Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

Matt Wengerd of 104 Weeks recently started a blog for the University of South Florida jazz department. This is a really great use of Blogger in my eyes. One can put up photos, links, text, and the like just like a regular webpage, and Blogger allows for easy collaboration on blogs, allowing [...]

I recently did an interview with my friend John Grillo. This interview will be featured on the next episode of Contrabass Conversations, and it should be a real pleasure for people to hear.
John also sent me a CD of his recent double bass recital, and I will be incorporating some of these tracks into [...]

Matt Heller recently wrote about a lesson he had with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra bassist Don Palma. Mr. Palma was a clinician for the New World Symphony recently, and he was working with the double bassists in this orchestra. Matt compares tempi of different recordings of the Bach 3rd Suite Bourrees and discusses exactly [...]

Here is an interesting post from the Chicago Classical Music blog. Bass vocalist Jonathan Miller gives some tips for thinking about intonation in the lower register, and his comments apply to the double bass as well:
First and foremost: sing squarely in the middle of the pitch. Most bass notes work well with [...]

 

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My great friend and excellent double bass and viola da gamba performer and pedagogue Phillip W. Serna is the guest for this week’s episode of Contrabass Conversations. There is also a track from Eastman School of Music student and double bassist Scott Worthington titled ‘Disrepresentation’, plus some general bass news and music from Phillip [...]

Here is a video of three double bassists (Vojtech, Gunars, & Marek) playing an arrangement of Monti’s ‘Czardas’ for double bass trio. This arrangement was done by the great Czech bassist, composer, arranger, and teacher Miloslav Gajdos. I saw Miloslav perform in the fall of 2005 at Northeastern Illinois University here in Chicago, and [...]

There is a great audition process discussion going on at Polyphonic.org right now, and it is definitely worth checking out. Panelists include prominent figures in the orchestra business, including musicians, union representatives, conductors, and negotiators. This is essential reading for anyone wanting to learn more about the audition process in the United States. [...]

I just got a copy of the most recent issue of Double Bassist magazine, and a quote from my San Jose audition story starts out an article that they did on auditioning. It’s an honor that my story would be chosen to start this great article. The main body of the story focuses [...]

 

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I had the great pleasure recently of doing an interview with Lyric Opera of Chicago and Grant Park Symphony Orchestra bassist Andrew Anderson. Andy gave a great interview on a variety of subjects.
In this first part of the interview we discuss Andy’s early years in music, the schools he attended, the type of gigs [...]

Michael Hovnanian just did a post about some fingering options for the ‘Trout’ Quintet. He mentions not often using the A harmonic on the D string in passage work (sorry, non-bass folks–click the Cats tab if your eyes are glazing over), and he cites one of the Ein Heldenleben arpeggios as another example of [...]