Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

I’ve always been fascinated by the wide variance in lesson durations among various teachers. Many of my piano teacher colleagues hold lessons for preschoolers that last only 15 minutes, while some legendary pedagogues teach lessons that last six, seven, or even eight hours. I’ve even met some teachers who teach a student until the [...]

 

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We’re continuing our chat (check out part on on episode 73) with Michigan State University and Interlochen Arts Academy double bass instructor Jack Budrow this week on Contrabass Conversations. In addition to helping place students in major orchestras across the globe, Jack has had a very distinguished performance career as a former member [...]

Here’s another instructional double bass video from www.mucony.com, this time featuring Manhattan School of Music bass instructor Jay Anderson teaching a student.

Last week we featured a video of Metropolitan Orchestra Principal Bass Tim Cobb working with New World Bassist and Eastman graduate Matt Abramo on the first movement of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40.  Check it out here if you missed it.
This week, we’re featuring another video of Tim teaching bass, this time covering the first movement [...]

Double bassist Kirsten Paige has completed the second and third movements of her transcription of the Beethoven Spring Sonata.  You can check out all of her transcriptions below (or visit our bass blog downloads page anytime to check out all our offerings):
Transcriptions by Kirsten Paige:

Beethoven Violin Sonata No. 5 in F Major, op. 24 (the [...]

University of Chicago student Kirsten Paige recently completed a set of transcriptions for the double bass, and she has graciously offered to make these available to the double bass community.  I just added them to the doublebassblog.org downloads page, and you can find individual links to the files below.  Check them out!
Transcriptions by Kirsten Paige

Beethoven [...]

Bassist Jon Stefaniak recently forwarded a link to me featuring this excerpt of a video lesson with Metropolitan Orchestra Principal Bass Tim Cobb.  Tim teaches a bass student (likely a Juilliard student, though this is not specified in the video notes) the primary first movement audition lick from Mozart’s Symphony No. 40.

The entire video [...]

 

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I’m pleased to be able to share this interview with Robert Meyer, one of our most experienced and interesting members of the double bass community. Robert has had a long and illustrious career on the double bass, working for over 50 years in most of the major orchestras in London (including the London [...]

The latest issue of Bass Musician Magazine is now live!  I’ve contributed a  podcast feature to this bi-monthly publication since its inception in 2007, and this month I featured our previous conversation with jazz bass legend Steve Rodby.  This interview was conducted by Contrabass Conversations guest host Kells Nollenberger as part of his new podcast [...]

 

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We’re chatting with Michigan State University and Interlochen Arts Academy double bass instructor Jack Budrow this week on Contrabass Conversations. In addition to helping place students in major orchestras across the globe, Jack has had a very distinguished performance career as a former member of the Houston Symphony, Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, and as [...]