Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

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. [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

 

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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 [...]

I just put up Jeff Bradetich’s advanced technique packet on the bass blog downloads page. Jeff hands this packet out to bassists who attend his master class sessions, and it is an excellent expansion beyond the concepts and exercises introduced in his first technique packet.
You can download the advanced technique packet here, download the [...]

An insider perspective on the psychology of performing musiciansThe essay that follows is intended to serve as a theoretical foundation for the arguments presented in subsequent installments of this series. It is based on contemporary theories on arts education plus my own personal observations of the music business. I welcome any additional reader [...]

Grant Park Symphony bassist and blogger John Floeter put out a recent post on his blog about organizing practice time. He writes:
I divide practice into two large categories, technique and repertoire. Within these two categories are many subcategories.
Technique Goals: physical strength, speed, accuracy, AND mental strength speed and accuracy. With the physical goals, we [...]

Those who have seen Gary Karr perform know that he is a bit of a ham (to say the least). This performance of the Van Goens Scherzo is representative of one of the many encores that Gary would typically play during a performance as soloist. I remember hearing this same piece with the [...]