Friday, January 23, 2009

Black Page Marimba Attempt

So as I said, I have a marimba in my office and, since I can already play the drumset part for Frank Zappa's The Black Page, I decided to tackle the mallet part as well. Far easier said than done. This is my first try and it is indeed far from perfect, but worth documenting. I'm working the same way I did with the drum part. Generally, for the first time through, I will ignore the complex phrasing and just try to get the pitches and sticking right, then I can practice with a metronome and get the polyrhythms rhythmically correct. So when you listen to this keep in mind that I'm just sort of playing the rhythm by ear. I'm also ignoring the rolls. All I want this first time through is to get the pitches and sticking down. This is approximately the first six measures of the piece.

P.S. that's not a video, just an MP3 with a static picture attached. Not even my hands.

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