Contrabass Conversations

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This week, we’re featuring double bassist David Cardon telling a bass-related tale that I find extremely amusing. I’d rather not give out any details beyond that–just check out this concise (less than 10 minutes) story from Dave. Dave is also involved with the excellent music publisher Discordia Music, which specializes in ultra-classy editions for the double bass. Check them out!

I haven’t done a whole lot of “story episodes” during the run of Contrabass Conversations, but I’m always itching to do more, so hopefully I’ll get some time to do so over the summer this year. You can check out the story episodes that have come out (which include my car explosion tale) below:

• Auditioning is a Rotten Pastime
• Annoying Conductors 101
• Bugs Bunny is My Mortal Enemy
• My Car Caught Fire and Exploded!
• Cabs!

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The audio track (about 1 1/4 hours) from the Chicago Music Commission‘s Musicians at Work forum in which I recently participated as a panelist was released a couple of weeks ago. Podcasters Jim Goodrich and Fred Wells, along with Gaper’s Block writer Graham Sanford and yours truly all participated an a Q&A about podcasting, blogging, and how to get started doing both with some sort of business-oriented motivation in mind. Hope you find it interesting!

I’ve done several blog/podcast/musical entrepreneurship events like this over the past few years, most recently for the Chicago Chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) down at Roosevelt University. Though my blog and podcast tend to be more geared toward the classical side of things, I’ve done a lot of more general chatter about how this kind of stuff I do can benefit all musicians. It’s funny–I never set out to have a successful blog, but I now find myself with a popular music blog, a podcast (which feels like the most constructive thing I do online!), and a guy who manages a few other projects like these for different groups. In fact, I was sort of embarrassed that I had this site for a long time, but I continue to realize that life’s twists and turns can take you down the paths that you’d least expect.

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Here’s episode 5 of Story Time with Contrabass Conversations, based upon a tale about an audition I did for the now-defunct San Jose Symphony.

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Here’s the latest episode of Story Time with Contrabass Conversations. These stories recount some of the funny, sad, poignant, and painful moments in the life of a freelance road warrior. Find the text version of this story here, and check out Contrabass Conversations for more weekly double bass content.

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This third installment of my Story Time series is an audio rendition of my story  Bugs Bunny is my Mortal Enemy from 2007. Stay tuned for a video version of this in the near future, and be sure to visit the Contrabass Conversations Story Time page for the other audio and video episodes in this installment.

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Sometimes bad things happen on gigs….like this.

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This is a little tale about a night that went from bad to worse in a hurry on the way home from a gig. Hopefully this kind of thing won’t happen to you!

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Welcome to the video version of Story Time with the Contrabass Conversations podcast! This new venture was inspired by the great podcast Digital Flotsam (along with a healthy dose of This American Life), and it features me narrating my story about fitting basses in cabs, along with topical songs, sound effects, and more.

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Welcome to Story Time with the Contrabass Conversations podcast! This new venture was inspired by the great podcast Digital Flotsam (along with a healthy dose of This American Life), and it features me narrating my story about fitting basses in cabs, along with topical songs, sound effects, and more.