Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

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The class glances uneasily at the clock as it slowly ticks:
1:13…..1:14…..1:15….
Suddenly, the professor bursts in, shirt rumpled and tie caught within the jumbled stack of file folders, books, and binders he clasps in his arms.
“Hi class, sorry sorry sorry…um, how’s everybody this Tuesday..er, Wednesday. Sorry, sorry, let me just get things…. set up… uh…. [...]

Houston Symphony Principal Bass Tim Pitts will be teaching at the Beijing Music Festival this summer (which will actually be held in Shanghai this year to avoid the Olympics). San Diego Principal Bass (and former Tim Pitts student) Jeremy Kurtz provides the following details:

…my former teacher, Tim Pitts, is going [...]

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 late [...]

As a blogger, podcaster, and all-around new media guy, I have found that most people assume that I am on a Mac.  I frequently have people ask me if I’ve installed Leopard yet, how to perform a specific task in iMovie, or tips on assembling podcasts in GarageBand.  This is a pretty reasonable assumption–a [...]

A recent article in the Chicago Tribune (Sunday, April 20, 2008 by Howard Reich) on the dramatic increase in music school funding caught my eye over the weekend. Several prominent music schools have new facilities either recently completed or in the planning stages, and the figures are pretty significant:

$22 million - Oberlin Conservatory [...]

 

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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 [...]

I’m sure that many don’t feel this way, but for me, everything associated with the podcast takes literally 10 times longer to accomplish than for the blog. Blogging for me is fun, fast, and….easy, I suppose. Writing is quite enjoyable for me, and I just sit down and bang away at my [...]

We hope that you all enjoyed the second half of our interview with double bass luthier Barrie Kolstein this past weekend. If you missed it, you can check it out on Barrie’s Contrabass Conversations page. You can download the episode, play it while you’re surfing online (click ‘play in popup’ and keep [...]

 

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We’re wrapping up our chat with Barrie Kolstein this week on the Contrabass Conversations show. We began this interview on episode 70 of the program, and in it we discussed Barrie’s father Samuel Kolstein and how he got into the bow making business, the progression into the bass making business, and the development of [...]

I’m definitely addicted to Twitter (you can find me at twitter.com/jasonheath).  I use it all the time and have been doing so daily for the past year.  There’s something about the simplicity of it (140 characters, that’s all you get) that appeals to me, forcing be to be pithy and focused, which is a [...]