Double Bass Your inspiration..[DB Forum Thread]

[Andy Mopley]

in your musical journey...Was there a high school music teacher (or like person) that you look back to as being one of your inspirations? Or what was the moment that you went "ah ah! This is the instrument I WANT to play!". Not talking specifically a teacher, or a player ..maybe a music teacher? for example...


Regards to all

 

[Groove Doctor]

My guitar teacher.

I had private lessons for two years with a humble but gifted teacher. He knew my father & grandfather, who were both piano tuners, so I likely had an excellent ear.

He taught me to transcribe music, and how learn songs from ear & teach myself to play all the parts in a song. He then explained the theory of what I’d just heard and learnt to play. Best method & order to learn it IME.

He unlocked the mystery of music and gave me the technical skills I needed to leapfrog from one level to the next. Thanks Greg!!

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Fifth Business: DORIS KEYES – Chris Fitzgerald

 

[GlenParks]

Mr Schei.

He was a general music instructor at a fledgling charter middle school. Also a dj. He played us radio edits of Eminem before they hit the radio and played me Rage Against The Machine at every school dance. He also told us all to stop using the word ******** at a school assembly with his 3 year old daughter with down syndrome in his arms. THE BEST. His favorite musician was (is?) The Artist formerly known as prince.

 

[GlenParks]

Mr Schei.

He was a general music instructor at a fledgling charter middle school. Also a dj. He played us radio edits of Eminem before they hit the radio and played me Rage Against The Machine at every school dance. He also told us all to stop using the word ******** at a school assembly with his 3 year old daughter with down syndrome in his arms. THE BEST. His favorite musician was (is?) The Artist formerly known as prince.

Why do the amount of stars not equal the letters in the word mods?

 

[Lee Moses]

I started out on electric, and Gene Simmons was the initial impetus for me to play that instrument. By the time I picked up DB at age 21, my inclinations had been going that way for some time...but I'd have to give a nod to my first electric bass teacher, Greg Utaski, who encouraged me toward jazz. And then, Mr. Paul Chambers, whose lines and solos I lived and breathed well before I picked up the acoustic.

 

[LouisF]

Well... this is one of those moments when the Internet is not your friend.

I was (and am) going to say that the biggest musical inspiration in my life came from my school music teacher, Mr. Christopher Zarba, who, literally, made me play the double bass and tuba ("Here, you're big enough to hold this. You play bass! And tuba in the marching band!"). He later let me conduct student ensembles, but more than anything imparted a sense of style and elegance and confidence that a lot of us working class kids were just not exposed to.

Looking him up online (I know he passed away several years ago; obit below), I was stunned to find out that his son, Chris, Jr., was on the AA flight from Boston on 9/11:

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[Sam Sherry]

Through pure chance I grew up ten minutes from the Hartt School of Music at the moment when their faculty included one of the most inspiring bassists of all time. In high school I got to hear and see and meet and hang out and even take a master class with the Maestro, all simply because he liked eager kid bassists even if they were dumb as the day was long.

For me, this is the sound of music being pulled from the ether:


Thank you again Maestro!

 

[LouisF]

Sam, Thanks. Listening to Chanson Triste helped pull me from the funk of my post above. God bless the power of music.

 

[CaseyVancouver]

Through pure chance I grew up ten minutes from the Hartt School of Music at the moment when their faculty included one of the most inspiring bassists of all time. In high school I got to hear and see and meet and hang out and even take a master class with the Maestro, all simply because he liked eager kid bassists even if they were dumb as the day was long.

For me, this is the sound of music being pulled from the ether:


Thank you again Maestro!

Yes there is a special place for Gary Karr in my heart.

At my first bass lesson as a teenager my symphony pro teacher pulled out Karr's impressive debut album. This instructor was a stuffy formal guy, but acted like an enthusiastic kid when he talked about Gary. A bit later, in the mid '70s, I was able to see Karr perform solo in a tiny room at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Up close and personal. He used a modern bass at that performance. Might of cost me like $4 admission.

In the '80s saw him in front of our symphony. He always sounds as good live as on his recordings.

A pro bass playing friend told me to come to a certain restaurant after the concert, come with him to have dinner with Gary. Unbelievably I did not go. There are things in life I would like to go back and revisit.

 

[5StringBlues]

My earliest memories are of being in a baby carrier under a piano. Mom taught classical piano lessons 5 days a week, from 3pm to 9pm, longer on Saturdays.

Sisters much older, playing James Brown, Beatles and such. And then later, making me listen to Brubeck "Time Further Out", when I was 12.


I could never think of anything to do, other than play music.

 

[ryco]

I just liked the instrument.
Double bass in 4th grade, school orch 'til 8th, then got an electric.

A few good teachers like Stage Band and Jazz Choir in high school and college. But not my inspirations.

Two GREAT old Union guitar players teaching out of the music stores - there were no electric bass teachers early '70s - while in high school showed me scales, how to read chord charts, fingerings, and took me thru some bass series like Carol Kaye, Valda Hammick. Super loved these guys, but I wouldn't call them my inspirations.

I guess The Who, The Beatles, Cream, Led Zep, Deep Purple, Grand Funk, et al were my inspirations.

 

[GlenParks]

My earliest memories are of being in a baby carrier under a piano. Mom taught classical piano lessons 5 days a week, from 3pm to 9pm, longer on Saturdays.

Sisters much older, playing James Brown, Beatles and such. And then later, making me listen to Brubeck "Time Further Out", when I was 12.


I could never think of anything to do, other than play music.

That's pretty amazing.