Archive for August 2008
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CBC 93: DaXun Zhang interview part 2
We’re concluding our interview with double bass soloist and University of Texas-Austin bass professorDaXun Zhang today, as well as featuring more tracks from this stellar musician. Check out episode 92 for the first part of this interview.
Along with the conclusion of our interview, we’ll be featuring DaXun performing a very cool Chinese piece for [...]
Audition preparation advice with Matt Heller
Calgary Philharmonic bassist Matt Heller (a frequent subject of posts here at doublebassblog.org) recently put out an excellent audition preperation breakdown on his blog hellafrisch.blogspot.com. Matt is an excellent bassist and blogger (and a swell guy to boot–we’ve been friends for years) who was featured in the New York Times by columnist Dan Wakin [...]
Why I love iPhone blogging
I have been doing a surprising amount of blogging on the iPhone ever since the WordPress mobile application was released for the iPhone operating system. While it may seem kind of cumbersome to write extended blog posts on a mobile device–I only planned on doing some editing on the fly with it–this is a marvelous [...]
Southwest adventures part 2
After spending time in the Black Hills, we set out for the biggest drag of the trip–the drive from Hot Springs, South Dakota to Albuquerque, New Mexico. This is a loooooong drive (about 760 miles) and we pass through some pretty uninspiring scenery between in Wyoming, causing us to reconsider the wisdom of driving over [...]
Southwest adventures part 1
Though I fear that my luxuriously long summer vacations are nearing an end (I can’t really afford to just drop off from the musical landscape like I have in previous years), I have had the opportunity to head out to South Dakota and New Mexico this past July and August, and my batteries are all [...]
More podcast transcriptions coming soon
We’ve gotten a great response after sending out a request for volunteer transcribers for the Contrabass Conversations back catalog. This, to me, is a great example of how cool the bass community is and how folks will really step up to the plate for something in which they see value.
Darlene Marshall (an oboist!) has done [...]
The John Grillo Experience
Double bassist, blogger, and entrepreneur John Grillo has been a pivotal part of Contrabass Conversations since its inception in early 2007. John was one of our very first guests on the podcast, and his role quickly grew to that of collaborator and co-host. John and I have now co-hosted many of the Contrabass Conversations podcasts, [...]
PBDB Book Review Dept: Marcel Tabuteau - How Do You Expect to Play the Oboe if You Can’t Peel a Mushroom?
(crossposted at PBDB)
So who the heck is this guy? Why is this book worthy of any bassists’ attention?
If you are interested in anything related to woodwind playing, string playing, phrasing, music education, orchestral performance, musicianship, the history of American orchestras, rhythm, sound, or the Curtis Institute, the name and teachings of Marcel Tabuteau are worth [...]
CBC 92: DaXun Zhang interview part 1
We’re featuring an interview with and music from double bass soloist DaXun Zhang this week on Contrabass Conversations. The winner of numerous prestigious solo competitions, DaXun is a true virtuoso, capable of a level of musical expression and technical dexterity rarely seen on the instrument.
In this first segment of our interview (which we will conclude [...]
Franco Petracchi performs Bottesini Tarantella
This video (courtesy of Italian bassist Vito Liuzzi) features the incomparable bass virtuoso Franco Petracchi performing the Bottesini Tarantella on a hard-to-find documentary that RAI (Italian state television) did on this great artist:
