Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

Here is another Despair.com poster posted recently by Dark Roasted Blend. I hope this isn’t how my podcast is going to work out.

I love these demotivational posters. Dark Roasted Blend, one of my favorite blogs, just did a post with them which reminded me of some of my favorites. You can find more from Despair.com.

Not musical, not educational–it’s a monkey riding a dog. I’ve heard from several people that this is not a fake:

There is a really interesting Flash-based program by Visual Acoustics that is worth checking out. A choice of bass, guitar, piano, violin, flute, guitar, tenor sax, strings, or harp is available for experimentation. Pick an instrument and some parameters, then move the mouse around the screen and create music. Very interesting. [...]

A couple of years ago a very funny thing happened at the Lyric Opera of Chicago involving orchestra musicians, administrators, and wacky street musician hustlers. I did not witness any of this, but I have heard the same tale from several Lyric musicians, so I hope I’ve got all of my facts right. [...]

Tim Pearson sent me another Wilbur Hall video which is completely amazing. I’d like to have been a fly on the wall for this guy’s practice sessions:

There is a great new story I just read about an unnamed ROPA orchestra and a funny thing that happened during an audition. I am definitely a fan of funny audition stories. Check it out on E.C.D.’s Dragons and Princesses blog here.

This note was on the stands of the entire orchestra at a gig I played last night. It was for a piece that we hadn’t rehearsed but would be playing as an encore that night. This was the flowchart describing which repeats to take and which parts came in what order. The [...]

Tim Pearson recently sent me a link to this Wilbur Hall video. Check out Wilbur’s crazy shoes, and see if you can count how many quotes he throws in here:

I have decided to quit all of my orchestral work and start a Marimba Queens tribute band. Scott Kreger from the Milwaukee Symphony (and the new double bass instructor and the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater) sent me this video. Check out the bass player in this band. He has the most fabulous upright slap [...]