Armando’s Rhumba Transcription
A Solo by Gary Burton
Watch my video here
Listen to the original here (1:00-2:11)
Why this solo?
In high school I became a voracious purchaser of CDs. No genre or artist was safe from my cash at Frugal Muse Books or Exclusive Company. One of those discs was the brilliant Native Sense album of Chick Corea and Gary Burton, and my favorite track on there? You guessed it: “Armando’s Rhumba.”
The simple chord progression, the super groovy playing, and virtuosic solos were a winner-winner-chicken dinner for my musical appetite (I am now a vegetarian). The liner notes were printed on a beautifully-textured paper (can you see the texture in the photo??) that I held constantly during the repeated listenings to this album.
The entire process, from deciding to transcribe the solo to the video above and this blog post, took about a year and a half. Want to know the juicy story? Keep reading!
My Process
One of my early teachers, the great Jamie Ryan, instilled in me the value in thoroughly knowing the source material and being able to sing it through completely before putting pencil to paper. I have had varying levels of success with this value in the past, but this one I knew COLD from all those listening sessions decades ago. So…check!
Always be able to sing the solo through before you start writing it down!
After making the decision to tackle this transcription, I listened to many other folks’ fabulous transcriptions and realized that I heard many of these rhythms and pitches differently, so I determined there might actually be some use for me to dive in.
My transcription process always flows through the software program Transcribe!. In Transcribe!, I start by adding measure numbers to the file. During the transcription process I can repeat segments of music, EQ to get a better perspective and of course, slow down the music without manipulating the pitch.
After listening through a few measures of the solo, I start to search around on the vibraphone, doing my best to harness my ear training classes at Lawrence University. I’m consciously discerning pitch and rhythm and subconsciously listening for style, contour, pedaling and sound. Throughout this process I’m constantly battling interruptive questions: should I be trying to sound like Gary Burton here? Did he really use his own mallets? I wonder if he had to overdub anything…ever. How did he play this solo so fast?!
Selfie during the transcription process
My home studio post-recording!
Ok, back to the task: can I play the first two measures? First four? First eight?
Usually I will break at eight and notate it (sorry Jamie!). Though I understand the best workflow would be to memorize the whole solo before scribing it to paper, I didn’t have too much extra time or brain power at the moment, so I made a compromise: eight measures.
Like the tortoise, I slowly, but surely, made my way through this masterpiece of a vibraphone solo until I had played and written down every note I heard…then I put it away for a year.
…
This extended furlough wasn’t on purpose, but other pieces came across my stand and other obligations seem to have taken a more forward seat in the bullet train of my life. After a year I occasionally came back to the piece every few months, just playing it for joy and to test my memory. Spoiler: my memory isn’t that good.
When I finally decided to work it up again, about a month ago, I decided to go back to listening again through the slow-mo version in Transcribe! to catch any errors that I may have heard a couple years ago…and there were many. This warranted an official notation of the piece in computer software to prepare for this lengthy blog post.
I’m guessing nobody is still reading anyway.
“Just give me the PDF and get me out of here!” - every reader of this blogpost
What’s in it for me?
Whenever we do anything, there is , at least a fraction, of ulterior narcissistic motive, right? It helps the mind become motivated if you can convince yourself that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, or you’ll get the carrot, or whatever. These are my own benefits:
To help you!
If you download the transcription, it could help serve as a basis for your own transcription, or you could use it to improve your own playing or theoretical skills. If you receive some benefit from this, I’m really happy to hear that! Please write to me through my contact page to let me know or share your video!
Technique Builder
Learning this solo honestly didn’t take me too much time, but trying to get it up to speed took a LOOOOOONG time. The virtuosity involved is incredibly impressive. As I’ll mention below, perhaps my choice of heavy sticks and questionable sticking hindered my technical development, but these notes are flying by. I love how much this challenged my strength and agility on the instrument!
Analysis
My mathematically-structured brain always had a knack for analysis, but I haven’t done much analysis of jazz solos, so this was a fantastic exercise in deconstructing one example of one of the great vibraphone players of all time (GVPOATs). He is frequently outlining triads and aligning chord tones with downbeats. There are very few times that he emphasizes upper-structure notes, and expertly-crafts the rhythm to keep momentum always moving forward.
Tim Collins, a fantastic vibraphonist (and Ithaca College alumnus), made a wonderfully-accessible video outlining the solo. Check it out here!
Get “under the hood”
Not being a regular improvisor, I feel timid when approaching improvisation because I don’t always know if I’m “doing it right”. Getting into this solo and understanding more about how the solo was constructed makes me even more confident the next time I’m faced with improvisatory music. Small phrases and longer licks are among the most applicable takeaways from this process.
My favorite licks!
There are some seriously juicy licks in this one. My favorites are definitely mm. 17-18 and mm. 76-77. Yum!
mm. 17-18
mm. 76-77
Problems and Questions I Had Along the Way
Of course, with something so intricate, there are bound to be roadblocks and questions that arise on the way through transcribing and practicing this solo. Here are mine!
Sticking?
I remember my amazing teacher, Dane Richeson, telling me that Gary Burton does a lot of double-sticking in his playing, to keep him from having to constantly jab his arms back and forth from the accidentals to natural notes. You can sneak a peak if you look very closely (or just view at a slower speed…) at the video below.
Check out around 2:40 for the specific spot…but really, just watch it all…
But the conundrum arose: do I try to fabricate a sticking that Gary could have used, or do my best with the sticking that works best for me? I chose to do a combination of my own natural sticking and what I believe Gary used. I use Burton grip on marimba and vibraphone, but I don’t always play with the outside mallet on my right hand, as Gary does nearly exclusively for single-note lines. I felt more comfortable using the inside mallets for most of the lines because that is what I felt most comfortable with. However, on some of the Eb major chords, Gary does a flurry of a Eb pentatonic scale down the instrument, which I believe he would have sticked (stuck?) with each hand assigned strictly to either the accidentals or naturals. This creates a funky sticking, but it certainly helps facilitate a quicker and smoother trip down the instrument.
Sound?
Growing up with Gary’s sound, I’ve tried to replicate it for so long. I know that he has his own mallet line, but believe me, there’s something beyond just spending $45 for some mallets if you want to truly embrace a sound concept. Of course there’s always the instrument too… I’m sure someone will tell me exactly which instrument he was using, but to my ears, the earlier recordings sound like Deagan and quickly moved to Musser Century vibes. For me, the combo of Good Vibes Gary Burton model mallets and mid-century Century vibes is THE sound of Gary Burton.
But there is more to this - it’s a way of using inertia and leverage to get a direct and solid contact between mallet and bar - and I gotta find it!
So on my Yamaha gold bar vibraphone, I wanted to try to recreate the attack-driven, yet soft “squish” sound that I’ve heard for so many years. The glossy-finished bars definitely help brighten up the sound, but I needed “slap”! I went about this in two ways: first was to get the most articulate mallets I own (n.b. not a hard core, just a lot of attack sound…there is a difference 🤯), and the second was a flinging, relaxed, downward-directed stroke.
Number 1 was easy. I settled on old, worn-in Iñaki Sebastian VCS-4 mallets that I just love. They are heavy, but they really slap!
Number 2 was incredibly difficult. I’ve trained myself for so many years to use as little motion and force as possible to achieve the desired result, and sometimes even changed my concept of the result because I felt like I was over-exerting. In a small way, I had to re-learn how to play! Perhaps this contributed to my slow progress on playing the transcription at tempo, along with the heavier mallets. I was frustrated for a couple weeks because I actually tore some skin between my first and second finger utilizing a more assertive stroke, and I haven’t had that injury since the early 2000s! After backing off a little bit for a couple days, my finger healed and I was able to record the video above.
I can’t hear everything!!
With the technology in the 1990s, and close-micing both the piano and vibraphone, I would have expected to be able to hear everything in crystal-clarity. That is not the case. There is actually a measure and a half (mm. 59-60) that I just cannot hear. I EQed it to every extreme and listened countless times. I tried my hardest to hear exactly what Gary is doing, but I can’t be confident.
Additionally, I am 96.7% positive that he is playing chords in his left hand in mm. 62-65. With the piano so prominent in that section, especially in the range of the vibraphone, it is difficult to discern his exact notes for me. I ended up EQing these measures and believe I could accurately discern the rhythm Gary played in his left hand. It is very hard to discern the pitches with 100% confidence because of Chick’s (amazing) piano playing at that moment.
Fidelity to artist or recording?
Folks who do many transcriptions understand this dilemma well. Our notation system can never accurately represent all of the infinite nuance of a performance. Arg. What should I do when Gary plays a note that isn’t exactly 50% of the beat? Do I write an eighth note and essentially lie about the accuracy, or does every note require a paragraph or two of footnotes to explain the sound, duration, exact relative articulation, etc.? Here I have decided to quantize much of what Gary has performed, batching articulations into accents and slurs, even though there is a spectrum of relative dynamics and sounds that he explores in this short solo.
Additionally, I am confident that there are notes that were struck during this solo that were not intended. For example, in m. 1, beat 4, he strikes two bars at the same time (he does this again in mm. 7 and 50 as well). Though I am writing it in the transcription, I believe he was attempting to strike the G and managed to hit exactly between the F and G to produce a dyad. In my first many months of playing this, I was experimenting with playing both notes as a true dyad (intending to strike both bars), but recently have just planned for the G, and secretly tried to hit both the F and G.
m. 1
m. 7
m. 50
There are also small moments like m. 19, bt. 2 where he actually plays an A but I am 99.9% sure he was aiming for the G. Even though I know what he meant, I still aim to play the A because I don’t want to skid down that viscous slope of curating this transcription to what I think Gary would have wanted. I am trying to recreate a moment in time to help us improve as musicians and thinking people. Hopefully you agree.
How on EARTH did Gary play this?!?
Ok, let’s be real. This is one of the most amazing virtuosic displays of musicianship that I have tried to perform, and I’ve played some wicked mallet music. To be able to create this (and so many other solos similar to this) on the spot is unbelievable to me. It’s truly amazing! I’ve mentioned this to a number of my close friends and they all have similar responses: “it’s easier when you’re the one creating it rather than trying to re-create it.” Is that true? I have a feeling that Gary Burton is a certified bad dude and I am inspired by knowing that I’m not even close to his level.
Gary retiring from performing is an immensely tragic loss for all of us in music. This, coupled with Chick Corea’s passing, makes for massive gap in all genres of music. Luckily, Gary has blessed us with numerous recordings, many of which I discovered for the first time while writing this. I hope you spend some time to explore not only this track in its entirety, but also many other Gary Burton albums as well.
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed!
Mike T.
Ithaca NY