Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

Double bassist Brandon Mitchell just left a great comment about my Advice for Aspiring Music Performance Majors post:
This a really amazing article. It definitely scared the crap out of me, though! You know what they say (paraphrased) “the best music teachers are the ones who try to convince you to get out [...]

So where do we go from here? Do we all just turn in our instruments and quit this miserable business? Not me, and not you either, I imagine. We musicians know the value of what we do. We know that our art can change lives, create happiness, inspire greatness in [...]

I fell backwards into teaching, making it one of the core components of my professional life without even realizing it. If I had been more perceptive, in fact, I probably would have resisted, kicking and screaming every inch of the way.
Why?
Well, I come from a family of teachers. My mom is a teacher, [...]

Drew McManus just wrote up a post featuring my entire ‘Road Warrior’ series on his excellent blog Adaptistration. Thanks, Drew! He pointed out that this series would be useful for orchestra management, giving them a perspective on what life for members of their orchestras is really like. You can check out Drew’s [...]

Matt Heller put out the eighth and final installment of his Calgary Philharmonic audition story a few days ago. Check out the complete series over on his blog, or click on one of the following links to jump to one of the parts:

Calgary audition odyssey, part I
Calgary audition odyssey, part II
Calgary audition odyssey, part [...]

In Part VIII of Road Warrior Without an Expense Account, the topic of freelancer burnout was discussed. This is a depressing and all-too-frequent result of engaging in this type of work, and the solution to this situation is quite complicated.

Actually, this whole topic becomes quite depressing, and the more one thinks about [...]

A good friend of mine told me as I started my freelance career that musicians can only last ten years as freelancers. After ten years, the majority of people pack it up and look for other means of employment.
“Bah!” I said.
I was a tough cookie, able to put in six, seven, or eight [...]

This is a guest post by double bassist Jean-Yves Bénichou on how to correctly polish ebony fingerboards. 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 [...]

After the bleak nature of the last several installments of this series, I am pleased to talk about a more positive and constructive piece in the puzzle that makes up the life of a freelance musician.
Most musicians engage in at least some degree of private teaching. The tradition of passing down skills, knowledge, [...]

I often wondered as I entered the classical music freelance world how one could possibly put together an income in this business. Some politically smart auditions I took my last year of graduate school helped me join the Chicago freelance scene fairly smoothly, allowing me to play with the best groups in the area [...]