Me & My Gold Monster (Life With A Vibraphone) *Totally Without Reservation

*although, reservations are (http://musideumconcerts.com/styles/page1.html#faber) recommended due to limited seating at Donald Quan’s beautifully intimate Toronto venue The Musideum* 10/24/15

Arnold Faber’s 2 act, very intimate, very live, interactive, ONE man +2 show (Michael Freedman guitars; Mike Pelletier basses in second act).

The Gold Monster & I are recording an album and filming a DVD to commemorate (your download is included in price of admission) our event.

Arnold Faber shares his 45+ year musical journey while his famous (infamous?) Gold Monster tells its side…

Me & My Alter-Ego

Listen: The Mouse That Roared

Watch And Listen: Ode (Solo) To The Boston Years

Watch And Listen: Playing Nicely With Others

Listen: Huge Memories With Vibre´

Reserve now and come out to celebrate with us at this very **special venue:

**The Musideum:

http://www.torontoplus.ca/toronto/venues/musideum

https://www.facebook.com/musideum                                                       http://www.musideum.com/

The Musideum Toronto: Very Intimate With Great Sound

The Gold Monster & I Offer Music For Aural & Emotional Rejoicing

When I embarked on my musical path, there was this standard, that standard; by “standards”, I mean, everybody played them, everybody loved them, type tunes…

Were Talkin’: Westside Story, Porgy & Bess, American In Paris, Carousel, Oklahoma, ETC.

 

I had an extremely large aural vocabulary even as a kid; there wasn’t a musical or American songbook classic that I hadn’t heard. I was in fact familiar with them because my parents and grandparents played them all the time. Since my heart was invested in the British Invasion, I never actually imagined or considered them vehicles for performance.

The following is The Gold Monster’s and My take on “standards“:

Standards are popular pieces of music that are heard so often that the audience expects to hear them. Also, because they are generally (tune)smithed so well, they have a certain longevity or agelessness. But let’s face it, everything has a shelf life of some kind!

Most of my audience has no connection to many of these marvellous tunes whatsoever. So if I choose to expose one of these gems to them, I better be very invested in it, connected to it or it simply won’t be believable or worthy my audiences’ interest.

How The Gold Monster and I translate standards to our audiences’ ears, is all about the sincerity, motive and approach.

Like A Well Oiled Machine With The Very Best Of Intentions

The context, era and intent of many of these pieces of music has been so distorted since conception that many musicians young and old treat them as simply free-for-alls to show their wares; this can be somewhat demeaning to the original intent of the composer.

The Gold Monster and I have always felt that music is like a mirror reflecting the times we are living in. Hence, the sincerity, approach and performance of a standard we choose, has to be handled with kid gloves and offered up with a pureness of heart…

“Only the pure in heart can make a good soup” – Ludwig Van Beethoven

Me, My Gold Monster & The British Invasion Or You Really Got Me On A Sunny Afternoon

I still remember seeing the Kinks for the first time on Shindig. That energy, attitude and SOUND; I was mesmerized. I would have to say seeing the Davies bros. in action REALLY GOT me!

One day, The Gold Monster & I were sitting around trying to figure out how we could put one of our major influences on stage with our co-led project at the time, The Live Adventures Of Faber & Freedman.

Although we have nothing against the late Lawrence Welk, we really didn’t want the arrangement to come out like something for Bobby and Sissy to dance to; how to do this, HOW to do this…

My Grandma Molly Couldn’t Wait To Watch Bobby & Cissy On The Lawrence Welk Show

I Couldn’t Wait To Watch The Kinks On Shows Like Shindig and Where The Action Is

One’s personal connections, influences and aspirations are eternal.

I truly believe that acknowledging my roots keeps me grounded and allows me to stay “real“.

Even My Gold Monster & I Get The Blues

“Everyday, everyday I have the blues”. – B.B. King

The Gold Monster and I love playing the blues. One of our favourite combos is replacing a keyboard (it’s great playing with a keyboard player as well; we just enjoy the challenge) and including a saxophone. Top that off with a harmonica and we are happy campers.

Sometimes there is a fine line between Jazz and Blues. The Gold Monster and I love crossing and blurring that line…

Off and on through the years, when we have played blues, we always groove with a smile. We have covered the material of Albert Collins, Stevie Ray Vaughan, B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, etc..

Pssst (aside)! Can you imagine me in a box car with The Gold Monster playing the blues! (not that all blues themes are downers)…

*Fond Memory: Years back I had the privilege of playing my vibes (pre-Gold Monster) with the great Russell Jackson.

Trading, feeding off of and interacting is everything to us; add the element of improvisation, well it just doesn’t get much better!

It may be a juxtaposed emotion that comes from playing the blues; an intermingling of happy AND sad that adds up to elation!

I’m Arnold Faber, This is My Gold Monster

I really love this instrument!

Commitment to the sound, developing enough technique to communicate my ideas and react to the music around me is a life long quest for me.

When you are truly impassioned by an art form, I believe, YOU are chosen; YOU do not choose. The process is spiritual and eternal.

We Spend A Lot Of Time Together Mapping Out Our Musical Future Photo: Henry Faber

Flying solo on There Is No Greater Love (Symes/Jones):

Why I’m Constantly Writing/Prepping For Me & My Gold Monster Show

Gliding The Gold Monster’s Gold- Photo Henry Faber

I really want people to know and love the vibraphone; when people see me play for the first time, they are amazed to see this HUGE GOLD MONSTROSITY of an instrument in action…

In the scheme of musical happenings it is almost non-existent; this is a fascinating instrument to observe in action.

The Gold Monster can mix with literally any other instrument because of its transparent quality. In my experience of 45+ years, I would rate the mixology of other instruments in a combo setting in this order:

1. Gold Monster/guitar
2. Gold Monster/saxophone
3. Gold Monster/Piano

In a Duo:

1.  Gold Monster/saxophone
2. GoldMonster/guitar
3. Gold Monster/basses (electric & acoustic)

The Gold Monster loves, but is definitely not partial to only Jazz. Jazz for us is all about the improvisation aspect; first and foremost, it’s all about the listener. We feed off of the audiences’ aural participation and energy (sometimes I swear The Gold Monster starts glowing when we’re really groovin’!)

I even offer a short intermission where the audience can pet/play The Gold Monster.

Playing for the great staff at D’Addario (Pro•Mark) Canada…

The Gold Monster: “I’m Not A Xylophone!”

Not To Be Confused With A Vibraphone

xylophone |ˈzīləˌfōn|

noun

a musical instrument played by striking a row of wooden bars of graduated length with one or more small wooden or plastic mallets.

xylophone

DERIVATIVES

xylophonic |ˌzīləˈfänik| adjective.

xylophonist |ˈzīləˌfōnist| noun

ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from xylo-‘of wood’ + -phone.

People are always coming up to me and saying, “I like the way you play that xylophone” or “you don’t see a lot of xylophones around” or ” that’s a beautiful xylophone” etc..

The Gold Monster and I feel it’s time to clarify the above with the definition posted.

*A Few Historical Facts About The Vibraphone

In the year 1921, they constructed a metallophone that they called ‘metal – marimbaphone’. Three years later, the principle of the vibraphone was found by an American called Winterhoff. It had a clock motor instead of an electric one, so the amplitude of the vibrato could nearly not be regulated. In the year 1936, the final vibraphone was constructed. It had an electric motor to make the vibrato and had a pedal to dampen the sounds.

– *courtesy of saxer.net

Listen: this is a classic example of an xylophone in action:

Listen: this is an original piece composed by yours truly. The Gold Monster is a-struttin’…

The Gold Monster: World’s Largest, Most Expensive Tuning Fork

For years and still occasionally, I WAS the goto guy for tuning. Give me an E, B etc. was generally called out before the downbeat. I would very proficiently, instantly in fact, strike the appropriate bar. I was glad to be of service.

Then came the electronic tuners, and that functionality was gone…

It is thought:

Sound is in constant motion and is made up of three important interconnecting elements namely Pulse, Wave and Form. These cannot exist one without the other as they form a trinity of three elements in action in order to create one powerful force.

Resonance is the process whereby the primary vibration can initiate the secondary vibration which becomes sympathetic to it so that they both start resonating at the same frequency .

Acu Sound Tuning Forks

The Acu-Sound Meridian Set of Tuning Forks

This set of fourteen forks is tuned to the vibrational frequencies of each of the main meridians of the Acupuncture System comprising the following:

1. Central Vessel 2. Governing Vessel 3. Stomach 4. Spleen/Pancreas 5. Heart 6. Small Intestine 7. Bladder

8. Kidney 9. Pericardium 10. Triple Heater 11. Gall Bladder 12. Liver 13. Lung 14. Large Intestine

*Alan Sales(more info) listed in energy medicine, originally published in issue 56 – September 2000

and on…

I do however have a new tuning fork theory. What if the Gold Monster, being the size it is (there is even an additional half octave more, on the bottom end, than standard vibraphones), was hammering me and my audience with these marvellous frequencies.

World’s Largest Tuning Fork
Photo: Henry Faber

With all the hours and hours of practicing and gigs behind me, currently, and to come, I wonder about (in a good way), all those frequencies being absorbed. Eh?

Me & My Gold Monster: Like 2 Peas In iPPod

Opposites attract or so they say…

I wouldn’t say that the Gold Monster and I agree on everything but, we work it out. What tunes we want to get involved with, where we want to play, WHO we play with are all negotiations of the heart.

Taking original music to the Gold Monster can be challenging, as most of the time we are covering new ground because “I hear” so many, shall we say “unconventional” roles for the Gold Monster to play.

We spend a lot of time together…with the above being said, we have our good days and we have our not so good days!

Looking back, I think, let’s see, I am the first one at the gig, the last one to leave with my (80 lb.) Gold Monster in pieces (including the drummer!). I look at the guitar player come in, guitar case in one hand, amp in the other… takes out this beautifully crafted, finely finished with pearl inlay…

Me, I laboriously put together the cold, gold coloured, metal that is my Gold Monster (someone once asked, “what do you feed it?”), wipe away the sweat, and… warm up. That’s when the magic kicks in; that wonderful sound that makes me red in the face…

“I made my choice, and I stand by it”. – Moe Szyslak

The Mechanical Bull At Moe’s

The way I see it, we have:

Wayne & Shuster, Abbot & Costello; Ferrante & Teicher, Hall & Oates; Bogey & Bacall, Tracey & Hepburn… Me & My Gold Monster!

My Gold Monster: The Mouse That Roars

Most ears glaze over the sound of the vibraphone. It’s generally mixed in to cocktail party settings, commercials, sophisticated spy scenes, seductive implications, etc..

The Gold Monster has stressed over these cliche’s.

I have explained that it is a state of mind that needs to be addressed in our approach; that is, our performing out environment, expression and most of all sincere intent.

We Work Out Every Day

If I am not careful, all I get in response, is a series of clunks!

I once heard Canada’s wonderful Anne Murray say in an interview, “no matter how hard I try, it always sounds like I am singing lying down”. The Gold Monster can identify!

Very lovely, but we see what she means…

When I let the Gold Monster out for a romp, it’s like this…

Wanting to break out is not easy for an 80 lb. weakling…