Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

This interview-only episode wraps up our chat with double bass composer Bjorn Berkhout. Bjorn’s music has been performed by the Chicago Symphony Bass Quartet (among other groups). We chatted about composing and life as a university professor, and Bjorn offered practical advice for music majors. Check out the first part on CBC 10.
Click to [...]

Bassist Andrew Harmon (of That’s My Cone! fame) sent me links to two extremely useful repositories for freely downloadable scores. The first (which I have used for research purposes before–extremely useful) is the International Music Score Library Project. Founded in 2006, this project is an attempt to compile all public domain scores [...]

Greg Sarchet (Bass Club Chicago, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Northeastern Illinois University) for several years has handed the following list of recommended texts out to his incoming double bass students. These books touch on all sorts of issues relating to musicians and serve as a course for developing an aesthetic sense, which is something [...]

Bass blog contributor Bill Harrison wrote a very interesting post recently on his bog Jazz Underneath. His post was prompted by this post from jazz vocalist Carol Sloane. Regarding the skills necessary for constructing a solid improvisation, Bill writes:
Just because one knows the melody and lyric of a song does NOT mean one [...]

Bass Musician Magazine, the new bi-monthly publication from Jake Kot and company, is now live! This publication is free to view online, and filling out a simple form allows for free e-mail delivery of the publication as well.
I am a staff writer for this publication, and you can find my first contribution here. [...]

Adaptistration blog author Drew McManus recently brought up the subject (previously explored on a November 2006 post) of free concerts and whether these events have the potential to turn people into ticket buyers. Although one might think that the exposure an organization gains from performing at a free event would help to drive ticket [...]

National Symphony Orchestra Robert Oppelt maintains a website that is filled with valuable resources for double bassists, including interviews, stories, tips, and advice. Robert’s site has been mentioned frequently here on the bass blog (see reference links at the bottom of this post), and it is always a treat to see his new projects.
Robert [...]

Here is the next track in the Virtual Master Class Project. This is a recording of the Beethoven 9 recitative. Leave criticism, advice, practice tips, and the like by clicking on the ‘comments’ link below the player.
Sometimes these players take 10-20 seconds to load, so give it a little time to play if it doesn’t [...]

This story was in the New York Times earlier this week:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced yesterday that the city’s Department of Education will require all schools to maintain arts programs, and that principals will be rated in their annual reviews on how well they run those programs. The announcement [...]

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 [...]