10,000 Hours
This is a post by Bill Harrison - playjazznow.com
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I’ve been immersed in a fascinating book called This Is Your Brain On Music. The author, Daniel J. Levitin, is a musician/recording engineer/producer turned neuroscientist. Despite the unfortunate title, the book is a serious exploration of the connections between music (from both a listening and [...]
Creating a Top Ten Jazz Bass Schools List
A recent comment from Carol on my Advice for Aspiring Music Performance Majors post sparked my interest in creating a similar list for top-tier schools for jazz bass study. Commenting on Karl Olsen’s Orchestra Audition Winners List, Carol writes:
Jason, congratulations on your wedding (what a handsome couple!). I love your advice to bass [...]
You can’t teach professionally and perform professionally - misperceptions on both sides of the divide
I was flabbergasted today during a discussion in one of my teacher certification courses when the course instructor suggested…well, actually, the instructor flat out told this class of music education students that it was unwise and unrealistic to expect to be able to both perform and teach at a professional level. This instructor warned [...]
This Crazy Business Part 4: Orchestras – A Secret Society of Weirdoes (and I’m one of them!)
In this series we have discussed the alternate mental circuitry developed by musicians, how addictive this art form can be once this circuitry is hard-wired, and how this addiction causes musicians to tolerate employment circumstances that appear untenable to non-musicians, all to get an opportunity to practice their craft (and get their fix) as frequently [...]
Performance Anxiety - causes and solutions
This is a post from double bassist from Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music student Nicholas Hart. Nick will be contributing weekly posts to the bass blog about life as a music student in one of the nation’s most exclusive programs. I think readers will find this different perspective on the double bass world and the music [...]
This Crazy Business Part 3 - Music is Addictive
No matter how many years I’ve done it, I still get a thrill after coming home from a concert, my body temperature elevated from the music and the excitement of the moment. The sound of an audience clapping and cheering is always a great way to end a night, and this feedback keeps me [...]
This Crazy Business Part 2 – Full-Time Loyalty at Part-Time Rates
This is the second installment in This Crazy Business, a multi-part analysis of both the challenges that performing musicians face and the psychological reasons why we tolerate these challenges. This series is based on my observations as a full-time freelance classical musician, and builds upon the ideas and considerations presented in Road Warrior Without [...]
Top 7 ways that blogs are different from regular websites
I recently did a talk on the benefits of blogging for a local organization here in metro Chicago. While putting together material for the talk, I stumbled upon this short piece that I had written a few months ago. It was still in the queue for the blog (most of my writing is [...]
Auditioning at 54 - part 2
This is part 2 of a guest post by double bassist Jean-Yves Bénichou. You can read part 1 of Benjy’s post here. Benjy is bi-national, being a citizen of both the United States and France. He has lived in France for the past 30 years and has been a member of the Strasbourg Philharmonic [...]
Auditioning at 54 - guest post from Jean-Yves Bénichou
This is a guest post by double bassist Jean-Yves Bénichou. Benjy is bi-national, being a citizen of both the United States and France. He has lived in France for the past 30 years and has been a member of the Strasbourg Philharmonic since 1985. He studied double bass at Temple University with Edward Arian and [...]
