Reading Music While Playing Vibes

Adapted from comments made on www.thevibe.net

Gordon Stout has a book called "Ideokinetics" which addresses this very problem. He uses exercises which revolve around a single note which you look at, trying to play everything else with your peripheral vision. Go slow! I'm still working on this myself.

It seems that there are many more vibes players (maybe mallet players in general) who are relatively poor sightreaders than there are who are good readers. Every vibes player I've heard comment on this subject says he's a poor reader, with the exception of Gary Burton, who can read flies off the wall. He's an anomaly in more ways than one though.

This general aptitude level is probably due to a combination of things: (speculation alert!)

1. Mallet instruments really are harder to sightread on, due to the lack of constant physical contact. This perpetuates the myth that it's impossible to play a mallet instrument without looking at the keyboard.

2. Many if not most vibists come from a jazz background, in which reading is not the first priority; we don't play in a section of a big band, for example, so we usually only have changes to read, no intricate ensemble parts. (I spent most of my school years making up my own parts in jazz orchestras)

There may be other reasons too. However, this is something that can certainly improve. Stout's book and others are a good start.

Tip
The trick is developing peripheral vision, and this is easier if the music is closer to the keyboard, such that you don't have to move your head at all, just your eyes, if that. So in performance I try to put my music stand as low and FLAT as possible, as this affords the audience a better view of me, the player. Not that I'm such a knockout, but it's pretty annoying when any musician is performing with his/her head in the stand, and with vibes (or any percussion for that matter), half the performance is visual anyway. Besides, if you give them something interesting to look at, they'll quickly forget how you missed that change in bar 6 or hit a clam on the melody.

Showmanship, while not the end-all and be-all of music, is a big enough part that those who don't have it, don't tend to be as successful. Anyone who has seen Lionel Hampton, Stefon Harris, Keith Jarrett, Dizzy Gillespie etc. can attest to this. There are many who do alright without any great degree of showmanship, but this I think is in spite of this lack, rather than because of it.