Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

You are browsing the archives of 2007 September.

Double bassist and music educator Russell Kahle recently sent me a link to this outstanding video of Renaud Garcia-Fons performing "Aquajan" for solo double bass.  This is a real music video, with cameras sweeping around Renaud while he plays double bass on the beach.  I often try to describe to my students bowing techniques that [...]

Although orchestral players see this size discrepancy every day, it is always amazing to see how the double bass towers over its smaller string family brethren.  It’s amazing how similar many of our techniques are given this humongous difference:
 
(photo credit - petravz)
Related Posts:

Great Bottesini Photo from Benjy
Lucite double bass
Four bass players on one instrument
Creole quartet [...]

Phillip W. Serna Doctoral Recital from 2002
Quintet, Op. 39 by Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)For Oboe, Clarinet, Violin, Viola, and Bass
Tema (Moderato) - Variation I - Variation IIAndante energicoAllegro sostenuto, me con brioAdagio pesanteAllegro precipitato, ma non troppo prestoAndantino
Season Summers, OboeSam Kaestner, ClarinetHaijin Choi, ViolinHeather Neaveill, ViolaDr. Phillip W. Serna, Double Bass
For more information, visit Dr. Phillip [...]

For the second part of the Double Bass Blog series Thoughts from the Trenches – Double Bass Private Studio Teaching, I would like to offer some thoughts on recruiting & building a studio. This is often a topic that never comes up in traditional music programs and ends up being vitally important as a means [...]

Double bassist and frequent Contrabass Conversations collaborator John Grillo sent me a link to this interesting article in a recent issue of Newsweek discussing the increasing sales of classical music downloadable content:
….classical retailers have been the best at exploiting the potential of online revenue. The biggest companies of the classical genre are now earning about [...]

This is our next installment of Lyric Opera of Chicago and Grant Park Symphony bassist Andy Anderson’s Virtual Lesson series.  This episode covers holding the bow and concepts and exercises to aid in the development of a solid bow technique.  We get a lot of close-up shots of Andy’s bow hand and the various bow [...]

My longtime friend and fellow blogger Mike Colwill just had a post on Japanese vending machines released on Dark Roasted Blend, one of my absolute most favorite blogs in the world.  DRB is insanely addictive, so look out before heading over there–you’ll be sure to lose a good hour or two!  Avi Abrams does a [...]

Bill Harrison (PlayJazzNow.com, Jazz Underneath) just released a new set of play along tracks for jazz standards. Visit his site to check them out, and remember that you can always get some free sample bass tracks here on the blog through this link.
Bill has also been putting out some great jazz bass lessons recently. [...]

We’ve had some excellent comments from readers to Bill Harrison’s ‘Making a Living’ blog post last week. I have yet to craft my own response to Bill’s question, but I’m working on it. Here are a few comments from this post in response to Bill’s question:
What do you do for a living?
Feel free [...]

Former New World Symphony bassist Andy Giller is looking for a double bass flight trunk for sale large enough to fit a full-size bass. Any readers out there looking to sell a bass trunk? If so, please get in touch (leave a comment or click the contact button in the menubar).
Also, if anyone [...]