We’re featuring Barrie Kolstein on Contrabass Conversations this week. One of the most prominent and influential figures in the double bass community, Barrie was a real treat to interview, and co-host John Grillo and I really had a blast chatting with him. In this interview, Barrie discusses his father Samuel Kolstein and how he got into the bow making business, the progression into the bass making business, and the development of the Kolstein line of products (including rosin, stings, and cases) that bassists worldwide use today.

Barrie is a perceptive and extremely knowledgeable figure in the double bass community, and it was a real pleasure to do this interview. John, Barrie, and I actually chatted for a couple of hours, and it is all excellent content, so I’ll be breaking this interview into two hour-long segments, and you’ll be hearing the first half today. Visit the Kolstein shop online at www.kolstein.com, and check out our co-host John online at www.classicalmusicnews.tv.

One of the most exciting things to me about Contrabass Conversations is watching people’s eyes light up when they really get what we’re trying to do here. I’ve babbled on and on about podcasting and how cool it is over the last several weeks, so I’ll try not to go on another long tear about that subject, but let me just say this:

I’ve been looking through the podcast stats over the last week or so. Libsyn, the hosting company I use for the podcast, recently did a major upgrade on their stats package, making it much easier to analyze how these files are being accessed. What I’ve discovered is that these older episodes continue to be downloaded at a very high rate, with several podcasts that are over a year old still getting hundreds of downloads each month. Each podcast gets downloaded in a big clump at first from our subscribers, but there is a log and steady stream of downloads after that initial 2-4 day period.

This phenomenon illustrates one of the key differences of podcasting. In many cases, show listeners are enjoying the entirety of our episode catalog, not just downloading the latest episode we put out. Much like selecting content on a Tivo based on what mood a person is in, there are episodes for all tastes, and folks can pick and chose the order that they want to listen to them. This model is very different from radio, Internet radio, or television. In fact, it’s like an on-demand service for double bass content, only in an episodic show format.

Also, listeners participate in the shows themselves, submitting links, comments, feedback, bass news, and stories, which are then in turn wrapped into the show. Guest suggestions are incorporated into future offerings. Listeners submit bass tracks, which are then incorporated into upcoming shows. This setup makes it our show–a show by and for the bass community, not my show.

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