Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

You are browsing the archives of 2008 March.

This story is also available in a video version.
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Ahhhh! Ahhhh!
My focus shattered, I looked up from my music and all around me. Where was that yelling coming from? We were just starting the second half of an orchestral pops concert in a vast arena-like theater out by the airport in metro [...]

In addition to sending us written announcements for your upcoming bass recitals (which we’ll feature on our events page and read aloud on the Contrabass Conversations podcast), feel free to send along any MP3s or video clips of your recitals after they occur.  We’d be happy to work material into both the blog and [...]

Butler University bass professor David Murray (one of the bassists featured on this weekend’s Contrabass Conversations episode) recently passed along this request from double bassist Karna Mason.  She’s doing a study on playing-related pain in double bassists and is looking for folks to fill out a survey to help with this study.  Here’s the info:
My [...]

This is a post from National Symphony Orchestra bassist Jeff Weisner. Jeff also teaches bass at The Peabody Institute in Baltimore and co-authors the blog PeabodyDoubleBass. Click here for all of Jeff’s doublebassblog.org posts.
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One month from today I’ll be playing a recital at Peabody of new music, all of which was [...]

We’ll be featuring an interview with David Murray, Volkan Orhon, Paul Sharpe, and Anthony Stoops on this weekend’s Contrabass Conversations episode.  These four bassists have been assembling from time to time as the Bad Boyz of Bass, and they are certainly an entertaining and engaging group of musicians!
Anthony Stoops was featured recently as an interview [...]

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Listen to a very tired Jason prattle on about the pros and cons of the freelance lifestyle in this video. Though I’m trying to keep the tone light, you can tell that the last few days have been nothing but driving, playing, driving, playing…

A colleague of mine passed along this entertaining (and true!) tale from a concert in a local per-service gig orchestra.  I know a lot of musicians who perform in this orchestra (which I’ll refrain from naming here), which makes it even funnier to me.
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A regional orchestra in metro Chicago was recently rehearsing a piece with [...]

A reader recently passed along the following link about the Freeway Philharmonic, a new movie based on the lives of San Francisco Bay Area musicians, and I am amazed that I haven’t seen this before. This movie completely ties into the various phenomena that I explored in my 2007 series Road Warrior Without [...]

Doesn’t the expression on my face (below) make you curious what this video’s all about?  Check it out–notice how I put my hand up to shield my face as a car pulls into the spot next to me in the parking lot.  I guess that I didn’t want to look too crazy to the audience [...]

 

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This week, we’re featuring Barrie Kolstein on the Contrabass Conversations show. 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 [...]