Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

Matthew Wengerd sent me a link recently for jazz bassist Sigi Busch’s website. This site is definitely worth a visit. It has a lot of audio resources available, including many MP3s of his jazz performances and several MIDI practice files available for downloading. Here is his downloads page–check out what he [...]

A cardboard bass? Peter Tambroni sent me a link about this. Believe it or not, this actually appears to be for real. For around $50 you can order a kit from Bogdon Music to assemble a two string bass. The sound is not half bad if this YouTube video is [...]

I recently read a very thoughtfully written article on ActiveBass.com about practicing methods. Written by Joe Solomon, this article approaches practicing from an improviser’s perspective, but it includes valuable advice for any performing musician:
” I don’t know, I have all these great solos in my head, but I just can’?t [...]

The very first double bass soloist I ever heard live was the extraordinary double bassist Gary Karr. I was fifteen years old and had only been playing the bass for a year. Gary Karr was playing with my hometown symphony orchestra (the South Dakota Symphony), and my teacher Charles Kreitzer had gotten me [...]

Catalin Rotaru at Arizona State University has some great online recordings (MP3) of himself playing some excellent double bass showpieces. Click on any of the links below–they will take you to Catalin’s recordings. Catalin previously taught at the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point. I teach at the University of Wisconsin - [...]

I hope that any bass players reading my blog have already checked out The DoubleBassCast. If you haven’t listened to this podcast yet, stop reading this right now, open iTunes (or your podcatcher of choice), and subscribe to this outstanding podcast. You can also visit the website here. The DoubleBassCast (formerly called [...]

Picking the right set of bass strings can be a difficult and expensive process. Experimenting with a variety of brands is the only way to find strings that work for you and your bass, but each set of strings runs $150-200, which limits experimentation. Some (but not most) local luthiers will let you experiment with [...]

I have mentioned this before on my blog, but double bassist Peter Tambroni’s excellent new work An Introduction to Double Bass playing is now available. I highly recommend this book. It is a well-crafted and intelligently conceived resource for beginners, experienced players, teachers, and parents.
Peter has been a clinician for many years [...]

I just added two new tracks to my podcast Jason Heath’s Double Bass Performances. They are both live cuts or pieces that I premiered by the composer Bjorn Berkhout. Bjorn is a member of the Loyola University faculty and is an internationally recognized composer. His music has been performed by the [...]

Polyphonic.org has an informative new post from Eric Beers, a member of the Symphonic Services Division of the American Federation of Musicians. Flying with the bass (or any musical instrument) has grown increasingly more difficult with each year after 9/11. In 1997 and 1998 I flew about seven or eight times a year [...]