Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

This video of Ira Glass (via 43 Folders) really resonates with me. He describes the conundrum that creative people continually face–knowing what really is good before having the experience and technical command to actually create something good. I’ve faced this my entire life (in bass playing, blogging, podcasting, and many other endeavors) and this [...]

Full Disclosure: The bow in this video was given to me as a gift from Steve at The String Emporium. This is a comparison between my Bernd Dölling bow and a carbon fiber Finale bow–I just want to make it clear up front where I got the bow from for full and fair disclosure. [...]

San Diego Symphony Principal Bassist Jeremy Kurtz forwarded some links to new videos of Edgar Meyer live in concert with mandolin player Chris Thile. These videos have been popping up on YouTube as this smokin’ duo tours the United States. If you get a chance, I’d highly recommend checking these guys out:

Justin Locke has gracefully made the move from the hardscrabble world of freelance music into his current occupation as corporate speaker and author, and he’s got enough tales from his time in this often wacky business to keep you entertained for days. We interviewed Justin on the Contrabass Conversations podcast, which was extremely fun–check it out [...]

Here’s a quick little video showing the “tough” working conditions that I’m subjected to on a daily basis up here in northern Wisconsin.

We’ve got more full-length posts starting Monday, plus the conclusion to our interview with Steve Rodby this Saturday. Stay tuned!
….and yes, this is a goat on top of a building. Welcome to Door [...]

As a bass player, it’s a rare treat to be able to spend the summer playing chamber music with world class performers (and getting paid for it!). This is my fourth year of performing for the Midsummers Music Festival, and I’m just as pumped as ever to get up there.

We’ve had a lot of heavy posts here on the blog recently, and though I usually save this sort of stuff for Friday, I thought that some head banging kittens were the perfect thing for a beautiful June day. Maybe I’ve got kittens on the brain after taking my cats out in their stroller every [...]

My article/post/whatever you call it The Real Cost of Driving to Gigs for the Freelance Musician is featured inthe May 2008 edition of Overture, the paper for Local 47 (Los Angeles) of the American Federation of Musicians. This article prompted a lot of interesting discussion when it launched in April, and Drew McManus from Adaptistration [...]

This video popped in, of all places, one of my music education classes at DePaul University. I’ve been taking a course in class voice pedagogy this spring, and we’ve been covering how important it is for kids to sing with light voices, good posture, and proper vocal technique. Though this video is on [...]

Jason chats about some new blog articles, Story Time episodes, and podcast guests that are launching soon, plus his upcoming release of ‘Road Warrior Without an Expense Account’ in book form.