DRUMMER CAFE

Are you looking for method books on the subject?

I can suggest some books for you to check out, but just about any jazz improv book would work ... but just apply it to the vibes. I used to study all the transcribed Charlie Parker solos ... but they're harder than hell to play on the vibes. I'm sure our resident vibraphone specialist, James Walker, will have lots of good advice for you.

I'm going to hang back in the shadows and fill in ... IF ... James leaves anything out ... which I doubt he will.  

Quad,

I'm not a big fan of the Lipner book.  There's some good information there, but it always struck me as X-number of pages of, "How To Play Like Me, Arthur Lipner!"  My approach to instruction - particularly when it comes to improvisation - is much more along the lines of, "here's the raw materials, now come up with your own thing."

For soloing, if you don't have a vibes player to study with, hook up with a pianist, or failing that, a guitarist.  Piano has an obvious connection to the vibraphone in terms of the layout of the keyboard, and when/if you get into comping, you'll find that chord voicings on the vibes is more comparable to that of guitarists than of pianists (IMHO).

If you end up having to teach yourself, get ahold of this book:

Reeves, Scott. Creative Jazz Improvisation. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1989. ISBN 0-13-189671-7 01, LOC Catalog Card Number: 89-5832

And for jazz theory, the best single book I've found is:

Levine, Mark. The Jazz Theory Book. USA: Sher Music Co., 1995. ISBN 1-883217-04-0

Mark also has a fantastic jazz piano book, also highly recommended.

There are many other good jazz texts out there, but these are ones that I think are very well suited to those who don't have the benefit of studying with someone.

Since you say you have a good handle on theory, I'd suggest you just jump in and start improvising on tunes such as "Blue Bossa," "Autumn Leaves," "Song For My Father," "All Blues," "Freddie Freeloader," "Billie's Bounce," among others.  Rather than getting caught up in chord/scale relationships ("On a ii chord, play the dorian scale...on a V chord, play the altered dominant scale, but only if the chord resolves up a perfect fourth; otherwise, use the mixolydian sharp eleven scale...")  Chord/scale studies are great for increasing your harmonic vocabulary, but at this point, you simply need to start improvising:  the best way to learn is to just do it.  Focus on the basic chord tones of each chord:  1-3-5-7.  Let your ears help you to fill in the spaces, and aim to create melodies, not just a series of notes that fit the chord mathematically.

While pitch selection is something to be dealt with, don't forget that RHYTHM is a key element to a successful melodic improvisation - take advantage of your skills as a drummer when you play the vibraphone!  (Hey, it worked for Lionel Hampton!)

Listen to solos by Lester Young, Miles Davis, Wynton Kelly, Hank Mobley...these musicians were known for playing solos which may not have had the pyrotechnics of a Charlie Parker or John Coltrane (which is not to diminish the brilliance of Parker or Coltrane, or any other jazz musician who uses a lot of notes), but they had a real sense of playing "just the right thing."  Very tasteful players, and since their solos aren't filled to the brim with notes, it's easier for a novice to transcribe and learn those solos.  If you want to learn to improvise jazz effectively, you need to listen to - and absorb - the works of the masters.

There are playalong CDs published by Jamey Aebersold, and programs such as Band In A Box, which will afford you an accompaniment for your soloing in the practice room.  You're in school?  Find some players who want to get together and jam.  Even if you're all beginners, get in there and start playing.  Books are great, studying with a teacher is great, but there are aspects of improvisation which can only really be learned through the act of improvising.

Good luck, and have some fun with this!

JW

Arthur Lipner teaches jazz vibes at my old college. I didn't study with him personally (because I was a classical percussion major) but my jazz friends said that was exactly his style of teaching. It's ashame really. But you did hit it on the head with your quote - "How to play like me - Arthur Lipner!" He always had a cocky air about him, too.

I hate to get going on this topic, just because I have to head out the door and go teach in a couple of minutes, so I won't be able to get back to this thread 'til late tonight at the earliest, but I'll just say this:  even at the earliest levels of improvisation, it doesn't take any more time (IMHO) to get your hands around the basics of improvisation than it would to learn some of the studies in Arthur's "Vibes Real Book."  Of course, my approach to teaching improvisation isn't rooted exclusively in chord/scale relationships and the "rules" of jazz harmony (the way it is in many jazz education programs) - I'm much more intuitive about the whole thing, much along the lines of:  "Here are the chord tones, now use your ears to fill in the spaces between the chord tones by using your ears and instincts to pick out the best notes from the chromatic scale."  (There's a little more instruction than that, but that's basically it.)  Someone at the college level, with even two or three semesters of theory behind them, can handle this.  I've even had middle- and high-school students get their heads around this after taking a little bit of time (if needed) to explain some of these basic chord structures (major seventh, minor seventh, dominant seventh).  It's amazing how far one can get with "chord tones plus chromatic scale" as a starting point when improvising.  It's not even about "fully developing" one's abilities.

An example of this type of "get your feet wet" approach to teaching beginning improvisation, here's a lesson on my web site:

http://www.malletjazz.com/lessons/improv101.html

If someone wants to perform one of Arthur's transcriptions (or any other transcriptions) on a recital "as written," rather than studying improvisation, that's another matter entirely.

JW

PS  In case anyone thinks I'm singling out Arthur Lipner, I'm not - I've met the man once, for about thirty seconds (six years ago), and spoke with him on the phone two or three times about five years ago, and even tho we have some mutual friends, we really don't have any contact with each other, and I have no reason/agenda to slam his stuff.  It's just that his way is not the way I'd go about teaching these materials.