Jason Heath's Double Bass Blog » Search Results » label/Contrabass+Conversations

Weekly Wrap-Up

Jason — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 00:38:00 +0000

I spent the past two weeks performing with the Grant Park Symphony. This has been a real treat for me, both musically and personally. The GPSO is a great ensemble, and we played a lot of excellent repertoire, including Beethoven 2, Mahler 5, and the Firebird Suite. Bass blog readers will actually be familiar with many of the bass players in this section. Most of them have contributed ideas, photos, videos, or interviews to the blog at some point. Check out a funny photo of this bass section trapped in an elevator here. (elevator photo and Millennium Park photo courtesy of John Floeter)

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This week we released the second part of our interview with Guy Tuneh plus music from Brian Bromberg and Nam Chi Vu. Guy’s interview has been received with overwhelming enthusiasm from many listeners. We have received hundreds of comments from people expressing their positive reaction to Guy Tuneh, and this feedback is greatly appreciated! Check out the episode here (CBC #33).

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We also featured our second Contrabass Conversations video episode,this time with the excellent bassist Ranaan Meyer. Ranaan performed the Czardas by Vittorio Monti on his episode, and it was a real thrill to get to feature him on video! We have another video episode from Ranaan coming up here shortly as well as the rest of our audio interview with him. For now, check out the video episode here and the audio episode here.

Click here to check out our first CBC video episode featuring none other than Guy Tuneh!

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We also released the third part of This Crazy Business this week, this time focusing on how addictive music performance can be. Check out the complete series here–we’d love to know your reactions.

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It is now possible to do a very fast and accurate keyword search of the podcast, then start playing from any occurrence of that keyword. Simply enter your search term into the EveryZing widget on the left, and you’ll get what your looking for as quickly as if you did a Google search.

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Current number of bass blog posts: 1466

Here is a summary of this week’s posting:

VMC Master Class Tracks

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Most popular Bass Blog features

Most popular Bass Blog posts

Thoughts on blogging and podcasting

Regular Bass Blog Contributors

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Weekly Wrap-Up

Jason — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 06:30:00 +0000

This week marked the launch of Bass Musician Magazine, a new publication available at www.bass-musician-magazine.com, and one in which Contrabass Conversations will be a regular feature. Check it out!
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We released the next part of the Basses, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles featuring tales of woe regarding plane travel. This is the first in an extended series on double bass plane travel on the blog, so stay tuned for more of this content.

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This week we featured music educator Peter Tambroni on Contrabass Conversations. This episode was a lot of fun to put together, and is should prove to be a valuable resource for bassists everywhere. Check out the episode here.

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Keeping with the travel theme for the week, we also put out a double bass flight experiences survey this week. If you haven’t taken the survey yet, please check it out and add your data to this project.

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If you are looking for double bass sheet music, please check out the Bass Blog Sheet Music Store. We will be expanding this section of the blog to include double bass wheels, stands, cases, and other accessories, all with brief reviews of the gear offered.

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Here is a summary of this week’s posting:

VMC Master Class Tracks

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Most popular Bass Blog features

Most popular Bass Blog posts

Thoughts on blogging and podcasting

Regular Bass Blog Contributors

Weekly Wrap-Up

Jason — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 14:05:00 +0000

This week featured the second part of This Crazy Business, my new series about life as a working musician. Unlike Road Warrior Without an Expense Account (which is about being a freelance musician), this series is about life as a musician in general.

If you’d like to read the 50 or so more substantial articles and stories that are featured on this blog, just click the Articles link just below the Contrabass Conversations banner.

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I also wrote a post for the great photo blog Dark Roasted Blend (one of the 100 most popular blogs on the Internet). This post has drawn a lot of attention to the bass blog here, and it was also mentioned on Neatorama, another extremely popular blog.

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Here is a summary of this week’s posting:

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VMC Master Class Tracks

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Most popular Bass Blog features

Most popular Bass Blog posts

Thoughts on blogging and podcasting

Regular Bass Blog Contributors

Weekly Wrap-Up

Jason — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:16:00 +0000

I spent the majority of this week playing up around Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. While the concerts were fun and in a beautiful setting, these long drives are slowly killing me, and I see less and less of them in my future.

I played the same festival last year right around the time that I started blogging in earnest. You can check out some photos and video of this picturesque area of Wisconsin on this July 2006 post.
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This week saw both the first overseas interview for the Contrabass Conversations podcast with Guy Tuneh, and our first video episode (also featuring Guy) as well. There has been a great response from the bass community about this interview (we’ve received well over 50 comments from listeners already), and I am sure that listeners will look forward to more great content from Guy on the podcast in the near future.
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Part 2 of Basses, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles launched this week as well. I always enjoy doing these story/photo montages, and I am currently working on the third part of the series (about planes) right now.
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The new posting schedule for the blog is as follows:

Monday through Friday - news stories, videos, photos, resources, and other info
Saturday - no posts
Sunday - Contrabass Conversations episode

I usually work on the podcast on Saturday, and blogging and podcasting require two very different mindsets for me, so it’s best if I just lay low for that day. Plus, taking a day off from the blog to clear my head is probably a good thing in general.

Additionally, I try to put out one ‘long form’ piece of original writing per week, like a gig story or article about the music business. This longer form writing, plus the podcasts and the weekly video/photo/news/community posts are definitely keeping me busy!
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This week we also featured an interview with author Susanne Dunlap for her book Liszt’s Kiss. I had a good time doing this, and I am happy to do print interviews (as well as reviews) for books, CDs, and other music-related endeavors.
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Current number of posts on doublebassblog.org: 1382
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Here is a summary of this week’s blog activity:

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VMC Master Class Tracks

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Most popular Bass Blog features

Most popular Bass Blog posts

Thoughts on blogging and podcasting

Regular Bass Blog Contributors

Weekly Wrap-Up

Jason — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 14:05:00 +0000

I spent this entire week in Wisconsin, first driving to Madison to play in the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, then heading up to Milwaukee to play a yearly concert called Gathering On the Green about 20 miles north of Milwaukee. This kind of driving reminds me of what it was like playing in the Milwaukee Ballet all the time and driving out to my old university job at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

I’ll be spending this week in Wisconsin as well, driving up every day to Lake Geneva for Music by the Lake. I played this festival last year just as my blog was getting going, and you can see some shots of last year’s events here.

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This blog gets a lot of really great comments. If you would like to subscribe to the comments you can do so by pasting the following link into Bloglines, Google Reader, PageFlakes, or Newshutch, or you can click on it to subscribe using live bookmarks in Firefox or Internet Explorer (or probably Opera or Safari, but I don’t really use those browsers):

http://www.doublebassblog.org/feeds/comments/default

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Thanks again to Michael Hovnanian for the great Contrabass Conversations interview this week, and thanks to Dinah D, Shagg, and other musical contributors to this episode. Stay tuned next week for a video (!) and audio episode with Guy Tuneh.

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We started to add polls to the blog after an eight month hiatus from them, so expect a new poll in the sidebar each week. You’ll also be able to view the results of all our old polls.

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Current number of posts on doublebassblog.org: 1356

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Here is a summary of this week’s blog activity:

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VMC Master Class Tracks

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Most popular Bass Blog features

Most popular Bass Blog posts

Thoughts on blogging and podcasting

Regular Bass Blog Contributors

Weekly Wrap-Up

Jason — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 06:20:00 +0000

Here’s a quick wrap-up of this week’s bass scene news, blog posts, and other activity:

I released the first part of my new series called ‘This Crazy Business’. This first installment lays the groundwork for what follows in future installments. I wanted to make sure that I had established my position on the general eccentricity of artists in general and musicians in particular before going into some more lighthearted and fun examples.

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If you ever want to see a complete listing of all the longer-form writing (articles, crazy gig stories, essays, advice), just visit the Articles page. This list is constantly updated and includes a short summary of each article.
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This week we featured the first part of our interview with double bassist Ranaan Meyer. You can check out the episode here. Contrabass Conversations regular collaborator John Grillo co-interviewed Ranaan with me, and we also featured music from Guy Tuneh, Los Lonely Boys, the Fonkmasters, and The Latin Soul Syndicate.

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Give a bass player a new camera (capable of taking 640 x 480 video), some cats, and a lot of time off and this is the result you get.
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We’ve added a whole lot of new luthiers to the bass blog directory, but we still have an enormous number to go. A few new ones are added each day, so keep checking in to see what’s new. Feel free to comment on any of the shops listed or e-mail me (jsh177@yahoo.com) your suggestions for additions to the directory.
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Two of this week’s posts discussed the recent Seattle Symphony audition for assistant principal bass. No one was picked for this position, and I chime in on how frustrating I find this kind of situation. We also heard from Seattle Symphony bassist Jonathan Burnstein.
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Bass luthier James Condino sent in a great photo of a fully polished Alcoa aluminum bass from the 1930s.
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We put out a video that clearly explains what it means to subscribe to a blog, and the benefits and advantages of doing so. This is both a helpful and fun way to explain blog (and podcast) subscriptions.

Remember, you can always subscribe to the blog or to the podcast and get the full content of both delivered to you daily. Wonder how this works? Watch the video!

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Double bassist and Contrabass Conversations frequent guest Phillip Serna is now a regular contributor to the bass blog. You will see his signature at the bottom of any posts he has contributed. This week he wrote an excellent piece on the Octobass. Check it out if you didn’t get a chance to do so earlier this week. Click here to find all of Phillip’s contributions.

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We put out two blogging/podcasting/subscribing how-to posts this week. One post was written by me, while another post was a great tutorial on how to subscribe to blogs and why it is a good idea.

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Here is a summary of this week’s blog activity:

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VMC Master Class Tracks

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Most popular Bass Blog features

Most popular Bass Blog posts

Thoughts on blogging and podcasting

Regular Bass Blog Contributors

Weekly Wrap-Up

Jason — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 14:13:00 +0000

This is my first real week of vacation in over six months, and it is a humongous relief to finally have come time to kick back and relax. As a result of all this discretionary time, I have made some big behind-the-scenes changes to the blog and the podcast–the sort of thing that has only a moderate impact on the user but will really set things up well for the future.

Here are a few of this week’s changes:

New URL for the blog - We are now located at www.doublebassblog.org, so feel free to change this in your bookmarks if you like. My old URL of www.jasonheath.blogspot.com will still take you here (or any page contained at that domain), as will www.doublebassblog.com, so any old links to the blog will still work fine. Moving to my own domain name is important as this blog continues to expand, and it provides true ownership of the content. I now have the ability to switch hosting providers if necessary while still keeping blog traffic.
Totally revamped Contrabass Conversations site – I have been itching to spruce up the podcast website for a long time now, and the free time that summer provides finally gave me a chance to do so. I am very happy with the new site and plan to continue and upgrade it, and I’d encourage people to check it out and let me know what they think.
Luthier Directory launched - The Bass Blog Luthier Directory is now off and running. Just click the Bass Luthiers tab at the top of the blog to visit it. Offerings are still sparse, but expect the list to grow each day. As always, I’d appreciate any suggestions for luthier additions, and you can e-mail me (jsh177@yahoo.com) them or leave a comment.
Lots of interface changes for the blog – I have been doing a lot of fiddling around behind the scenes, checking out some new possibilities for user interface options and cleaning up old clutter. I’ve added a Twitter widget, so you can follow what’s going on with me–kind of like a blog within a blog! Feel free to add me to your Twitter friends (or get a free account if you don’t have one) at www.twitter.com/jasonheath.

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This week’s podcast (CBC #27) featured the final part of our interview with double bassist Kate Nettleman. Kate’s got some excellent advice for players out there, and hearing about her experiences attending Juilliard and Yale, being a member of the New World Symphony and the Naples Philharmonic, and performing with the Chicago Symphony, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Minnesota Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony, and St. Louis Symphony is very illuminating.

Check out CBC 27 for the second part of the interview and CBC 12 for the first part.
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We just wrapped up a great interview with with Time for Three bassist Ranaan Meyer. John Grillo and I interviewed him last night, and you’ll get a chance to hear the first part of this interview next weekend.

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This week we also put out an excellent article from bass blog contributor Jean-Yves Bénichou about auditioning at 54 for the Strasbourg Philharmonic, an orchestra in which he has held a position for over 20 years. This is a great article, and you can check out out Part 1 and Part 2 to learn more.

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Here is a summary of this week’s blog activity:

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VMC Master Class Tracks

__________

Most popular Bass Blog features

Most popular Bass Blog posts

Thoughts on blogging and podcasting

Regular Bass Blog Contributors

Weekly Wrap-Up

Jason — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 11:17:00 +0000

I am wrapping up my portion of the Midsummer’s Music Festival in Door County, Wisconsin this week with some fabulous performances. This is my third summer with this ensemble, and it is a great way to decompress after getting up at 4 a.m. and working until 11 p.m. for the past six months. Combining blogging, podcasting, academics, gigs, and a full bass teaching studio makes for one burned out musician after a while, and going up to the north woods of Wisconsin and relaxing on the beach has been a really nice change.

Heading up to a remote location makes me realize how much my life is based on easy access to the internet. Everything from blogging and podcasting to e-mail and even my calendar (!) revolves around being connected virtually, and going to a place with very little Wi-Fi access really highlights this. Still, it has been nice to kick back and relax for a while. For example, I recorded, edited, and assembled this week’s Contrabass Conversations episode (#26 – Jeff Turner interview) outside under the Aspen trees, with hummingbirds buzzing around me. You can’t even hear the sounds of the road in this remote location in the woods, just birds and squirrels chattering, the sound of the wind, and Lake Michigan pounding against the shore in the distance.

Some of the other musicians in this excellent ensemble include:

Jean and Jim Berkenstock – Lyric Opera of Chicago
Sally Chisholm and David Perry – University of Wisconsin-Madison
Walter and Stephanie Preucil

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We continue our series of interviews with major symphony orchestra professionals with this week’s podcast episode. Featuring Pittsburgh Symphony Principal Bassist Jeff Turner on the show is a real thrill for me—he has a fabulous reputation as a teacher, and he really offers great advice for musicians of all disciplines in this episode.

Our list of former podcast guests is really getting impressive, and stay tuned as it gets ever bigger. This resource will only become more useful as time progresses.

Thus far, we have interviewed the following guests:

Andy Anderson – Section Bass, Lyric Opera of Chicago
Weldon Anderson – former Broadway musician, avant-garde and freelance musician
Bjorn Berkhout – composer of many double bass compositions
Ira Gold – Section Bass, National Symphony Orchestra
John Grillo – Former New World Symphony member, performances with dozens of orchestras
Eric Hochberg – Chicago-area jazz musician
Michael Hovnanian – Section Bass, Chicago Symphony
Lawrence Hurst – Bass Professor, Indiana University
Rob Kassinger – Section Bass, Chicago Symphony
Kate Nettleman – Former New World Symphony member, performances with dozens of orchestras
François Rabbath – double bass solo artist and pedagogue
Greg Sarchet – Section Bass, Lyric Opera of Chicago
Phillip Serna – early music specialist, private teacher and freelance bassist
Jeff Turner – Principal Bass, Pittsburgh Symphony

……..and featured music from the following artists:

Donovan Stokes
Terry Plumeri
Gunnelpumpers
Michael Hovnanian
Scott Worthington
Leon Bosch
Brother Love
Lascivious Biddies
Catalin Rotaru
Francois Rabbath
John Grillo
Phillip Serna
Kate Nettleman
Andy Anderson
Ira Gold
Antonin Bastian
Evan Tate
Mark Gunn
Uncle Seth
Bjorn Berkhout
David Anderson
Rob Kassinger
NYCO
Death Chariot
Peter Lawson
Eric Hochberg
DaXun Zhang

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Not bad for six months! And it’s only going to continue to grow. For example, this week we announced a deal with TalkBass.com, the most popular website for bass players. With a dedicated Contrabass Conversations forum, we now have a very easy way to communicate ideas, suggest guests and tunes, and just get more exposure in general.

You can visit http://TalkBass.com/cbc to participate in this forum. Please do so! If you enjoy the podcast, you can help us by spreading the word. Participate in the forum, get on our e-mail list (for the blog and the podcast), and tell a friend about the podcast. The more listeners the podcast gets, the more options we have for expansion and implementation of new ideas and
attracting new guests to the show.

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I wrote a post this week bemoaning my choice of Blogger as a content management and hosting system. The Blog Bloke chimed in with some excellent advice on this subject, and I am in the process of changing my URL in a way that never breaks old links!
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This week’s posts include:

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VMC Master Class Tracks

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Most popular Bass Blog features

Most popular Bass Blog posts

Thoughts on blogging and podcasting

Regular Bass Blog Contributors

Weekly Bass Blog Wrap-Up

Jason — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 12:29:00 +0000

Doing a weekly wrap-up is something that I have been thinking about for a while. I got the idea from Lorelle VanFossen’s blog Lorelle on WordPress, an excellent blog about blogging (of great interest to me–probably not so much for most bass blog readers). Anyway, she does a weekly wrap-up that I always find interesting, and I think it is a cool way to put a cap of the week’s activities. Here goes….

Here is a summary of this week’s bass blog posting:

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This week has been a hard one for blogging due to my being up in Door County, Wisconsin. I am playing with the Midsummer’s Music Festival, a fabulous group of musicians including members from the Lyric Opera of Chicago and University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty. I have played with this ensemble for the past several summers, and it is a real treat to be able to get a chance to play chamber music on the bass at a high level.

This ensemble has put out several recordings in the past. You can listen to some of these excerpts (MP3) to get an idea of what this group is like:

Elfride Andrée – Quintet in E Minor: Allegro molto vivace
Mikhail Glinka – Trio Pathétique in D Minor: Allegro con spirito
Sigfrid Karg-Elert – Jugend (Youth), Opus 139: Ziemlich bewegt, romantisch
Franz Berwald – Septet in B-flat Major: Poco Adagio; Prestissimo; Adagio
Ludwig Spohr – Septet in A, Opus 147: Finale: Molto allegro
Louise Farrenc – Trio in E Minor: Opus 45: Scherzo
Mikhail Glinka – Trio Pathétique in D Minor: Scherzo: Vivacissimo

I will be in Door County through June, and while I will have internet access most days, don’t be surprised if a day goes by here and there without a bass blog post. I’ve got a lot in store for this blog (and the podcast) in the coming months, and I think that folks will be into the new additions I’ve got coming.

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I am also starting work on a few new multi-part articles for the blog. I put out the first part of my latest series titled Basses Planes, Trains, and Automobiles this week. This is a lighthearted look at the wacky stuff that bass players go through when traveling.

If you’re looking for other multi-part writing, check out my ten part series titled Road Warrior Without an Expense Account, a look a life as a freelance musician and thoughts on the future of the classical music performance profession:

Part I – Adjunct University Teaching
Part II – Realities of Professional Freelancing
Part III – The Rise and Fall of the Full-Time Orchestra
Part IV – Rising Tide, Shrinking Pool
Part V – Regional Orchestras
Part VI – The Vicious Cycle
Part VII – Private Teaching
Part VIII – Burnout
Part IX – Rethinking Music Performance Degrees
Part X – Refocusing (Musical Entrepreneurship)

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I’ve got a lot of new tracks for the Virtual Master Class project that I will begin rolling out this week. In order for this project to work (you can read about it in detail here), I need your help contributing comments for the individual tracks, so please click the ‘comment’ link at the bottom of the VMC tracks and leave your thoughts and constructive criticism for the submitter. You can leave your name or contribute your comment anonymously.

Here’s what has been released so far for the VMC project:

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Most popular Bass Blog features

Most popular Bass Blog posts

Thoughts on blogging and podcasting

Regular Bass Blog Contributors

Chamber music in paradise

Jason — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 21:54:00 +0000

I am playing a chamber music festival this week and next week in Door County, Wisconsin. The schedule is busy and internet access is extremely limited, so don’t wonder where I went if you don’t hear from me for a day or two. Summer is a time for kicking back, relaxing and maybe blogging a little less intensely than during the year, so expect to hear from me, but maybe not five posts a day.

If you’re looking for your bass fix, you can always dig through the archives or check out some of our 24 previous Contrabass Conversations episodes!