s a beautifully sounding instrument and we don’t want to always play with too much force and with a constant double forte dynamic level. We have to think about not only the note selection for the improvisation but also how we play those notes. Once we lose all sense of dynamics, touch and nuance, we lose so much potential beauty of the instrument. I’m still learning and experimenting on how to play the vibraphone with more nuance and a variety of sound. It's one of the areas in playing the instrument that has so much potential. 🙂

Thank you for today's teaching, I really appreciate listening to you and learning from one of the greats

[@GhostyHugs]

this is sick Ed, good stuff!