Jason Heath’s Double Bass Blog

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This post contains thoughts and observations about playing Gary Karr’s former double bass. Read the first part of my “Amati” bass story here.
 
When I first picked up the Amati bass from Aaron Reilly at the Guarneri House, I couldn’t wait to get it home and start working on my recital program. I [...]

Here are some shots of my recent trip to Omaha. I especially like the look of brilliance on my face in this one. The other suited guy is my great friend (and excellent author) Michael Colwill:
Here is a shot of the two of us with Aaron Burman (the groom) and my brother [...]

Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 is one of the most frequently requested pieces for orchestral auditions. At least 75% of all auditions I have taken required this piece, and I have spent countless hours in the practice room working on it. Justin Cormia, one of my University of Wisconsin - Whitewater double bass students, [...]

Matthew Wengerd sent me a link recently for jazz bassist Sigi Busch’s website. This site is definitely worth a visit. It has a lot of audio resources available, including many MP3s of his jazz performances and several MIDI practice files available for downloading. Here is his downloads page–check out what he has [...]

A cardboard bass? Peter Tambroni sent me a link about this. Believe it or not, this actually appears to be for real. For around $50 you can order a kit from Bogdon Music to assemble a two string bass. The sound is not half bad if this YouTube video is for [...]

Several years ago I played double bass for the Pacific Music Festival, a summer music festival based in Sapporo, Japan. This festival was started in the late 1980s by legendary conductor Leonard Bernstein. In addition to the Pacific Music Festival (PMF), Bernstein founded the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, and I played with this festival while in [...]

Watching a lot of HBO’s Deadwood this summer has made me want to grow a moustache and ride a horse, or at the very least to learn how to speak like a 19th century man of adventure. I’m working on the latter by studying this great 19th century vocabulary guide:

Smelt the rat; [...]

I recently read a very thoughtfully written article on ActiveBass.com about practicing methods. Written by Joe Solomon, this article approaches practicing from an improviser’s perspective, but it includes valuable advice for any performing musician:
” I don’t know, I have all these great solos in my head, but I just can’?t [...]

I recently added a new feature to my podcast page and audio page. It is called the Pupu Player, and it is a really simple way to listen to any of the tracks in my podcast. Go to either of these pages (or click on the player in this post) and a new [...]

Last year the Milwaukee Symphony became the first American orchestra to sell archival recordings in iTunes. Their press release states:
The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra announced the launch today of MSO Classics, an e-label created specifically for digital distribution of its recordings at the iTunes Music Store and other digital music stores and services, including Yahoo! [...]