But you’ll see a lot of four-mallet playing, which Gary Burton made extremely popular, when the vibraphone is used as a comping instrument." That came from when I was starting and listening to a lot of Milt Jackson, Lionel Hampton, Red Norvo. "That way I treat it like a single-line instrument, similar to a horn player. How many mallets? It’s a question for the individual player, but Joel prefers two or three. I’m not sure how much of that gets to the audience, but for vibraphonists it does give a cleaner effect for playing." Hitting the Thing Normally, the discs spin 180 degrees, like regular fans, whereas Malletech have ‘wings’ that lay flat and go side to side, which gives a sort of cleaner effect for the resonators. There’s a company called Malletech in New Jersey who do something different with the resonators. "There isn’t much to be done, besides changing things aesthetically. The vibraphone has changed very little since it first appeared around a hundred years ago in the early decades of the 20th century. Joel Ross on vibes with the Marquis Hill Blacktet. "When you release the pedal, similar to a piano, it lets the notes ring out," Joel says, "and you can hear the vibrato in the notes." Undamped like that, a vibraphone is capable of a very long sustain indeed-around a minute or so, he reports. The vibraphone also has a damper foot-pedal. The presence of the motor leads some to conclude that it’s an electric instrument, but in its pure form it’s decidedly acoustic. The resonators have to be on the same level, whereas with marimbas and so on, the rear set of bars equivalent to the piano’s black keys are raised." Also, it’s the only mallet instrument where none of the bars are raised-they’re all on the same level. You can usually vary the speed of the vibrato, too. "It’s called the vibraphone because it has a motor that drives pulsator discs, or fans, that spin at the top of the resonator tubes under the bars, and when you use the motor it gives the vibraphone a vibrato, that distinctive woo-woo-woo-woo-woo sound. Using harder or softer mallets produces different tones, but what makes the vibraphone unique, Joel says, is its vibrato. "We use mallets to produce sounds, hitting aluminum bars that resonate and produce a tone." "Meaning you hit it," he says with a smile. Vibraphonists know their instrument is in the percussion family, Joel explains. MechanicsĪ vibraphone might look like a kind of large xylophone, but it’s much more sophisticated than that. The New York Times called the 25-year-old a "bright young vibraphonist on his own rocket-like trajectory," and here he takes us on a tour around his instrument.
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