{"id":192,"date":"2005-10-06T01:05:00","date_gmt":"2005-10-06T08:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/?p=192"},"modified":"2005-10-06T01:05:00","modified_gmt":"2005-10-06T08:05:00","slug":"good_vibes_bad_information","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2005\/10\/good_vibes_bad_information\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Vibes. Bad Information."},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Rifftides<\/em> posting about Joe Locke<\/a>, I used poetic license in suggesting that without electricity the vibraharp, or vibraphone, amounts to a metallic marimba. Two readers who know what they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re talking about make it clear that my poetic license should not be renewed. The first is Charlie Shoemake, a veteran vibist of more than forty years admired for, among other things, his mastery of harmony and his ability to play with speed approaching that of light.<\/p>\n

Sorry to correct you but Red Norvo,Gary Burton, and I do not use the
\nvibraphone with electricity. In other words: no motor. I don’t know
\nRed\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s or Gary\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reason, but in my case it was my years with George Shearing.
\nWhen I first joined him he said that for his famous ensemble sound, he
\nwanted the vibes played with no motor but that I could turn it on when I took a
\nsolo. Sometime during my seven year hitch I just forgot to turn it on\u00e2\u20ac\u201dpermanently. The result was that I was now a Charlie Parker\/Bud Powell-inspired vibes player with a different sound than Milt Jackson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s
\nbecause of no motor, and a different sounding vibes player than Gary
\nBurton and his students (Dave Samuels\/Dave Freidman) because of the
\ndifferent musical content.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s the jazz vibraphone instruction 101 for today.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not quite. Now comes Gary Walters, a jazz pianist who teaches music at Butler University in Indianapolis.<\/p>\n

For the first time, I felt compelled to write after your comments discussing electric vs. acoustic instruments. You had me until you suggested that a vibraphone without electricity was a marimba. I’m sure you know it’s not quite that simplistic. A vibraphone has bars made of soft metal alloys and a good marimba has bars made from rosewood or other extremely dense woods. That, combined with the appropriate length of resonator tube, creates a warm, woody sound that I think is beautiful and distinct from the warm, soft metal sound produced by a vibraphone with its motor turned off. Many great vibraphonists that you can name as easily as I play with the motor either on or off because it adds another texture to their means of expression. But the marimba, with a soft mallet\u00e2\u20ac\u201devery bit as warm and “woody” as the “real” bass you favor!
\nThank you for allowing me to clarify and please, keep up the great writing!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I promise never to oversimplify again.
\nOf course, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an oversimplification.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Rifftides posting about Joe Locke, I used poetic license in suggesting that without electricity the vibraharp, or vibraphone, amounts to a metallic marimba. Two readers who know what they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re talking about make it clear that my poetic license should not be renewed. The first is Charlie Shoemake, a veteran vibist of more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-192","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}