Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

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This week’s Contrabass Conversations Episode features the second part of our interview with Chicago Symphony bassist Rob Kassinger. Last time we heard from Rob (on episode 25), we talked about his early years on the bass, growing up in Colorado, playing jazz and electric bass, studying the instrument, and studying with Homer Mensch in [...]

We’ve had a really enthusiastic response to our Ranaan Meyer interview episode (featuring a healthy amount of music from the excellent band Time for Three) and video episode of Ranaan playing his tune I’m Tryin’.  In fact, we’ve been getting great responses to all of our recent (and previous) Contrabass Conversations projects, including our [...]

 

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This week’s Contrabass Conversations episode concludes our chat with Time for Three bassist Ranaan Meyer. CBC guest and co-host John Grillo joins us in this interview, and the three of us had a very engaging conversation. You can check out the first part of our interview plus CBC video episodes featuring Ranaan [...]

This week’s Contrabass Conversations episode features an in-depth analysis of the double bass orchestral excerpts most commonly requested at auditions. Double bassist (and regular Contrabass Conversations guest and co-host) John Grillo discusses each of these excerpts–stylistic considerations, differences in articulation and bow strokes, and suggestions for effectively learning them–and then performs them. [...]

 

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This week’s Contrabass Conversations episode features an interview with Minnesota Orchestra bassist Colin Corner. Colin joined the orchestra in 2006 after being a member of the Vancouver Symphony and Louisiana Philharmonic. We got a chance to talk auditions, orchestra life, gear, and much more. We also feature a piece from Israel-based musician [...]

Blog readers will notice that the ‘Listen to the Podcast’ section of the sidebar has been revamped, and I’d like to take a moment and briefly explain what this new podcast interface does. With the CrowdAbout widget I just installed, you can skip to selected areas of a podcast. Check it out and [...]

I am currently working on integrating a system called CrowdAbout into the Contrabass Conversations podcast. CrowdAbout (and several other services) allow producers (as well as listeners) to put virtual push-pins into podcast files, labeling where various events occur and providing links to more resources.
Listeners can leave comments at specific points in episodes. These [...]

I’d like to welcome jazz bassist Bill Harrison to the doublebassblog.org writing staff. An active double bassist and educator, Bill is the owner of PlayJazzNow.com, the world’s only source for downloadable play-along tracks, and he maintains a blog called Jazz Underneath.
Bill is a prolific and insightful writer, and I urge readers to check out [...]

Bassist John Floeter has been continuing his series about organizing one’s practicing, putting up a great post earlier this week on his blog about how to really get a quality sound on the bass. This is a subject that I find very interesting, and it is great to hear John offer up valuable advice. [...]

Double bassist Kells Nollenberger took this shot of me while interviewing Time for Three bassist Ranaan Meyer for this week’s Contrabass Conversations podcast. I’m doing a conference call over Skype with bassist John Grillo and Ranaan, and recording the whole thing with HotRecorder:
I’ve got my earbuds in while doing this interview, and Kells is [...]