Navigating Music Careers - advice from Paul Ellison
Bass Blog reader Jon recently let me know about this great resource from Rice University bass professor Paul Ellison on career opportunities in music. This resource is especially relevant considering some of the subjects that have been explored in the past on this blog such as musical entrepreneurship and reinventing music performance degrees.
You [...]
Conservatories - not best for undergrads?
Patty Mitchell, the author of the great blog oboeinsight, usually features a quote of the day on her blog. These are usually interesting nuggets of wisdom from various musical figures. She recently posted a quote from a Sequenzia21/ (contemporary classical music blog) post titled The Conservatory by David Salvage.
Here’s the paragraph that [...]
Getting a good sound - post from John Floeter
Bassist John Floeter has been continuing his series about organizing one’s practicing, putting up a great post earlier this week on his blog about how to really get a quality sound on the bass. This is a subject that I find very interesting, and it is great to hear John offer up valuable advice. [...]
Contrabass Conversations #29 - Michael Hovnanian interview part 2
This week we are continuing our conversation with Chicago Symphony Orchestra bassist Michael Hovnanian that we began on Episode 24 of the podcast. Michael has been a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 1989, and he serves as the president of Discordia Music (double bass music publisher). Michael also plays for the Gunnelpumpers, [...]
Leave some Virtual Master Class feedback!
The feedback on the Virtual Master Class tracks has been pretty light recently. This is understandable–it’s summertime,school is out, people are kicking back and relaxing. It would be great, however, if people could find some time to click on a track and leave a line or two with some constructive criticism. You [...]
Joel Quarrington to teach at Toronto Summer Music Festival
San Diego Symphony Principal Bass Jeremy Kurtz recently passed this announcement along to me. Joel is a phenomenal player, and I would highly recommend checking it out.
Joel writes:
The Toronto Summer Music Festival and Academy is a new program taking place this year at the University of Toronto from July 23 to August 19th.
I will [...]
Josh Nemith on correlation between music education and academic achievement
I wrote a post a few days ago about a recent study by the NAMM association on student music program participation and overall academic achievement. I somehow missed my IRIS Orchestra colleague and blogger Joshua Nemith’s post about the same subject. You can check out this excellent post from Josh here.
In other news, [...]
New Study Reveals Strong Relationship Between Quality Music Education Programs and Academic Achievement
A recent post on the Music Teacher’s Helper blog led me to this recent study conducted by NAMM, the association for music manufacturers and retailers. It shows a strong correlation between the presence of quality music programs (not just having music programs) and the overall academic achievement within schools. Some statistics:
Results from [...]
On Teaching - post from Charles Noble
Charles Noble wrote a very interesting post on his Daily Observations blog recently concerning his thoughts on teaching, mentioning that he always compares the attitudes and levels of preparation, commitment, and overall dedication to his own attitudes as a young student:
I guess it’s not a totally fair judgment, but I always put the students that [...]
Contrabass Conversations #28 - Ranaan Meyer interview
This week’s Contrabass Conversations podcast features the first part of our interview with double bassist Ranaan Meyer. John Grillo (a frequent guest and collaborator on the podcast) and I co-interviewed Ranaan, who is the bassist for the band Time for Three and has had a very interesting and multi-faceted career. In addition to [...]
