High schoolers – take your bass playing to the next level

It’s not too late to still apply for this summer’s National High School Music Institute, a summer music program in late June and July with a dynamite faculty (including me!) and a lot of great opportunities for taking your bass playing to the next level....

One more day to enter April Upton Pickup giveaway

This Friday is the last day to enter the April raffle for a free Upton Bass Revolution Solo pickup. We don’t have a ton of entries at present, so if you enter then your odds are really good that you’ll get that pickup.  The topic is simple–share with...

The American String Project featured in Strings Magazine

We’ve featured music from the conductorless American String Project and its artistic co-director Barry Lieberman several times before here on the blog and on Contrabass Conversations. Check out this April 2010 article from Strings Magazine about The American...

Oscar Levant plays Concerto in F

I recently played a concert with the Elgin Symphony where we accompanied old movie clips, something that I always enjoy. It’s fun to see the audience reacting to these movie clips with a live orchestra providing the soundtrack, and it’s always an exercise...

Even cats love the iPad!

Several folks have passed along the following link to me, knowing me to be a lover of cats and of my new iPad. This has been pretty popular on YouTube, so you may have already seen it, but check it out if you haven’t–it’s amazing to see how cats can...