Contrabass Conversations

Contrabass Conversations

double bass podcast

794: Bassists with Boobs

photo courtesy of Discover Double Bass

Evangeline Tang, Phoebe Clarke and Yijia Cui started the Bassists with Boobs Instagram account in July 2020 to improve the online representation of bass players and create a positive and empowering community.

We talk about their recent Leeds trip to do an interview with Geoff Chalmers of Discover Double Bass, the idea behind founding the channel, rewards and challenges of the work they’re doing, and much more.

Be sure to check out more from them on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube!

Subscribe to the podcast to get these interviews delivered to you automatically!

Check out our Online Sheet Music Store with 100+ wide-ranging titles for bassists.

Listen to Contrabass Conversations with our free app for iOS, Android, and Kindle.

Check out my Beginner’s Classical Bass course, available exclusively from Discover Double Bass.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Dorico – Dorico helps you to write music notation, automatically producing printed results of exceptional quality — and plays it back with breathtaking realism. It is easy enough for anyone to learn, yet has hundreds of advanced notations, features, options and sounds to satisfy even the most demanding professionals.  With its streamlined, natural user interface, students and those with less experience in scoring can compose and arrange straight into Dorico, making learning the language of music notation much faster and more intuitive. Editing and making changes — such as instrument, time signature or key — are straightforward, with the notation instantly and correctly adapting to include them, reinforcing the learning outcome.

Ear Trumpet Labs – They make hand-built mics out of Portland, OR and they have an excellent mic for upright bass called Nadine. The Nadine is a condenser mic with a clear natural sound and incredible feedback rejection. This mic is a completely new design — the head mounts in between the strings above the tailpiece with a rubber grommet, and the body securely straps to the tailpiece with velcro elastic. A 14-inch Mogami cable connects the two parts making it easy to place on any bass. It’s durable and holds up to the demanding needs of the instrument while offering excellent sound quality. Ear Trumpet Labs is offering a free t-shirt just for Contrabass listeners with the purchase of a mic, just visit EarTrumpetLabs.com/contrabass to claim yours and check out the Nadine!

Modacity – Are you a practice-savvy musician? Get Modacity – the music practice app that organizes, focuses, and tracks your progress.  Recorder… metronome… tone generator… timer… note taking… Do away with the random assortment of music practice apps in your arsenal. Modacity™ combines all the tools you need into one easy to use, music practice tool.  Organize, focus, and reflect on your practice – motivating you to increase retention in less time.  Modacity has a special offer for Contrabass Conversations listeners that includes lifetime access to the app.

Contrabass Conversations production team:

793: Roberto Cassani on Ansema We Stand

Roberto Cassani has just released an intriguing new album titled Ansema We Stand.  This album is a mix of world and folk music, blending the cultures of Scotland and rural northern Italy, Roberto’s two main homes with some of Scotland’s finest musicians.

We talk about the new album, how the pandemic has been for him, his “other life” working in health care and what that has been like this past year, and much more.

Be sure to check out Roberto’s latest album on his website, Bandcamp, Spotify, and Apple Music!

Subscribe to the podcast to get these interviews delivered to you automatically!

Check out our Online Sheet Music Store with 100+ wide-ranging titles for bassists.

Listen to Contrabass Conversations with our free app for iOS, Android, and Kindle.

Check out my Beginner’s Classical Bass course, available exclusively from Discover Double Bass.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Dorico – Dorico helps you to write music notation, automatically producing printed results of exceptional quality — and plays it back with breathtaking realism. It is easy enough for anyone to learn, yet has hundreds of advanced notations, features, options and sounds to satisfy even the most demanding professionals.  With its streamlined, natural user interface, students and those with less experience in scoring can compose and arrange straight into Dorico, making learning the language of music notation much faster and more intuitive. Editing and making changes — such as instrument, time signature or key — are straightforward, with the notation instantly and correctly adapting to include them, reinforcing the learning outcome.

Ear Trumpet Labs – They make hand-built mics out of Portland, OR and they have an excellent mic for upright bass called Nadine. The Nadine is a condenser mic with a clear natural sound and incredible feedback rejection. This mic is a completely new design — the head mounts in between the strings above the tailpiece with a rubber grommet, and the body securely straps to the tailpiece with velcro elastic. A 14-inch Mogami cable connects the two parts making it easy to place on any bass. It’s durable and holds up to the demanding needs of the instrument while offering excellent sound quality. Ear Trumpet Labs is offering a free t-shirt just for Contrabass listeners with the purchase of a mic, just visit EarTrumpetLabs.com/contrabass to claim yours and check out the Nadine!

Modacity – Are you a practice-savvy musician? Get Modacity – the music practice app that organizes, focuses, and tracks your progress.  Recorder… metronome… tone generator… timer… note taking… Do away with the random assortment of music practice apps in your arsenal. Modacity™ combines all the tools you need into one easy to use, music practice tool.  Organize, focus, and reflect on your practice – motivating you to increase retention in less time.  Modacity has a special offer for Contrabass Conversations listeners that includes lifetime access to the app.

Contrabass Conversations production team:

792: Mark Helias on pandemic collaborations

Mark Helias is a renowned bassist, composer and producer who has performed throughout the world for more than four decades with some of the most important and innovative musicians in Jazz and Improvised Music including Don Cherry, Edward Blackwell, Anthony Davis, Dewey Redman, Anthony Braxton, Abbey Lincoln, Cecil Taylor, and Uri Caine.  Mark recently released Some Kind of Tomorrow with saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom.

We talk about what life has been like during the pandemic, this latest remote album collaboration with Jane and about remote collaboration in general, and many lessons learned from Mark’s years working as a jazz bassist.

Enjoy, and be sure to check out Some Kind of Tomorrow and Mark’s many other albums!

Subscribe to the podcast to get these interviews delivered to you automatically!

Check out our Online Sheet Music Store with 80+ wide-ranging titles for bassists.

Listen to Contrabass Conversations with our free app for iOS, Android, and Kindle.

Check out my Beginner’s Classical Bass course, available exclusively from Discover Double Bass.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Dorico – Dorico helps you to write music notation, automatically producing printed results of exceptional quality — and plays it back with breathtaking realism. It is easy enough for anyone to learn, yet has hundreds of advanced notations, features, options and sounds to satisfy even the most demanding professionals.  With its streamlined, natural user interface, students and those with less experience in scoring can compose and arrange straight into Dorico, making learning the language of music notation much faster and more intuitive. Editing and making changes — such as instrument, time signature or key — are straightforward, with the notation instantly and correctly adapting to include them, reinforcing the learning outcome.

Ear Trumpet Labs – They make hand-built mics out of Portland, OR and they have an excellent mic for upright bass called Nadine. The Nadine is a condenser mic with a clear natural sound and incredible feedback rejection. This mic is a completely new design — the head mounts in between the strings above the tailpiece with a rubber grommet, and the body securely straps to the tailpiece with velcro elastic. A 14-inch Mogami cable connects the two parts making it easy to place on any bass. It’s durable and holds up to the demanding needs of the instrument while offering excellent sound quality. Ear Trumpet Labs is offering a free t-shirt just for Contrabass listeners with the purchase of a mic, just visit EarTrumpetLabs.com/contrabass to claim yours and check out the Nadine!

Modacity – Are you a practice-savvy musician? Get Modacity – the music practice app that organizes, focuses, and tracks your progress.  Recorder… metronome… tone generator… timer… note taking… Do away with the random assortment of music practice apps in your arsenal. Modacity™ combines all the tools you need into one easy to use, music practice tool.  Organize, focus, and reflect on your practice – motivating you to increase retention in less time.  Modacity has a special offer for Contrabass Conversations listeners that includes lifetime access to the app.

Contrabass Conversations production team:

791: Petru Iuga on teaching and inspiration

Petru Iuga currently holds a professorship at the University of Music and Arts in Mannheim, Germany and Haute École de Musique de Lausanne.  Having received his first training in his native Romania, he was selected by Yehudi Menuhin for the International Menuhin Music Academy in Gstaad (Switzerland).

After further training at the Hochschule der Künste-Bern and the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique in Paris, he became a member of the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris and principal double bass in the Munich Chamber Orchestra. Petru was also guest solo Double-Bass at the London Symphony Orchestra.

We talk about his early years, the joys and discoveries of teaching double bass, the rapid growth of this instrument’s technical capabilities, Petru’s passion for music, the ErgoBass, and much more.

Enjoy, and be sure to check out Petru’s website to learn more about his work!

Subscribe to the podcast to get these interviews delivered to you automatically!

Check out our Online Sheet Music Store with 80+ wide-ranging titles for bassists.

Listen to Contrabass Conversations with our free app for iOS, Android, and Kindle.

Check out my Beginner’s Classical Bass course, available exclusively from Discover Double Bass.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Dorico – Dorico helps you to write music notation, automatically producing printed results of exceptional quality — and plays it back with breathtaking realism. It is easy enough for anyone to learn, yet has hundreds of advanced notations, features, options and sounds to satisfy even the most demanding professionals.  With its streamlined, natural user interface, students and those with less experience in scoring can compose and arrange straight into Dorico, making learning the language of music notation much faster and more intuitive. Editing and making changes — such as instrument, time signature or key — are straightforward, with the notation instantly and correctly adapting to include them, reinforcing the learning outcome.

Ear Trumpet Labs – They make hand-built mics out of Portland, OR and they have an excellent mic for upright bass called Nadine. The Nadine is a condenser mic with a clear natural sound and incredible feedback rejection. This mic is a completely new design — the head mounts in between the strings above the tailpiece with a rubber grommet, and the body securely straps to the tailpiece with velcro elastic. A 14-inch Mogami cable connects the two parts making it easy to place on any bass. It’s durable and holds up to the demanding needs of the instrument while offering excellent sound quality. Ear Trumpet Labs is offering a free t-shirt just for Contrabass listeners with the purchase of a mic, just visit EarTrumpetLabs.com/contrabass to claim yours and check out the Nadine!

Modacity – Are you a practice-savvy musician? Get Modacity – the music practice app that organizes, focuses, and tracks your progress.  Recorder… metronome… tone generator… timer… note taking… Do away with the random assortment of music practice apps in your arsenal. Modacity™ combines all the tools you need into one easy to use, music practice tool.  Organize, focus, and reflect on your practice – motivating you to increase retention in less time.  Modacity has a special offer for Contrabass Conversations listeners that includes lifetime access to the app.

Contrabass Conversations production team:

790: Bernardo Alviz on working through an injury

Bernardo Alviz was born and raised in Bogota, Colombia.  He started his music studies at the age of 17 and holds a Bachelor degree from the Universidad Javeriana in Bogota as well as a Bachelor and Masters degree from the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin in Germany.

Bernardo is a passionate performer of contemporary music and has performed in some of the most renowned festivals including the Lucerne festival in 2017 with Heinz Holliger and Mathias Pintcher as chief conductors; as principal bass with the Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop at the Donaueschingen Musiktagen in 2017 as well as at the Rainy Days music festival in Luxembourg 2014; as principal bass of the Staatskapelle Berlin during the Infektio! Music festival in Berlin in 2016; and as principal bass with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra at the Malmo International Chamber music festival 2016 in Sweden.

We talk about growing up in Colombia, his training in Germany, meeting his wife Phoebe Russell, and their subsequent move to Australia, and getting established as a bassist there.  We also dig into his struggles with a performance injury and the mystery surrounding it, the struggles and discoveries that have come from it, and his move into teaching a large studio of young bassists and doing a PHD in composition.

Enjoy, and be sure to check out Bernardo’s website to learn more about this work!

Subscribe to the podcast to get these interviews delivered to you automatically!

Check out our Online Sheet Music Store with 80+ wide-ranging titles for bassists.

Listen to Contrabass Conversations with our free app for iOS, Android, and Kindle.

Check out my Beginner’s Classical Bass course, available exclusively from Discover Double Bass.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Dorico – Dorico helps you to write music notation, automatically producing printed results of exceptional quality — and plays it back with breathtaking realism. It is easy enough for anyone to learn, yet has hundreds of advanced notations, features, options and sounds to satisfy even the most demanding professionals.  With its streamlined, natural user interface, students and those with less experience in scoring can compose and arrange straight into Dorico, making learning the language of music notation much faster and more intuitive. Editing and making changes — such as instrument, time signature or key — are straightforward, with the notation instantly and correctly adapting to include them, reinforcing the learning outcome.

Ear Trumpet Labs – They make hand-built mics out of Portland, OR and they have an excellent mic for upright bass called Nadine. The Nadine is a condenser mic with a clear natural sound and incredible feedback rejection. This mic is a completely new design — the head mounts in between the strings above the tailpiece with a rubber grommet, and the body securely straps to the tailpiece with velcro elastic. A 14-inch Mogami cable connects the two parts making it easy to place on any bass. It’s durable and holds up to the demanding needs of the instrument while offering excellent sound quality. Ear Trumpet Labs is offering a free t-shirt just for Contrabass listeners with the purchase of a mic, just visit EarTrumpetLabs.com/contrabass to claim yours and check out the Nadine!

Modacity – Are you a practice-savvy musician? Get Modacity – the music practice app that organizes, focuses, and tracks your progress.  Recorder… metronome… tone generator… timer… note taking… Do away with the random assortment of music practice apps in your arsenal. Modacity™ combines all the tools you need into one easy to use, music practice tool.  Organize, focus, and reflect on your practice – motivating you to increase retention in less time.  Modacity has a special offer for Contrabass Conversations listeners that includes lifetime access to the app.

Contrabass Conversations production team: