Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

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International Society of Bassists President and Ball State University Bass Professor Hans Sturm and I got together over the weekend and filmed a chat about the Rabbath left hand position technique.  Hans does a great job explaining the concepts behind this technique, and I hope that folks out there will benefit from this video.  [...]

This week’s Contrabass Conversations episode features the conclusion of our chat with Minnesota Orchestra bassist Colin Corner. Colin joined the orchestra in 2006 after being a member of the Vancouver Symphony and Louisiana Philharmonic. In this episode we discuss the process of taking an audition for an ensemble like the Minnesota Orchestra–the [...]

I just got together with International Society of Bassist president and Ball State University bass professor Hans Surm last night to chat about ISB business and do some podcasting. We got some really great footage (both audio and video)–expect to see something kind of like our Andy Anderson virtual lessons, only covering the Rabbath [...]

Dominican Symphony Orchestra bassist Velibor Veljkovic sent me a message recently in search of more information about the Klauss Stoll and Jorg Baumann recording of the Bottesini Passione Amorosa.  It sounds like this CD is out of print, and he is having a hard time locating a copy of it.  Any information about this recording [...]

I’ve been playing this piece by Rabbath for many years, finding it extremely effective for many different kinds of concerts.  There are a lot of different ways to interpret this piece, and I find this rendition fresh and fun:

You can also hear me play this piece in a demonstration/recital (after a bit of chatter about [...]

Here’s a great video of University of Iowa double bass professor Vlkan Orhon performing Poucha Dass by François Rabbath.  I’ve always enjoyed playing this piece, and it’s great to get a chance to hear Volkan perform it.
Check out Volkan’s video performance of the Harbison Concerto here (click here to learn more about the history of [...]

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 New [...]

Here’s an excellent video of the great double bass performer (and Contrabass Conversations guest) François Rabbath performing the slow movement of Vivaldi’s Concerto in F, Op. 3 No. 9. This was recorded at Ball State University in 2007. What a great artist!
Those who haven’t checked out our interview series with François can [...]

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 Orchestral [...]

This is our next installment of Lyric Opera of Chicago and Grant Park Symphony bassist Andy Anderson’s Virtual Lesson series. This episode covers techniques used in articulation and connecting long notes.
You can view all the released episodes of this series (as well as all of our other blog/podcast bass videos) in the bass blog video [...]