Tony asked me to write a little about my book,”Vibraphone Technique, dampening and pedaling“; how it came about, what motivated me to write it, etc.

In the early 70’s there was almost no literature available for the vibraphone. Method books were rare, repertoire even rarer. As a student at Juilliard I had 3 or 4 lessons with Gary Burton, These lessons helped confirm my commitment to the instrument and actually motivated me to depend primarily on myself in terms of my further development as a jazz vibraphonist. I remember contacting Buster Baily, then the snare drummer with the New York Philharmonic. I loved his book, ”Mallet Calesthenics“, still one of the best mallet method books on the market.. I new Buster from a couple of recordings I had done with members of the orchestra and he was not only a wonderful musician, but also a lovely human being. I asked him to give me lessons but he had no time.. So there I was back on my own.When practicing tunes, or written pieces I was constantly confronted by my own technical shortcomings. I loved dampening as a phasing technique and wanted to become more fluent at it in various tempos. So, the next logical step for me was to compose excercises and short études which contained technical challanges directly related to these shortcomings. It was inspiring and fun to do . I felt it was important to keep the études short in orderto maitain interest, and measure my progress relatively quickly. It worked . The études were fun to play because I made sure each excercise was a complete musical thought. Also, each piece presented a specific challange, although 3 0r 4 of them dealt with the same technical problem or problems.

After I had collected 10 or so of these excercises, or études, I thought about publishing them. At the same time I was doubtful as to whether they would be of interest to anyone else other than myself. I decided to show them to a dear friend and mentor, Marv Dahlgren, percussionist with the Minneapolis Symphony and a wonderful drummer and mallet player. He had collaborated with Joe Morello on a ground breaking drum book, ”Four Way Coordination“. We met often at pecussion symposiums sponsored by the Ludwig Drum Company. At one of themI showed Marv the book. He went over it the next couple of days and came back to me with an enthusiastic thumbs up! I called Gary, asked him to write a forward and foolishly gave the book to Berklee Press to publish. I was young and naive and thilled that someone took serious interest in my book. Lacking in experience and business acumen I simply signed the contract that was handed to me and walked out of Berklee Press beaming. The following years would teach me a bitter but necessary lesson. For more years than I would like to admit I received hand written statements with ridiculously low sales and even lower royalties. It was obvious I was being cheated because everywhere I went, whether in the US or Europe, my book was used widly. While doing a gig in Milan, Italy, I saw a list of obligatory audition repertoire for the La Scala orchestra and right up on top was Ex. 25 from Vibraphone Technique, Dampening and Pedaling!. Let this be a lesson to all young players. reading this blog. Don’t sell yourselves short. Get good advice from an experienced person before signing ANY contract or agreement.

OK, money isn’t everything and the satisfaction I’ve gotten.knowing that so many malet players all over the world have enjoyed the music contained in this book is indescribable. Almost more importantly, because of this book I have all my students write their own excercises according to their own specific technical/musical difficulties. It forces them to be introspective about their playing and painfully honest about what they can and can’t do. I also encourage them to put their excercise/études in a safe place. Other players could very well profit from their insights. Some of the ”personal“ excercises I’ve heard in the course of my years of teaching have been nothing short of astounding! I encourage everybody reading this blog to start writing immediately!

-David Friedman