Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

This video of Ira Glass (via 43 Folders) really resonates with me. He describes the conundrum that creative people continually face–knowing what really is good before having the experience and technical command to actually create something good. I’ve faced this my entire life (in bass playing, blogging, podcasting, and many other endeavors) and this video [...]

Adaptistration blogger and Inside the Arts mastermind Drew McManus recently put out a post about summer music festivals that really caught my eye. In this post (dated 6/27/08), Drew writes:
Unlike regular season positions, music festivals have an added bonus by offering their exclusive location as an added incentive to performance and travel pay. Add to [...]

Over time, professional freelancers develop a set of skills quite peculiar to the profession, alternately taking on the role of long-haul trucker, delivery man, cabbie, and crisis control expert. Though they share the same basic musical skills as their more stably employed colleagues, freelancers are constantly faced with foreign environments and unfamiliar faces, and are [...]

 

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We’re concluding our chat with Michigan State University and Interlochen Arts Academy double bass instructor Jack Budrow this week on Contrabass Conversations. In addition to helping place students in major orchestras across the globe, Jack has had a very distinguished performance career as a former member of the Houston Symphony, Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, and [...]

A recent article in the Chicago Tribune (May 28, 2008) reignited some long-standing concerns that I’ve had for a longtime about the massive amount of educational debt many musicians accrue during their years of training. This trend is affecting all college students (not only musicians), but since our earnings tend to be rather meager compared [...]

The cycle repeats itself, the faces on the gigs and the music on the stand changing in a never ending cycle of concert halls, Styrofoam cups of coffee in underground orchestra lounges, hauling basses, stools, and stands out of parking garages.

Kennedy Expressway - 7 a.m. - jammed up on the freeway, riding the brake pedal, [...]

At long last, my book Road Warrior Without an Expense Account is completed and ready for purchase. It’s priced at $14.95 and is available now from Lulu.com (click below to purchase), and will be available through Amazon.com, Borders, and Barnes & Noble in the next 6 weeks or so.
Putting this book together has really been [...]

As I spend more of my time focusing on local activities (playing, teaching, etc.) and less on driving all over the country, I’ve gotten a chance to really take in this remarkable city that I live in. What a fascinating and multifaceted place metro Chicago is! I’m currently sitting on the Midway Pleasance, gazing up [...]

Check out part 1 of this series here.
One of the main tasks I use my laptop for is blogging, and the workflow on the Mac was of primary importance to me. Though I spent the first few years of my blog ging career on a PC, I knew that over 50% of all bloggers use [...]

Ahh, those lovely and divisive double bass issues like standing–fodder for eternal and impassioned debate on both sides of the fence. Deciding whether or not to stand while playing the instrument (or to do both depending on the context) is a pivotal decision for every single bassist, and it is the source of much controversy [...]