Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

You are browsing the archives of 2007 April.

Drew McManus is in the midst of running a series of essays on his blog Adaptistration for the Take a Friend to Orchestra initiative. He is putting up a new essay each day for the month of April, and I urge readers to check these out. Drew has been running these essays [...]

Well, folks—jobs aren’t exactly falling off the trees these days, but what else is new? There are scant employment opportunities in this month’s International Musician outside of part-time work, but I’ll present you with what we’ve got anyway. Here goes:
____________

Long Beach Symphony Orchestra
Enrique Arturo Diemecke, Music Director
Announces auditions for the [...]

I recently took a class (an undergraduate class that I had missed during my undergraduate schooling many years ago) in which any sort of technology was forbidden. We were not allowed to use laptops or voice recorders. This was a class which required both a great deal of note taking and a great deal [...]

Here we have another excellent performance by the Italian bassist Vito Liuzzi. The lighting effects are pretty strange throughout this video, but the bass playing is excellent. Again, here is Vito’s description of what you are about to see:

VITO LIUZZI plays live the “Divertimento Concertante” for doublebass and piano (better Orchestra) written by [...]

It is mid-April and the snow is still falling here in Chicago. It is easy to forget in the summer that we all live in a cold Arctic wasteland for half of the year. And I’m from an even colder climate than this originally–Chicago is balmy compared to my hometown.
At least we [...]

There has been a huge interest in the latest Contrabass Conversations episode featuring National Symphony Orchestra bassist Ira Gold. Thanks to everyone who has checked out this episode, and just visit the link above if you haven’t had a chance to hear it yet The download numbers have been really high so far, [...]

Here is a great video of the excellent bassist Vito Liuzzi playing some Bottesini. Here is an introduction to this video from Vito himself:
VITO LIUZZI plays live the “Divertimento Concertante” for doublebass and piano (better Orchestra) written by NINO ROTA (who has been the most important italian soundtrack’s composer) for the great italian soloist [...]

I just set up a new tab titled ‘Sheet Music’ at the top of the blog and a link to the Bass Blog Sheet Music Store. This takes you to a list of method books, solos, etudes, and orchestral excerpts for the double bass. I’m trying to list all of the standard double [...]

Here is the next track in the Virtual Master Class Project. This is a recording of the second movement of the Eccles Sonata. Leave criticism, advice, practice tips, and the like by clicking on the ‘comments’ link below the player.
Sometimes these players take 10-20 seconds to load, so give it a little time to play [...]

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This week’s episode of Contrabass Conversations features an interview with National Symphony bassist Ira Gold. Ira is an outstanding performer on the instrument, and he brings valuable insight into the process of learning and developing on the double bass in this interview. You will also get to hear Ira play the last movement [...]