Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

Calgary Philharmonic bassist Matt Heller (a frequent subject of posts here at doublebassblog.org) recently put out an excellent audition preperation breakdown on his blog hellafrisch.blogspot.com. Matt is an excellent bassist and blogger (and a swell guy to boot–we’ve been friends for years) who was featured in the New York Times by columnist Dan Wakin [...]

San Diego Symphony Principal Bass Jeremy Kurtz (we’ll be interviewing him on Contrabass Conversations in the near future) passed along a link for a free tool for Macs created by a violinist in the San Diego Symphony.  Looking for an accurate tempo?  This simple application will give you an accurate tempo reading, which is [...]

Double bassist Rob Oxoby wrote in a great comment outlining an alternative exercise to the one described by doublebassblog.org contributor Phillip Serna.  Rob writes:
I was able to do this for about 45 seconds. However, it seems to me that this is the wrong kind of exercise to be building flexibility as it opens the risk [...]

This is a post from double bassist from Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music student Nicholas Hart. Nick will be contributing weekly posts to the bass blog about life as a music student in one of the nation’s most exclusive programs. I think readers will find this different perspective on the double bass world and the music [...]

If At First You Don’t Succeed recently posted about a comment from bass blog contributor Benjy detailing his experiences studying the Rabbath technique.  There is a lot similarity between Rabbath’s scale and arpeggio practice methodology and that of Ivan Galamian, and this post details a cellist’s perspective on this sort of practicing.  It’s always interesting [...]

Here’s the second part of the magnificent new video series with Rufus Reid and Tom Hill. This new site from Tyrone Bishop is a really great new destination for jazz double bassists, with forums, videos, and much more to come. Check out our Contrabass Conversations forums here (leave us some ideas for incorporating [...]

Calgary Philharmonic bassist Matt Heller just put out a great follow-up post on the topic of practice sessions and overpracticing.  Comparing practicing music to grilling steaks, Matt writes:
The music needs to be prepared just well enough - medium rare, let’s say - so that it still has the juice of spontaneity in it, without being [...]

This is a post from double bassist from Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music student Nicholas Hart. Nick will be contributing weekly posts to the bass blog about life as a music student in one of the nation’s most exclusive programs. I think readers will find this different perspective on the double bass world and the music [...]

International Society of Bassists President and Ball State University Bass Professor Hans Sturm and I got together recently and filmed a chat about the Rabbath left hand position technique. This final segment of our chat covers more general mental approaches to practicing the double bass.
If you’d like to watch the complete series, you can do [...]

Double bassist and blogger Joe Lewis wrote a post yesterday that raised some very good questions. He writes:
I’ve often thought much about efficiency when practicing music. I used to park myself in a practice room from dawn until midnight back at NEC and even before then. I would break my practice routines down into [...]