We’re also featuring listener feedback, bass news, a link of the week, and much more. Enjoy!

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Guy Tuneh bio:

Guy Tuneh has been studying in Germany and performing internationally. He is noted for his intense musical involvement and phenomenal performances, combining virtuosity and musicality. Mr. Tuneh has been active as a solo performer, chamber musician, orchestra and opera bassist. Having begun as a violin student at the age of 6, he was drawn to the tone color of the double bass, joining Prof. Michael Klinghoffer’s bass studio at the S. Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University. Later, he continued his bass studies under Prof. Barbara Sanderling at the Hochschule Für Musik “Hanns Eisler” in Berlin, he is now working towards a Solo Artist Diploma with Prof. Wolfgang Güttler at the Hochschule für Musik in Basel. Additionally, he took master classes with Yoan Goilav, Gary Karr and Miloslav Gajdos. His orchestra performances included engagements as a principle bassist with the Berliner Kammeroper, Ensemble “Echo” in the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, Theater Erfurt, and most recently with the Solistes Européens Luxembourg. As an orchestra bassist Mr. Tuneh performed under such distinguished conductors as Kurt Sanderling, Zubin Mehta, Sir Simon Rattle, Nicolas Harnoncourt and Christian Thielemann. Winner of a Villa Musica Scholarship, Guy Tuneh has performed all over Germany as a chamber musician and a soloist to great acclaim, and participated in chamber music and solo performances recorded by the SWR (Southwest German Radio). These performances included collaborations with Ulf Rodenhäuser, Guy Braunstein, Christian Altenburger, Wen-Sinn Yang, Martin Ostertag, Hermann Bäumer, and other distinguished musicians.The “Allgemeine Zeitung” described his performance as youthful and exuberant.

Link of the Week:

www.guytuneh.com

Music Provided by:

Eric Hochberg -www.erichochberg.com

Guy Tuneh - www.guytuneh.com

Special thanks to Daniel Chmielinski for technical assistance - www.carsleuth.net

Show Notes:

Release Date: 7/19/08

Length:13:27

listen by phone: +1 (360) 227-5632

call our comment line (24 hour voice mail): +1 (206) 666-6509

Website: www.contrabassconversations.com

E-mail: feedback@contrabassconversations.com

Blog: www.doublebassblog.org

Podcast T-shirts, hats, and more: www.cafepress.com/doublebass

MySpace: www.myspace.com/cbcpodcast

Facebook: www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=17621298264

Theme song by Eric Hochberg:www.erichochberg.com

This show is brought to you by TalkBass.com, the largest community of bassists on the Internet. Join in the conversation at talkbass.com/cbc.

Check out our jazz forums at JazzDoubleBass.com.

Join our Facebook group and share videos, chat on discussion boards, leave ideas for the show, and interact with other bassists!

To get Contrabass Conversations downloaded automatically to your computer (for free!), you can subscribe in iTunes:

Click here to subscribe through e-mail or through another program besides iTunes

By the way, I love how willing Ira is to offer his older work up for this kind of scrutiny. He did this, in hilarious and cringe-worthy fashion, with some old interviews he did with the M*A*S*H cast many years ago for the radio show.

My new iPhone!

I’ve been waiting for some time to pick up an iPhone, and I’m extremely into all the cool applications that are available for it and how it integrates quite seamlessly into my Mac-centric life. As you can see, I picked up a white 16 Gig model, which matches my similarly-colored Macbook quite nicely.

Simply put, this thing rocks. I used to be a Palm Pilot devotee back in the “dark ages,” and I frequently used my various non-smart phones to check e-mail and do basic tasks, but this thing blows anything I’ve used in the past out of the water.

Since I already use Apple Mail, iCal, Address Book, and a bevy of other Mac apps, using an iPhone is a no-brainer, but this is the kind of thing that would probably appeal to you even if you’d never used any sort of computer or smart phone in the past. It’s sleek and intuitive, and best of all, it delivers all the Contrabass Conversations podcasts in an über-slick format.

By the way, there are a bunch of music-related applications that have already launched for the iPhone, and I’ll be interested to see what else is on the horizon. I already picked up a cool app called Karajan Ear Trainer that I’ll be using in bass lessons to quiz students on intervals and chords, and I’ll definitely be checking out more apps like this in the coming weeks.

Contrabass Conversations transcripts now available

Speaking of Contrabass Conversations, I put the word out last week for any interested listeners to do some interview transcriptions. The offer still stands–though I can’t pay, I am happy to send either a complimentary copy of Road Warrior Without an Expense Account or a free Contrabass Conversations t-shirt to anyone who feels like doing a transcription. By the way, Darlene Marshall, who is our first transcriber, isn’t even a bassist! She has found bassist Andy Anderson’s episodes useful and has begun transcribing them. Check out her fine work here.

You can see what’s been transcribed through this link (also available through the Features directory at the top of the blog). Check it out–it will definitely be a good way to help get this information out to musicians worldwide.

Road Warrior available through Amazon and Barnes & Noble

As I mentioned last week, my book Road Warrior Without an Expense Account is now available through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It’s great to see it offered in these mainstream retail outlets as well as through my own site, and if you haven’t gotten a chance to pick up a copy yet you can do so through either of those sites as well as right here from the blog.

“Road Warrior Without an Expense Account” (Jason Heath)

Upcoming Book Signing for Road Warrior and new book video

I’ll be doing a book signing for “Road Warrior” next week in Sioux Falls, South Dakota (my hometown). Though I know that this is pretty off the beaten path for most blog readers, if you happen to find yourself in southeastern South Dakota on Thursday, July 24, stop by the Oak View Branch of the Sioux Falls Public Library and check it out.

I’ve also put together a Keynote presentation about the topic of freelancing through the lens of my “Road Warrior” book, and I’ll be presenting for the first time at next week’s book signing. For the 99.9% of you out there who won’t be at that event, I’m also putting together a video version of the Keynote presentation–kind of a flashy 5-10 minute synopsis of the topics presented in this book. I’ll be putting that out (hopefully) in the next few weeks.

It’s good to have a “talk” in the bag for a book, and getting the materials together for this book signing has been a good motivator for me. I’ve now got a schpeal that I can give about the topic of freelancing, music school, and emerging trends for music performance, and I hope to be able to use it in the near future.

Here are the details for the event if you can make it out:

Book Signing and Music Business Talk

Thursday, July 24, 2008, 7 p.m.

Sioux Falls Public Library - Oak View Branch

3700 East Third Street

Sioux Falls, SD, 57103 (map)

Guy Tuneh this Weekend on Contrabass Conversations

Guy Tuneh, one of our most popular guests on Contrabass Conversations, will be featured again thisweekend on a special video episode of the podcast. We’re departing from our regular episode format to do both an audio and video version of the show this week, and we’ll be releasing them both this Saturday. This is not likely to become a regular thing for us since most of our interviews are done over the phone (how exciting would that video be?), but video content is a valuable component of Contrabass Conversations and I really enjoy putting these special episodes together.

Check out all our episodes featuring Guy Tuneh (including both audio interview segments and video performances) here, and feel free to call in any comments on our episodes to 206-666-6509 or through Skype (my handle: jsh177).

Just Wrapped Up an Interview with DaXun Zhang

The outstanding double bassist DaXun Zhang has been all over the world recently performing solo and chamber music with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Music Ensemble, the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, and many other organizations. We got a chance to sit down and interview DaXun this week, and I think that you all will be thrilled to hear from this great bassist. In addition to our interview, we’ll be featuring music from DaXun’s recent solo album.

If you haven’t heard DaXun play before, you’re really missing out. I can honestly say that I’ve never heard bass playing like this before. When Drew McManus and I were recording Because Shut Up, That’s Why! episodes earlier this year, we used some of DaXun’s playing (the Meditation from Thais in particular) for one of our musical examples. Watching the eyes of our guests light up when they hear this playing, then register surprise as the playing dipped down into the lower register, was really interesting. DaXun has the singing sonority of a top-notch cellist in the upper register, but still produces a magnificent bass sound in the lower register as well, and his distinctive approach to the double bass is immediately recognizable once you know his playing.

DaXun truly is the next generation of double bass artists, able to do things that were virtually unimaginable 50, 40, 30, or even 20 years ago. Watching this great artist emerge on the greater musical scene is, to me, like witnessing Gary Karr’s performance of the Swan for Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts, hearing Scott LaFaro for the first time, or witnessing what artists like Edgar Meyer or François Rabbath were doing on the instrument. DaXun’s approach makes bass players reevaluate our own conceptions about what is possible for our instrument, and that is a rare thing indeed.

Don’t take my word for it, however! Check out this video of DaXun performing The Swan by Saint-Saëns, and keep that in the back of your mind between now and the release of our Contrabass Conversations interview with DaXun:

Darlene writes:

I just played a concert yesterday that was held at a high school about 1/2 hour from where I live. I decided not to use the directions provided on the group’s website, because I had my trusty ADC map for that county! I drove to where the high school was according to my map, and there was a school there all right, just not the one I needed! I drove up and down that road 3 times, took side streets to search, all to no avail. I finally stopped at a gas station to ask for directions, and found that just two years ago a huge new high school had been built about 5 miles outside town, and the old school rebuilt into a new middle school. My map was about 5 years old and of course didn’t show it. The high school was in the middle of nowhere; I would never have found it on my own. I hated that panicky feeling driving around thinking, “What’s going to happen if I just plain can’t find this place?” Thank goodness I always leave myself plenty of time to get places for just this reason! (more)

Christina writes:

I’ll admit it, once I did forget my trombone on the way to a gig! I had just moved, and I was so concerned about getting the extra boxes out of my car that I didn’t think to put the trombone in. Fortunately, one of my good friends (also a trombonist) was playing as well, and the gig was in her hometown. I called her in a panic, and she laughed and brought two trombones to the show. (more)

Eric writes:

I decided to get a bite to eat at an Evanston restaurant before heading into Chicago for my gig. I had my bass guitar with me. When I got downtown, no bass! I called the restaurant, no bass there. I then called the Evanston police and they had it! A lady in a house across the street from where I was parked saw me lean the bass against my car, open and close the trunk, and get in my car and drive off without putting the bass in. The bass fell in the street, she went out and got it and turned it in. What a relief. I found a quick sub and she got a reward.

Simon writes:

Possibly the most embarrassing occasion was when I turned up at a theatre gig having left my suit hanging on the back of my bedroom door. I only realised this as I was unloading my bass and amp. I wound up doing the show in my jeans and trainers with a luminous green linen shirt borrowed from one of the backing singers. Not really the right look when the rest of the band are in black suits… (more)

Want to check out more stories like these? Just visit our Articles page, or check out the Story Time episodes over at Contrabass Conversations.

Update: We’re continuing to get more great “where’s my gear?” stories in the comments for the original post. Check it out and add your two cents if you’ve got a tale like this!

I was recently playing a concert in a resort location quite distant from any major metropolitan area. Arriving at the gig, I was unpacking my bass and going through my pre-concert routine when I noticed our trumpet player on the phone, speaking in hushed tones with a very concerned look on his face.

It’s in the car….right?

About ten minutes before the concert was to begin, an unfamiliar man carrying a large sack appeared through the side door backstage. The trumpet player shook his hand and the man began pulling assorted trumpets out of the bag, handing them to our trumpet player for him to try out.

This seemed like a rather odd thing to be doing only moments before a concert, but I shrugged it off and continued warming up. The concert began and we shuffled onstage, where our trumpet player proceeded to nail the part with his usual grace and mastery.

As it turns out, our trumpet player had driven up from Chicago that day and had forgotten to put his trumpet in the car. He didn’t realize this until about 5:30 p.m. (our concert was to start at 7:30 p.m.), and he found himself in the uncomfortable position of being hundreds of miles from home in an unfamiliar area with no contacts and no major city for almost 100 miles.

He began calling everyone he could think of (the musical network can often work wonders in critical pinches), and through a series of referrals got hooked up with a person with a supply of trumpets (music store owner? not sure….).

Unfortunately, this guy was also a good 100 miles away, but he took off to meet our trumpet player at the concert. Incidentally, this concert was in a very off-the-beaten path location, several turns off any major highway with fairly questionable signage. The guy made it, however–amazing!

The “trumpet rescue squad” guy stayed for the first art of the concert (no doubt to take the trumpet back after the piece was done), and after we took our bow, we all gave him a bow as well! He certainly deserved it!

Call me Captain Forgetful

Though I’ve never actually forgotten my instrument, I have managed to lose or misplace just abut every other item in my arsenal, including:

• my bow
• my music
• my white shirt
• my belt
• my shoes
• my black socks
• my music stand
• my directions to the gig
• my tie

I’ve also worn the wrong outfit, gotten the rehearsal/concert time wrong, and probably simply left my brain at home on more than one occasion. I don’t think that I’m an especially forgetful person (though the above list makes me wonder!), but playing different music in a different location at different times of day while wearing different outfits increases the odds that one of these things will get bungled.

What have you forgotten?

Have you ever left your instrument at home? Headed to the wrong venue? Brought only white socks? Leave a comment and let me know. I think that just about everyone has a good “oops!” story or two in their mental archives.

We’re featuring an interview with jazz bassist Rufus Reid on this week’s episode of Contrabass Conversations. This interview was conducted by guest host Win Hinkle, a former member of the Florida Symphony Orchestra (this orchestra dissolved in 1993) who also worked in Florida as a trombonist, electric bassist, and double bassist, including a lot of time at Walt Disney World.

Rufus Reid is, without a doubt, one of the most influential bassists working in jazz today, and he has had a significant impact on double bass performance and pedagogy throughout his career. His book The Evolving Bassist was one of the earliest of the contemporary generation of double bass method books, and it continues to be a foundational text for double bass students. I recommend it to all of my students who are interested in jazz, and I use many of his exercises for arco study and sight reading practice even with students who only study classical music.

We’re also featuring Rufus Reid and bassist Michael Moore performing All Blues from their album Double Bass Delights, as well as some listener feedback, bass news, a link of the week, and much more. Check out more recordings of Rufus in various settings on his website’s recordings page. Enjoy!

About Rufus Reid:

Born on February 10, 1944 in Atlanta, GA., Rufus Reid was raised in Sacramento, California where he played the trumpet through junior high and high school. Upon graduation from Sacramento High School, he entered the United States Air Force as a trumpet player. During that period he began to be seriously interested in the bass. After fulfilling his duties in the military, Rufus had decided he wanted to pursue a career as a professional bassist. He moved to Seattle, Washington, where he began serious study with James Harnett of the Seattle Symphony. He continued his education at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where he studied with Warren Benfield and principal bassist, Joseph Guastefeste, both of the Chicago Symphony. He graduated in 1971 with a Bachelor of Music Degree as a Performance Major on the Double Bass. The MidAtlantic Arts Foundation awarded Rufus The 2005 Mellon Jazz Living Legacy Award for his dedication to America’s National Cultural Treasure: Jazz, for his personal and professional commitment to Jazz Education in the Mid-Atlantic Region. The International Society of Bassists presented Rufus with their highest honor, The Distinguished Achievement Award, in 2001. The New Jersey Chapter of the IAJE named him OUTSTANDING EDUCATOR of 1999. The International Association of Jazz Educators awarded Rufus the Humanitarian Award in 1997 BASS PLAYER magazine, awarded Rufus the 1998 Jazz Educator Achievement Award.

About Win Hinkle:

Win Hinkle is dedicated double bassist and a former trombonist spending 17 seasons with the Florida Symphony Orchestra in Orlando, until its demise in April of 1993. He worked as a double bassist, bass guitarist, and trombonist for many years in Florida including a lot of time at Walt Disney World. He recently sold his last bass guitar and only plays the double bass. He currently lives in Boston but still tries to spend time in time in Florida, especially in the Winter months.

Link of the Week:

rufusreid.com

Music Provided by:

• Eric Hochberg -www.erichochberg.com
• Rufus Reid - rufusreid.com

Special thanks to Daniel Chmielinski for technical assistance - www.carsleuth.net

Show Notes:

Release Date: 7/12/08

Length: 51:58

listen by phone: +1 (360) 227-5632

call our comment line (24 hour voice mail): +1 (206) 666-6509

Website: www.contrabassconversations.com

E-mail: feedback@contrabassconversations.com

Blog: www.doublebassblog.org

Podcast T-shirts, hats, and more: www.cafepress.com/doublebass

MySpace: www.myspace.com/cbcpodcast

Facebook: www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=17621298264

Theme song by Eric Hochberg:www.erichochberg.com

This show is brought to you by TalkBass.com, the largest community of bassists on the Internet. Join in the conversation at talkbass.com/cbc.

Check out our jazz forums at JazzDoubleBass.com.

Join our Facebook group and share videos, chat on discussion boards, leave ideas for the show, and interact with other bassists!

To get Contrabass Conversations downloaded automatically to your computer (for free!), you can subscribe in iTunes:

Click here to subscribe through e-mail or through another program besides iTunes

Update: It’s also available at Barnes & Noble! (link)

“Road Warrior Without an Expense Account” (Jason Heath)

Rufus Reid is, without a doubt, one of the most influential bassists working in jazz today, and he has had a significant impact on double bass performance and pedagogy throughout his career. His book The Evolving Bassist was one of the earliest of the contemporary generation of double bass method books, and it continues to be a foundational text for double bass students. I recommend it to all of my students who are interested in jazz, and I use many of his exercises for arco study and sight reading practice even with students who only study classical music.

Rufus is also one of the kindest and warmest people that you’ll ever meet, as anyone who has spent any time with him can attest. When I was a sophomore at Northwestern University Rufus was the headliner on our spring jazz festival. Even though I was just some schmuck undergrad with so-so jazz chops, Rufus went out of his way to spend time with me (along with the other bassists in the NU ensembles), and I think that I’m a better bass player for it. I’m sure that bassists all over the world have had similar encounters, and it is a real pleasure for me to be able to feature this great artist ad human being on the podcast. Stay tuned for it on July 12th, and check out the Contrabass Conversations archives for more interviews and performances from jazz bassists.

It’s a great feeling to have completed and put out Road Warrior Without an Expense Account, my first book, earlier this year. It’s a considerable amount of work to publish a book; though I think I always knew this, going through the process personally really drives it home! If you are interested in where employment for musicians is heading, this would be a good read, and it would make a good gift for anyone in music school!

My New Book Nearing Completion

Putting this book together has inspired me to delve into more book projects, and I’m actually in the final stages of putting together my second book “My Car Caught Fire and Exploded!”, which is a tale about… well, you guessed it, but also dozens of other gig stories as well. It’s about 300 pages long at present, and it contains both material you’ve seen on the blog and some fresh material exclusively for the book. All the stories have been reedited and rewritten, and I think it’s got a nice overall arc to it, with the tale of my fiery inferno along a chilly highway above downtown Chicago serving as an undercurrent throughout.

If you’re looking for these tales, you can find a whole bunch of them listed under the blog’s Articles page. The new book should prove to be a fun read regardless of whether you’ve checked out the blog tales before.

I’m trying to decide now whether to put it out myself (as I did with Road Warrior Without an Expense Account) or to hunt for a publisher for this book. I love the immediacy and control I have being able to put it out myself, and as a “new media guy,” I am into the idea of being an indie content producer.

On the other hand, there’s a certain cache to being published by a professional company, and not having to handle every single little detail of formatting, publishing, and promoting the book would be nice. This kind of stuff is pretty tedious to me, and it would give me even more time to work on book #3….

Already Starting Book #3

My third book (which I’m in the early stages of planning) will be tentatively titled Contrabass Conversations, though it may veer off in some very surprising directions and will be based more on my personal reflections on the aggregate advice of all the major musical figures I’ve had on the bass podcast. I initially thought about putting together a book of interview transcriptions but have discarded that idea. For one thing, these interviews are all freely available, and just transcribing what we talked about, while cool (and something that I’d like to offer free of charge on the site from the episode page of each guest), just doesn’t do it for me creatively.

The idea of putting together a straight ahead method book doesn’t really get me fired up either (though I wouldn’t rule it out at some later date). This book will be something that I really haven’t seen before in instrumental instructional material. Building on a foundation of advice and perspectives gleaned from the interviews I’ve done, I’m trying to put together sections like:

• -on bowing
• -on auditioning
• -on choosing a music school
• -on nervousness and stage fright
• -on what to look for in a bass

This kind of thing would be quite valuable (and probably more useful than trying to pick through dozens of transcripts for these pearls of wisdom). I’d also include some of the few dozen double bass pedagogical posts I’ve written, exercises I’ve compiled over the years (that aren’t published by anyone else), and much more. It’s a fun project for me to work on, and it should be a useful tome for double bassists in a format that I haven’t really seen before.

Feel Like Transcribing? You’d Make My Day!

This brings me to the last point Id like to bring up today–I would love to be able to offer up text transcriptions of all the interviews we do on Contrabass Conversations. Unfortunately, I’m one busy hombre, and the magnitude of that task is so great that, quite frankly, I don’t think I’ll be able to do it myself. There’s only x amount of time in life, after all, and I can’t blog, podcast, write books, play gigs, teach and do all that transcription. It’s just not going to happen.

If anybody out there is interested in doing a transcription, however, I’d be completely overjoyed. I couldn’t pay for that right now (though I’ll happily send you a complimentary copy of Road Warrior Without an Expense Account or a Contrabass Conversations t-shirt for your efforts), and I’ll give you full props in the show notes, hype your website, business, or school, or help you out in any way that I can. I’d love to offer these interviews up in a text format as well, so if you’ve got one of our previous guests that interests you and you want to sit down and bang out some text for the show, let me know!