I had an opportunity to get together with Eric Steffens, one of my very first double bass students, this weekend. Eric is a senior at the Eastman School of Music, and he just headed over yesteday to Vienna for a semester of double bass study abroad.

The photo on the left is from Eric in high school (sorry, Eric), and the fellow chewing on his finger is Peter Bowling, another early student of mine.

As a teacher, it is really gratifying to see former students finding success and exploring the world of music in ways that you never imagined. It has been really fun keeping in touch with Eric during his time at Eastman–it seems like only yesterday that we were working on music for his college auditions. Hmmmm…..actually, it kind of makes me feel like an old man just thinking about it. Those college prep lessons happened in, what…2003? Jeez!

Eric has started a blog at ericsteffens.blogspot.com to chronicle his experiences during his time overseas, and I am certainly looking forward to hearing about how his exploration of the double bass will differ with what he has learned here in the United States. Although primarily a French bow player, Eric has spent the last several months playing the German bow exclusively in preparation for this trip.

I will be checking in with Eric regularly and letting folks know about what he’s up to in Austria, and I encourage readers to check out his blog as well–I’m adding his site to the Bass Blogs area in the Blogroll here at doublebassblog.org.

Eric has also put together a bunch of really cool videos with some other Eastman musicians, so expect to see these on the blog soon as well!