Will the Lacey Act Criminalize Instrument Sales?
Not bass-specific, but certainly worth pondering:
Will the Lacey Act Criminalize Instrument Sales?
International Trade Commission Invites You to Weigh In
(Source: Music Trades Magazine) A recent amendment to the Lacey Act, which requires buyers and sellers to document of the source and species of wood used in any product or face serious legal consequences, has alarmed the music industry worldwide. Last year agents from the FBI and the Fish, Game, & Wildlife Department raided the Gibson factory in Nashville and seized allegedly undocumented wood. The consensus among other guitar makers was that “if Gibson could be targeted, then everyone is at risk.” The U.S. International Trade Commission, recognizing the problems created by the Lacey Act as currently written, is planning to appeal to Congress to revise the law.
Senior Trade Analyst Ralph Watkins is heading the effort, and is interested in hearing from anyone in the industry about problems with the law. He can be contacted at: 202-205-3492 or Ralph.watkins@usitc.gov.
The Battle on the Ice – gig story from Justin Locke
The submission date has now passed for the gig story raffle for the Upton bass pickup, and we’ve gotten a bunch of great gig stories as a result! I’ll put the remaining ones out this week and announce a winner (picked randomly from the stories entered) at the end of the week. This is the first of many Upton pickup raffles, so if you missed the entry date for the last one you can hop on board for next month’s raffle (not gig stories next month… I’ll let you know the new raffle topic soon).
Today’s gig story comes from Justin Locke, the author of Real Men Don’t Rehearse and a former Contrabass Conversations interview guest. Here’s a bit of news from Justin:
First off, just quickly, I have written a little free e-book titled,
“marketers stage fright/ and how avoid it.” While it’s really
designed for people in the marketing world, I am finding that people
in the performance world are enjoying it even more as it is a
pragmatic look at the elements of stage fright. It’s free,
downloadable through my web site at justinlocke.com/msf.pdf.
Also, I’m on a free e-book binge here, I did up a tiny little abridged
version of Real Men Don’t Rehearse. It has maybe three stories in it
. . . Justinlocke.com/rmdrx.pdf.
And now for Justin’s story:
The Battle on the Ice
I started “gigging” in Boston at the tender age of nineteen and a
half. Back then there was just enough freelance work in town to
support three bass players, and one of them, none other than now
Maestro Richard Fletcher, got an unexpected offer to take a conducting
class in New York City. So the contractor needed someone quick,
called my teacher, the phone rang, and the rest is history, as told in
Real Men Don’t Rehearse. ’Tis the stuff breaks are made of.
Anyway, going so abruptly from student to professional mode, I did not
own a car the first three years I was freelancing in Boston.
Amazingly, I pulled this off… there was plenty of public
transportation, and for out-of-town gigs, I just bummed rides from
anyone and everyone. Most folks were happy to have someone willing to
pay half the gas.
Anyway, one disgustingly cold February night, I was scheduled to play
the Brahms Requiem with some choral society up in Concord, New
Hampshire. The conductor lived in Lexington, Massachusetts. So to
get to the gig, I talked somebody into giving me a ride with my bass
out to Lexington, where I was to have dinner with this conductor and
her family, and then hop a ride with her up to the gig, which was two
hours north. Free food, free ride . . beautiful.
So I arrived at this beautifully appointed Lexington home. I left my
bass in the hallway, and their teenage daughter dutifully picked up my
suit carrier (which contained both my tuxedo and my black dress
shoes), and hung it up in the closet. (This is where you start
hearing the low strings tremulo-ing in the back.)
So we have a lovely dinner, and then we realize we’re very much behind
in the schedule, as we have to make a two-hour drive in the freezing
cold to get up to Concord New Hampshire for this gig at eight o’clock.
So were driving up route 93, happy as clams, when it suddenly dawns on
me that, while I certainly packed my bass in this woman’s station
wagon, my tuxedo and my dress shoes are still happily hanging in a
nice warm closet in Lexington. There was no turning back, we had been
in the car an hour or more.
Now this may be hard for your younger readers to comprehend, but this
all happened way back when, before the advent of cellphone technology.
So absolutely no “problem solving” could occur until we got to the
gig. Bear in mind, the outfit I was wearing was my then standard
casual wardrobe . . . And it was not exactly what you might call
“sartorially resplendent.” I think I was wearing a ripped pair of
blue jeans, a yellow polo shirt and a faded gray sweatshirt. oh– and
Adidas sneakers– you know, bright white with black stripes. Not
exactly formal attire.
Well, we arrive in Concord New Hampshire with very little time to
spare. After a quick discussion, one of the local ladies in the
chorus called her husband, and he brought down to the gig a dark blue,
broad pinstripe, suit. There’s maybe 10 minutes till downbeat. It
was a bit of a snug fit all around, and the lapels were so wide you
could have driven a truck over them. But it was better than nothing.
And I had to do SOMETHING, as I was the only bass in the orchestra.
One small problem though,… this guy didn’t have a spare pair of
dress shoes. Well as luck would have it, in this concert’s
configuration, it was in a cinderblock high school auditorium. The
orchestra was down in the pit, with the chorus up on stage. So
thankfully my my unshod socked feet were out of view of the audience.
But . . . the floor of this pit, and I will never forget it, was
unfinished, plain old, concrete. It being February in mid-New
Hampshire, I would estimate the average temperature of that concrete
floor to be approximately 38 degrees. And I stood on that ice sheet
concrete floor with my slightly damp black socks for that entire gig.
Talk about getting cold feet.
I admit, this comes nowhere near Jason’s expressway flaming car story
(does any story match that one? I doubt it), but in terms of pure
angst, embarrassment, and long-drawn-out inescapable physical
suffering while cranking out the notes, it was one of the worst gigs I
ever played in my life.
How we suffer for our art.
–jl
Thumb position question
Here’s a question from an overseas reader–feel free to chime in with some advice in the comments to this post:
I’m not really sure what is the right way, to avoid injuries and other stuff, how to hold the bass in thumb position.
My teacher says holding the neck on your shoulder blade can cause some trouble but on the other hand, is there another way to stabilize the bass in that position?
PBDB: The Toughest Question, Part 1
(crossposted from PBDB)
I’ve addressed a variety of topics here on PBDB, and almost all of them are based on conversations with bass students that I have had over the years. People ask me for advice on music school choices, technique questions, instrument purchases, teacher options, and almost any other question that could possibly seem relevant to a young bassist who is looking for ways to grow and improve as a musician. I certainly don’t always have the best or even a useful answer to their questions, but I try my best to be as helpful as I can based on my own experiences and knowledge.
However, there is one question that students very seldom ask me. This question is incredibly important, so much so that sometimes I choose to ask it of the students themselves. It’s no surprise that this question is often avoided by even the most inquisitive students. It’s a question that we all ask ourselves, but seldom do we feel sufficiently comfortable with anyone else to ask them:
Do I have what it takes to be a professional bass player?
I want to look at three aspects of this question:
- what keeps us from asking it in the first place,
- when and to whom we should and shouldn’t ask it,
- and how we can evaluate others’ responses to find the best and most complete answer.
The short answer to what keeps most of us from really asking this question is a four-letter word that starts with F – fear. If you’re even asking this question of yourself, you probably already want to be a professional musician on some level. Our society generally doesn’t steer lots of people into classical music or jazz careers. Even if you have a supportive family or teacher who are encouraging you in music, there are still lots of other societal pressures pushing almost all of us in the other direction! Asking ourselves this question means that we are acknowledging that there might be an answer other than “yes,” and no one likes to hear the word “no” when they truly want something. This is actually even more true when our own teachers and parents are telling us that we do have what it takes for a musical career. These people are usually people that we love and respect, and their opinions mean a lot to us. Asking ourselves these questions might also mean confronting the possibility that these revered authority figures might be wrong, or at least misinformed, about something important to us, and that can be a scary realization in and of itself.
This question is also hard to ask because it is fundamentally a question that asks people to tell us what they really think of us, and regardless of who we are and what our passions and interests are, that is a tough thing to do! It requires some trust and even intimacy with the person we are asking. If we feel that we are organized and mature people, and someone tells us that they think we aren’t, that can affect or even destroy our relationship with that person. For most of us, our feelings about music are deeper than our feelings about our skills at arithmetic or essay writing. Music is (among other things) about expressing ourselves and communicating our deepest feelings to others. Our self-image and our self-esteem can be intertwined with our feelings about our musical abilities, and finding out that others’ image of us isn’t the same as our own self-image can be a jarring and sometimes painful experience.
FInally, another reason that we hesitate to ask this question is that we are asking ourselves and others to predict the future with this question, and we all know that predicting the future is a highly inexact science at best. My best friend in college and I used to periodically play at predicting where each of us would be in twenty years’ time or so. We tended to get pretty ridiculous with our fortunetelling, often seeking to transplant one or the other into some bizarre, exotic location or weird relationship. I speak for both of us when I say that our lives and musical careers have both turned out in ways totally different than either our “realistic” predictions or our bizarre fantasies! No one who heard me play bass when I was 17 years old could ever have been accurate in judging the course of my musical life. However, many of the predictions that my private teacher and other musical authorities in my life at the time offered have largely come true. The collective wisdom of the people who truly knew me as a person and a musician was largely trustworthy, and I’m glad I listened to it and took it.
So, should we ask this question? Yes! If we want to have the courage to pursue a musical career, we need to have the courage to overcome all the obstacles that I’ve listed above and collect the information that will help us make a good decision. Success in music requires us to “grow up” faster than a lot of our non-musician friends. High schools and colleges are designed to help and support students who are unsure of what they want to do with their lives. In fact, they are organized around the idea that you will use high school and college to begin to figure out what you want to do with your life. To decide to go into music as a career usually means that we need to make these sorts of decisions – and have these sorts of tough conversations – years before our society makes most young adults decide on a career path. It takes maturity and a realization that you’re on a slightly different path than everyone else to go into music. Looking at your suitability for this career in an honest way is essential.
In the next chapter, we’ll look at the next aspect of this topic: Whom we should ask this question, and what specific questions we need to ask to make sure we’re collecting good information that can help us sort out our choices.
The limping neck – gig story from Deborah Lamb
Here’s the next “worst gig ever” submission in our series, this time from double bassist Deborah Lamb. Deborah is a double bassist and music education student (awesome!) at the University of Oklahoma.
This story is the latest submission for the Upton bass pickup raffle. If you’d like to be a contestant in the raffle, just email me your worst gig story (either personal or second-hand is fine) by March 15. You can send them to jasonheath -at- doublebassblog.org.
Gig Story from Deborah Lamb
Here at The University of Oklahoma (OU), I play in various ensembles. Some required of me, some just for my own enjoyment. Wind Symphony is just that!
Two weeks ago the OU Wind Symphony had a concert, and we were going to play David Maslanka’s 4th Symphony, which requires A LOT of bass and has some very exposed parts. David Maslanka was there for the concert, so the pressure was REALLY on. During the day of the concert, I wanted to make some improvements on my bass to get more sound out of it. So, I took it to my apartment to accomplish the task.
My uncle, who comes to every concert, wanted to take me out to dinner that night to celebrate my recent birthday. Around 5:30 I loaded up my bass in my car and headed back to the music building to meet him. After parking in the parking garage, I usually take the stairs down unless I’m on the 3rd or 4th level of the parking garage. I had parked on the second level. Seeing as how I live up a flight of stairs, I saw no problem taking just one flight down to ground level. While going down the stairs, I put my foot where a stair should’ve been, and it wasn’t. I then fell down 6 stairs, injuring both of my knees and my left elbow.
I gathered myself together (with the help of some very nice strangers) and headed into the music building. Noticing the top of the bass was limping down, my heart sank into my stomach- I knew then and there what happened. The scroll broke completely in half and everything had collapsed. Not caring about my injuries or my crazy crying over what happened, I needed a GOOD bass- I had a concert to play in after all, and I didn’t want to let anyone down with this incident!
I found a master key, broke into my bass professors office, and stole a bass from one of our graduate students. I played through the concert on a bass I had never laid my hands on before with two injured knees and an injured elbow. I had never been so proud of myself in my life. I definitely earned my scholarship that night!
-Debby Lamb
Music Education Student at the University of Oklahoma
Norman, OK
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