Interview Guests – Page 138

225: Nicholas Walker on musical influences, performing, and Domaine Forget

Ithaca College professor and International Society of Bassists president Nicholas Walker

Today’s episode features Ithaca College professor and International Society of Bassists 2017 Convention Chair and Artistic Director Nicholas Walker. In addition to teaching at Ithaca College, Nicholas performs over 170 concerts a year in a wide variety of musical genres, he is a prolific composer, and he has taught for many years along with Paul Ellison and François Rabbath at Domaine Forget in Quebec. Nicholas will be hosting the 2017 ISB Convention at Ithaca College next June 5-10.

We talk about his early musical influences, his experiences working with Paul Ellison and François Rabbath, balancing performing with other activities, and the Ithaca double bass experience. We also go into great detail about a day in the life of a student at Domain Forget, which is a topic that we talked about with David Allen Moore back on episode 162 of the podcast.

We also feature several musical excerpts from Nicholas, starting with excerpt of a tune with singer songwriter Tenzin Chopak called “Just Don’t Go.” We’ll also play a few excerpts of some of Nicholas’ solo bass compositions, and you can find complete recordings on his YouTube channel. Enjoy!

Musical Excerpts:

“Just Don’t Go” with singer songwriter Tenzin Chopak
Chorale – solo bass
Watermark – with cellist Elizabeth Simkin

Interview Highlights

Background and Early Years

started on piano, picked up bass in 4th grade, playing jazz early on and music with friends in addition to the public school
started taking lessons with Duane Rosengard, who was a student at Eastman at the time
played in the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra
studying with Mark Foley
with many of the people surrounding Nicholas, there wasn’t a big distinction between jazz and classical playing – it was all part of musical life for him

Working with Paul Ellison

moving to Houston and meeting Paul Ellison
Paul’s teaching style
the Domaine Forget double bass experience
Buddhist philosophy – any student who shows up has earned the right to learn
Paul’s comfort moving from student to teacher role

Working with François Rabbath

the right time to hear something from a teacher
how, exactly, can he help each particular person
his first experience meeting François

A Day in the Life at Domaine Forget

put the bass players in a barn and let them work
get up early
8:30 am – all meet together – 25 students plus the two teachers
bodywork and 90 minute workout together
- Stretching
- Yoga
- Feldenkrais Method
- Alexander Technique
- Pilates
bass workout together – all done by ear and by rote – no music stands – working together in a big circle
- shifting exercises
- bowing exercises
- specific left hand techniques
- hand frames
- drop thumb
- expansion
- pivoting
- hammer on / pull off
- fingering patterns
- etudes
at the end of the two weeks, they have a 90 minute routine that they do together without stopping – one exercise after another
all this material comes from meeting with all the students the first night and asking them their goals for the camp
10 am – break followed by two hours of lessons
lunch
1:30 pm – back in the barn for another 90 minute class with the senior faculty member
- Paul does a lot of stroke work and body awareness
- opportunity to introduce concepts like balance, arm weight, anything that came up in prior master classes
- everything from the simplest open string playing to more complex bow bouncing, forward/reverse curve
3:00 pm – master class
evening – concerts with notable visiting artists, bass recital, public master classes

The Double Bass Program at Ithaca

largely modeled on the way Domaine Forget operates
one of the nation’s oldest conservatories – Sevcik and Rachmaninoff were both on faculty
group classes for technique, orchestra rep, studio class in addition to lessons
alternative lesson approaches in addition to traditional one-on-one lessons

Performing, Teaching, and Composing

finding balance (or not finding balance)
being at peace with the choices you make
170-180 concerts a year
the concerts and individual practice are where the “important stuff” happens

224: Peter Tambroni on Student-Centered Teaching and Life Planning

Double bassist and music educator is today’s podcast guest

Today’s podcast features an in-depth conversation with Peter Tambroni. This is a “round two” conversation that builds upon the topics that we covered in our previous talk on episode 204. Today we dig into fallacies surrounding public school teaching, instrument setup, life planning, instrument insurance, practicing ideas, teaching philosophies, and much more. This episode is a gold mine for anyone interested in taking their teaching game to the next level!

Pete is the author of An Introduction to Bass Playing, which is now in its seventh edition, and is an active bass performer, teacher, and author. You can learn more about Pete on his website petertambroni.com.

Interview Highlights

Fallacies Surrounding Public School Teaching

- you don’t want to get too well-educated or you won’t be hired
  - Pete has never found that to be true in the various districts in which he has worked
  - everyone wants the best person for the position
  - most districts will do what they can to give you credit for your past experience
- the right person for the job is the right person or the department philosophy-wise and personality-wise
  - people tend to focus too much on the nitty-gritty skills – it’s more about fit than anything
  - you should be interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you
replacing people that are:
- good and well-liked
- good and not well-liked
- not good and well-liked
- not good and not well-liked
Skills are easy to teach – personality and philosophy are not
people tend to not ask enough questions in job interviews
Pete always want to be somewhere where the administration supported fine arts performers practicing their craft – this was a question he posed in his interviews
look at the distribution of music teacher positions – are people full-time orchestra, part orchestra and part general music, etc?
what degree does fundraising play in the school? this can turn into a nightmare
learning the other instruments as a music teacher
- Pete took two extra semesters of violin and viola
- music ed programs are not all requiring bass for music ed majors

Instrument Setup

the condition that many school basses are in – so easy to totally neglect them
- a bass with action that is too high is a catastrophically worse situation for a young player than a violin with action too high
setup considerations for school instruments
- fingerboard
- bridge shaping
- the need for a proper luthier
the extreme difficulty created for younger bass students by basses that are poorly set up
the advances that D’Addario has made in strings recently for students

Life Planning

investing vs. saving
index funds
Apps and programs
- Betterment
- Wealthfront
- Robin Hood
IRAs
Roth IRAs
403b investment programs for educators

Instrument Insurance

get a separate policy apart from your homeowners or renters insurance – these may not cover your instrument at a paying gig
Clairon
Merz-Huber

Practicing Ideas

teaching replacement fingerings
the challenge for bass players of heterogeneous string teaching (starting in D major, for example)
nothing beats Simandl for mapping out the fingerboard
Thomas Gale’s book Practical Studies for Double Bass is great for younger students
- starts in 1st and 4th positions – allows for physical anchor point of thumb against the neck block
- helps eliminate the “old-school bass vertigo”
teaching shifting
- finding the goal note should not be a fishing expedition!
- Mathias Wexler article about shifting in American String Teacher journal: “Throwing The Dart and Other Reflections on Intonation” from the November 2004 issue of American String Teacher.
- this is a link to the shifting exercise Pete describes
- shifting practice
  - play
  - stop
  - evaluate
  - play correct note if not in tune
  - repeat above procedure until shift lands right on

General Teaching Philosophies

try to teach for 10 years down the road
try to teach for the student’s next teacher
set people up so that things don’t need to be fixed in the future
having students nail a simpler piece versus struggle through a more difficult piece
empathizing with your students
don’t ask questions to “put students in their place”
it’s never strings versus band versus choir – though there are doubles, there are “string kids,” “choir kids,” and “band kids” – offering all programs brings music to a larger portion of the student body
we remember the emotion of experiences – emotion drives attention drives learning

How Gigging Helps You to be a Better Teacher

helps with empathy
opportunity to observe other players
opportunity to observe conductors
being respectful of the student’s time

Listener Feedback Links:

Pablo Aslan – tango bassist
lloydgoldstein.com

223: Katie Ernst on Singing, Jazz Bass, and Creativity

Jazz bassist and vocalist Katie Ernst is today’s podcast guest

Today’s episode features jazz bassist and vocalist Katie Ernst. Katie was recently featured in the Chicago Reader, and Jason Moran describes her as “a great bassist, composer, and lyricist, she has an uncanny ability to mix traditions… following her voice is like reading a great novel.” She is one of Chicago’s most active young bassists, with two recent album releases: her solo project Little Words and her trio album Twin Talk.

221: Brandon McLean on audition strategies

Pittsburgh Symphony associate principal bassist Brandon McLean

Today’s show features Brandon McLean, who just won the associate principal bass position for the Pittsburgh Symphony. Brandon has most recently served as principal bass of the Colorado Symphony, and prior to that he held positions in the Vancouver Symphony and the Florida Orchestra. Originally from Seattle, Brandon did his undergrad at the University of North Texas, his masters at the Boston Conservatory, and studied at Carnegie Mellon after that with Pittsburgh Symphony principal bassist Jeff Turner. He played in the New World Symphony before landing his first gig with the Florida Orchestra.

We dig into the details of the audition process, like how Brandon starts preparing long-term for the audition and how that preparation changes as the audition approaches, Brandon’s technique routine, which he keeps up throughout the audition process, the benefits of getting to practice in a large space like a concert hall, and routines in the days prior to the audition. We also feature excerpts of Brandon performing the Dave Anderson Duets with Brendan Kane.

Books mentioned:

Interview Highlights

Audition Preparation Strategies

the process starts right after finding out what the list is
looks at what are the more problematic excerpts for him and begins by spending time on those
about 5 weeks out, he starts to get more disciplined
for a long time did the system of ranking what the more difficult excerpts are and spending the most time on those, but he found that then the audition would come up and they’d ask for the excerpts that he didn’t spend as much time on
breaks up practice session into 10 minute increments; practices for an hour or an hour-and-a-half in a couple of different segments in the day
keeps himself disciplined to no more than 10 minutes on a specific excerpt
breaks up the last as many ways as possible:
- top to bottom
- bottom to top
- skip and do every 3rd excerpt
2-3 weeks out, he shortens that 10 minutes per excerpt to 3-4 minutes per except so that he’s hitting everything briefly just about every day
Brandon generally runs things at 75% tempo most of the time
he can generally play this under tempo—it’s getting them up to tempo that’s the real issue
there’s some point between that 75% and 100% tempo that he can usually solve most of the technical problems
problems associated with fast excerpts were dealt with away from those excerpts – dealing with technical studies that helped
during audition prep, Brandon still spends at least 30-45 minutes still doing scales and technical exercises
he cuts that down when getting really close to the audition

Brandon’s Technique Routine

pick a scale
slow bow practice (whole notes) using Intonia software
then does a different scale with half notes, quarter notes, etc – gets himself playing pretty quickly
do something similar with arpeggios after that
right hand practice
- string crossings
- spiccato
- exercises to get his right hand moving a little quicker

Playing in a Large Space and Recording

the benefits of getting to practice in a large space (concert hall) – he didn’t get this until later in life
getting over the idea that he doesn’t really know what he sounds like objectively (similar to getting over the way your voice sounds when you play back a recording)
the angle that you play the bass – no one else will ever hear your bass playing from that angle—it’s such a specific thing
things started to turn on the audition front for Brandon when he started to get really serious about recording himself
Brandon had a pretty steady path of progress in auditioning – not advancing, then getting to semis, then making finals, then runner-up for a bunch of auditions
Brandon realized at a certain point that he just wasn’t a very natural audition taker
- had to start treat audition taking as his job
- dealing with the mental discipline of audition taking was something that took him a while to get a grasp of
Don Greene books helpful in terms of centering, etc.
Brandon has gotten away from thinking that he just needed to have a really good day to win an audition
after teaching students and observing them nervous and not nervous, he has concluded that there isn’t nearly as much difference in the two states as the students think
When he wasn’t doing well in auditions, he had actually lost those auditions months in advance

Routines as the Audition Approaches

usually flies in the day before – flying in too early usually psyched him out
it’s amazing what tiny things can seep into your mind during an audition
when he goes, he generally doesn’t talk to people at the audition
running is helpful
doesn’t try to change anything lifestyle-wise coming up to the audition – changes only cause problems

Links from Listener Feedback:

220: Gabe Katz on switching from music performance to education

Double bassist and orchestra director Gabe Katz

It is my pleasure to present this interview with Gabe Katz. Gabe and I have had so many commonalities in our career trajectory, and we have both ended up finding a really satisfying musical niche in the world of secondary school orchestral conducting. Now, by the time you’re listening to this, I will have moved on from this career, but of the past seven years this is what I did, and this is what Gabe has also started doing these last couple of years.

Prior to his current job teaching orchestra at the high school level in suburban Houston, Gabe held two overseas jobs: one in Durbin, South Africa, and one in Guangzhou Orchestra in China. He also worked in Singapore and in Macao. He ended up meeting up with Hal Robinson while in China and ultimately moving back to the US to study in Hal’s private studio and take auditions.

We cover the thought process that took him from the performance world into the education world, going back to school at Duquesne in Pittsburgh and his experience taking music education courses at an older age, and the unexpected joys and satisfactions of teaching in the public schools.

Interview Highlights

started college at Oberlin with Scott Haigh
transferred in undergrad to SUNY Purchase and studied with Tim Cobb
MM Carnegie Mellon with Jeff Turner
Summer Festivals:
- principal bass of NRO
- Music Academy of the West
- others
Manhattan School of Music for Performers Diploma – worked with Tim Cobb again
driving all over the place doing freelance gigs, making it to semi-finals for some auditions, but started scouring the Internet for overseas opportunities
got an orchestra job in Durbin, South Africa
got a job as principal bass of the Guangzhou Orchestra in China
also worked in Singapore and Macao
meeting up with Hal Robinson while in China and ultimately coming back to the United States to study privately with him
was thinking about going back to school – deciding between doctorate or getting certified to teach – postbox programs
ended up doing a post baccalaureate program at Duquesne with Steve Benham, who is President-Elect of the American String Teachers Association
Gabe’s goal was to get a high school orchestra teaching job
Gabe ended up getting a high school orchestra director job in suburban Houston – a plum gig for sure!
the high level of high school students in this area – comparable to an undergrad population at many music schools
getting into conducting – the high level of satisfaction that results from studying scores, planning rehearsals, picking repertoire
Gabe knows that he’s changing lives every day in this new gig – there’s a positivity and excitement to it which he’s feeling that you’ll pick up on as you listen
his 20-year-old self would have thought that he was a “sellout”
Orin O’Brein: “You’re never done learning.” – music is a journey, a lifelong learning path
conducting is a culmination of everything you’ve ever learned (Gabe says this and I totally feel that as well!)
how Duquesne keeps its music education program elite
The University of Michigan string teaching legacy – Steve Culver, Bob Gillespie, Bob Phillips, Steve Benham
most Bachelors of Music programs train you to:
- A: Work at Starbucks
- B: Win an orchestra job
Hal: “You’re offering yourself as a product.”