Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

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One of my colleagues was over at my place a few years ago, and we were geeking out in true double bass fashion, playing duets, working on excerpts together, and getting into deep discussions about gear.
He and I left for lunch, leaving our basses out of their cases. We had a good time, got [...]

Prompted by a recent listener question on Contrabass Conversations, double bassist Phillip Serna wrote in with some notes from a technique class he recently gave on trilling. I thought that it would prove to be interesting reading for many string players out there. Enjoy!
Discussion on Trills from Valparaiso University - Double Bass Faculty - [...]

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. The [...]

You’d think that it would be virtually impossible to forget your instrument when heading off for a concert, yet many musicians have found themselves halfway to a gig when their eyes suddenly widen and they whirl around in the car, breath catching in their throat, wondering if they really remembered to put their violin, clarinet, [...]

It’s a great feeling to have completed and put out Road Warrior Without an Expense Account, my first book, earlier this year. It’s a considerable amount of work to publish a book; though I think I always knew this, going through the process personally really drives it home! If you are interested in where employment [...]

It’s been a great year of blogging for me personally, and I’m really excited to have reached the phase of development for both Contrabass Conversations and doublebassblog.org that I’m at currently. We’ve got a large daily readership (we were pushing 2000 daily page views for these sites plus Arts Addict during the spring) and a [...]

I think that all men in classical music look at the concert attire worn by our female colleagues with a little bit of envy from time to time. Not that we men all want to wear heels and make-up (though some of us probably do….not that there’s anything wrong with that!), but putting on a [...]

 

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We’re concluding our chat 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 [...]

Author note: One of my favorite things about summer is getting the chance to finally spend some time outside, and writing on my MacBook sitting under a tree with the birds chirping and the sun shining in the sky (which I’m doing right now) has to be one of life’s great pleasures.
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Check out Part 1 [...]

After publishing my first book Road Warrior Without and Expense Account last month, I’m hard at work editing my next book, which will feature scores of crazy gig stories and will (probably) be titled “My Car Caught Fire and Exploded!”
This amusing little story was told to me by a bassist as we were waiting [...]