Performer Guides: Double Bass

A Double Bassist's Guide to Refining Performance Practices

Murray Grodner draws on his distinguished career as a double bass musician and teacher in this compendium of performance philosophy, bowing and phrasing recommendations, tutorials on fingerings and scales, and exercises for bowing and string crossing. Grodner addresses technical obstacles in musical performance, offers advice on instrument and bow purchase, and provides a detailed approach to the fundamentals of bass playing. This guide is an invaluable resource for any bassist seeking to improve performance practices.

About the Double Bass: A Player's Guide

The Baroque Double Bass Violone

The most exhaustive study of the double bass violone accessible to English-speaking musical enthusiasts. This book includes lists of terminology, the most comprehensive bibliography to date, and 48 illustrations that make this a complete compendium of string bass research.

Domenico Dragonetti in England (1794-1846)

Dragonetti devoted his life to the double bass. His career in England (1794-1846) is one of the most remarkable success stories in the annals of musical history. His unprecedented virtuosity elevated the double bass to a new status. In combination with his charismatic personality his musical talent dominated the English cultural world for more than fifty years. As performer, composer, collector, and friend, he exposed the unforeseen potential of the double bass. His formidable talent as a musician and businessman provides an unusual insight into nineteenth-century entrepreneurship. This first substantial biography and assessment of Dragonetti's career allows us to understand his importance in the history of music in general and of double-bass performance in particular.

Better Git It in Your Soul: An Interpretive Biography of Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus is one of the most important--and most mythologized--composers and performers in jazz history. Classically trained and of mixed race, he was an outspoken innovator as well as a bandleader, composer, producer, and record-label owner. His vivid autobiography, Beneath the Underdog, has done much to shape the image of Mingus as something of a wild man: idiosyncratic musical genius with a penchant for skirt-chasing and violent outbursts. But, as the autobiography reveals, he was also a hopeless romantic. After exploring the most important events in Mingus's life, Krin Gabbard takes a careful look at Mingus as a writer as well as a composer and musician. He digs into how and why Mingus chose to do so much self-analysis, how he worked to craft his racial identity in a world that saw him simply as "black," and how his mental and physical health problems shaped his career. Gabbard sets aside the myth-making and convincingly argues that Charles Mingus created a unique language of emotions--and not just in music. Capturing many essential moments in jazz history anew, Better Git It in Your Soul will fascinate anyone who cares about jazz, African American history, and the artist's life.

Deep down in Music: The Art of the Great Jazz Bassists

Presents the lives and artistry of notable jazz bassists, traces their influence on one another, and investigates the impact of various innovations on the development of jazz music..

The String Instrument Owner's Handbook

In The String Instrument Owner's Guide, Michael Pagliaro surveys the complete "ownership life cycle" of bowed string instruments. A touchstone work for uninitiated and advanced players, The String Instrument Owner's Guide provides a roadmap for every step of the owning process, from selecting and buying (or renting ) to maintaining, repairing, modifying, upgrading and even re-selling your instrument. The String Instrument Owner's Guide answers, chapter by chapter, such key questions as: Where did string instruments come from? How do they work? What are the different kinds of string instruments? How they are made? How should you choose one? How do you care for string instruments? What accessories are needed and what do you need to know about them? How do string instruments compare to one another? How does one learn to play? And so much more. This work should sit in the library of not only every professional musician but also of students, teachers, technicians, and parents.

String Syllabus, Vol 1

This follows the popular ASTA String Syllabus, Vol. One: 2003 Edition, which has been ASTA's top seller and most requested publication for the past five years. The new version was carefully and thoroughly updated and revised by David Littrell, ASTA past president. Members will also appreciate that new material was added for Alternative Styles. 140 pages.

Conversations

Literary Nonfiction. Music. Book + CD. Interviews. Photographs by Jacques Bisceglia. During the last 12 years, William Parker interviewed 32 of his friends and colleagues, artists and musicians. "There is a special level of trust and understanding that artists reach when speaking with other artists. William Parker goes deep in these one-on-one conversations to reveal brilliance, truth, wit, humanity and a relaxed eloquence that is both illuminating and a fascinating read. Conversations sheds long overdue light on some of the most important musicians of our time and in so doing presents us with an essential piece of the creative music puzzle. This is oral history at its best"--John Zorn. CD includes CD excerpts from the interviews and William Parker bass solos, total time: 68:40. Edited by Ed Hazell.