International Society of Bassists

Yesterday I went to class and then headed up to the Eastman school to check out the isb convention. One of my classmates who is a double major in trombone performance/computer science showed me around the school and pointed out all the major halls I was looking for. I've never seen so many bass players- an army of bow case wielding bass nerds. 

This is a sketch a random guy at a coffee shop drew of me... not sure what it says.

The first performance I went to was a great bass player from Israel named Adam Ben Ezra. He plays a lot of complicated solo pieces often using a loop machine. He played a lot of great music, including a flamenco piece where he not only used the bass for percussion, but also his feet. So at one point he was playing a bass line while tapping the bass and tapping his feet- all at once, it was amazing! He played a very cool version of  "Come Together" as well as an original piece called "Elohima" (which translates to goddess). He dedicated it to his mother, wife, and daughter. It was a beautiful piece. 

I met up with a friend of mine from high school who came here with a bass vendor to work in the booth. It was fun catching up and I got to try out a bunch of basses and bows. It made me miss my bass a lot. I didn't realize how much I missed playing. There were so many bass vendors, with every range of instrument. 

Next I saw a new music presentation by Hagai Bilitzky on Middle Eastern music for solo bass. It was interesting, he explained different tones used and played transcriptions of traditional oud music. 

After that there was a presentation on using looping techniques with bass. Garth Stevenson gave a great talk about the tricks he uses and demonstrated how each one worked. It was cool to see how he was able to get so many layers going at once. He handed out a sheet with everything he was doing in one of his pieces written out- then he played it so we could follow along. It was really interesting because you don't always realize what the performer is doing with the loops so seeing it written out helped to explain what each foot tap and layer was doing. One of his pieces was inspired by a trip he took to Antarctica to write the score for a film on location. He took his bass along and one day he played on the deck of the ship as they were passing between icebergs. At the time he had been experimenting with using whale songs in his music and after he played, whales surrounded the ship and swam along. It was a powerful image and the piece he played about it was very cool.

 It also made me think a lot about the complaints I've heard (and occasionally voiced) about electronic music. While it's true that some aspects of electronic music might hinder the creativity and unique aspects of music, this presentation (along with Adam Ben Ezra's performance) showed me that there is so much room for electronics to expand music. This seems especially true for bass because of how versatile the instrument is in its own right. Using a loop, you can set up a bass line or a drone and then play a melody on top of it. There are also many sound effects that can be played on the bass. It was fun to see this genre really starting to become more popular. Garth did say that when playing with other musicians he rarely uses loops, he feels it can take away from the connection due to people having to keep in time with the loop. 

Next I saw an amazing group called Sybarite 5, which is a string quintet. They play some modern covers (mostly Radiohead) as well as original compositions written for them. All the music they played was fantastic, from the version of Radiohead's Paranoid Android, to the arrangement of a traditional Turkish folk song. Everything they played had so much energy, it was a lot of fun to watch them play.


That evening I went to the Eastman Theater to see two concerts- the first was a program of solo bass music composed and performed by the up and coming Argentinian bass player, Andres Martin. He is very talented and his passionate performance was very well received. My favorite piece of his was an Elegy that he wrote about many emotions that can be felt at once.

To close out the night, I saw a powerhouse bass group- Martin Wind, John Clayton, Rufus Reid, and Lynn Seaton. They were great- of course there were a few moments of muddiness, which happens whenever you have multiple basses playing pizz at once. They are all amazing musicians, it was fun to see them interact with each other.

Wandering...

I woke up this morning to two more rejection emails for jobs I applied for. I'm getting tired of seeing "after careful consideration, you have not been selected for this position, we encourage you to apply in the future". I'm working on transferring my EMT license here to NY state so hopefully that will open up more opportunities. Okay, I'm done complaining.

After studying, I decided to travel north and check out more of the city. I walked to campus and caught a campus bus up to the Eastman area. One nice thing about the bus (besides being clean and free) is that it's air conditioned! The weather here has been crazy the past couple weeks, and it's on a hot swing at the moment. 

I got off the bus two stops before I had planned... Because I wasn't paying attention, then walked to the Rochester Greek Festival. It was a small festival in a church parking lot, with good food, a stage for performances, and a few vendors. There weren't very many people there but I imagine that it picks up at night. I had calamari and a gyro, both of which were great.

Then I walked to the Eastman School of Music and wandered around that area. The area I live in is mostly residential and lots of hospital employees. The area around Eastman is much more like a college town- bars with clever names, coffee shops full of people studying, and organic sandwich shops are abundant. I took full advantage and sat in an air conditioned coffee shop drinking iced tea and alternating between studying and browsing on my ipad for a few hours.

To round the day off I went to the Geva Theater and saw a production of Midsummer Night's Dream. It was fun and the talent of the actors had a very wide range. There were a couple actors, the Bottom and Helena, that were great- very funny. It was a fun night and I got to talking with the couple sitting next to me. They have two sons around my age and were nice enough to offer me a ride home. I was really grateful because it cut my trip back from an hour to about ten minutes. 

Back in my apartment (yes mom, I got a ride from strangers and lived to tell the tale!), I've been thinking about the first time I was exposed to Shakespeare- or at least the first time I remember. I was in middle school... 5th or 6th grade and I attended a Shakespeare camp at Mt Washington Elementary school. We did Midsummer Night's Dream and I played Bottom. It was a lot of fun and seeing it tonight brought back memories of working on the play and doing workshops. I remember my favorite coach was a big guy with a bright red beard who taught improv. It was great to see all these kids (even the "cool" kids) really get into theater.