Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

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 [...]

Most string players own several different bows during the course of their playing career, usually starting on a fiberglass or inexpensive wooden bow in early years of study and upgrading many times on the journey toward professional-level playing. Like strings, rosin, and other key pieces of gear, bows are a very personal and subjective [...]

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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(crossposted at PBDB)
I am often most frustrated as a teacher not by anything about my students or about [...]

I’ve always been fascinated by the wide variance in lesson durations among various teachers. Many of my piano teacher colleagues hold lessons for preschoolers that last only 15 minutes, while some legendary pedagogues teach lessons that last six, seven, or even eight hours. I’ve even met some teachers who teach a student until the late [...]

 Check out the gig commuting cost calculator by Drew McManus here and determine if you should really be taking that gig.

A recent feature in the Chicago Tribune (Sunday, April 13, 2008 by Jim Mateja) about the actual operating costs per mile for a variety of different vehicles caught my eye–not surprising considering how much [...]

Jason discusses reasons why one may decide to back out of one gig in favor of another, and some of the hairy problems that this can cause down the road!

I’ve written several times on this blog about both why I teach music and reasons why one might choose music teaching as a career.  I’ve also wrestled with misconceptions across the performer/educator divide, finding myself alternately surprised, shocked, and intrigued about the assumptions each camp has about the other.
One woefully neglected and quite obvious [...]

 

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We’re wrapping up our interview with author, corporate speaker, and double bassist Justin Locke today. Justin is the author of Real Men Don’t Rehearse, a book filled with wonderful anecdotes about his life in the music business. Justin was a freelance double bassist in the Boston area for nearly two decades, working regularly [...]

Audience members may be completely unaware of this, but there is a lot of wacky stuff going on in a pit that would probably never happen in an onstage performance. There’s just something about being located 6-10 feet below floor level that unleashes something in musicians. At least, it does in some [...]

As I started to drive up to Milwaukee to begin my annual Nutcracker run, something suddenly struck me–I hadn’t left the state of Illinois since the summer! In fact, the furthest I’d wandered the whole fall was to take a few trips to Elgin, just 35 miles away from my lake front home.
The last [...]