Orchestral Excerpts breakdown

[jasonheath]

This weekend we're putting out our Orchestral Excerpts Breakdown episode featuring double bassist John Grillo. John discusses each of these excerpts--stylistic considerations, differences in articulation and bow strokes, and suggestions for effectively learning them--and then performs them. I believe that this project will be a highly valuable resource for bassists worldwide, and I'd love your feedback on this project!

Head on over to the site (follow the links below) to check it out--It'll go out on Sunday 9/29/07.

[Rob Sleeper]

Just out of curiosity, does John play french or german bow?

[jasonheath]

John Grillo is a French bow player. We just put the episode out. You can check it out through the following link:

http://contrabassconversations.com/?p=58

The project is around 1 hr and 20 minutes total. We covered the following excepts (a little chatter about each one followed by John performing the excerpt):

Beethoven Symphony No. 9
Beethoven Symphony No. 5
Brahms Symphony No. 1
Brahms Symphony No. 2
Shostakovich Symphony No. 5
Mozart Symphony No. 35
Mozart Symphony No. 39
Mahler Symphony No. 2
Schubert Symphony No. 9
Strauss Ein Heldenleben
Britten Young Person's Guide
Verdi Otello

[jgbass]

Jason,

What a great resource for the excerpts! I am in the process of learning the first two excerpts - Beethoven's 9th and 5th. This has already become a good resource to check my progress and make sure I am on the right track, especially since my lesson is not until Monday.

I am going to be working on excerpts all year at school, so I expect I will be referring to this podcast often.

This was my first visit to contrabassconversations.com. Looking forward to listening to the othe podcasts.

[jasonheath]

Great to hear that this excerpt project is proving to be useful to you! We've got some other projects like this happening at the moment, including a series of video lessons with Lyric Opera of Chicago bassist Andy Anderson.

Thanks again for checking out the show!