Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

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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 [...]

 

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We’re featuring a conversation with double bassist and composer Weldon Anderson on this week’s episode of Contrabass Conversations. In this episode, we’re chatting about Weldon’s experiences as a Broadway musician with the innovative Squonk Opera, his perspectives on freelancing, and an interesting back-and-forth on the music business in general. Check out the first part [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

 

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This week’s episode concludes the interview with jazz bass legend Steve Rodby that we featured on episodes 58 and 78 of the podcast. Rodby has played bass on every Pat Metheny Group record since 1980, co-produced the group’s last five albums and won 10 Grammy Awards with the group. He has toured with jazz greats [...]

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 [...]

MYA Saxophone Quartet featured on From The TopThe What’s Cookin’ Saxophone Quartet, made up of Midwest Young Artists members Amanda Peterson, Mira DeJong, Kateri Tumminello, and Joshua Plotner, was recently featured of NPR’s program From The Top. I do a lot of work with this metropolitan Chicago program–I host their weekly podcast at WMYA.fm, and [...]

 

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We’re featuring something a bit unusual for this week’s Contrabass Conversations episode. Ball State University bass professor and International Society of Bassists president Hans Sturm has been featured several times on the podcast in video episodes, and this week we’re featuring Hans discussing the fundamentals of the Rabbath technique left hand positioning system.
This dialogue was [...]

We’re featuring something a bit unusual for this week’s Contrabass Conversations episode. Ball State University bass professor and International Society of Bassists president Hans Sturm has been featured several times on the podcast in video episodes.

This week, we’re featuring audio of a session that Hans and I did concerning the Rabbath technique back in 2007. [...]

 

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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 [...]