2021, a year in review

Here’s a round-up of the last 12 months with Discover Double Bass… and some exciting announcements for 2022!

One of our favourite times of the year is writing this review, as we get to reflect on all the great things that have been happening in the last 12 months. 2021 has seen us (slowly!) return to some normality, with filming and travel opportunities eventually becoming possible again, meaning a quiet start but an extremely busy end of the year. The results of all the filming we managed will become clear very soon and there are some projects that you have all been requesting for years which I know lots of you will enjoy very much!

Highlights from 2021…

January

We started the year off with a bang! We released John Goldsby’s third course all about soloing (Tell Your Story: Soloing Concepts for the Jazz Bassist) which quickly became a student favourite. John presents a step-by-step approach to soloing and is accompanied by his fantastic trio.

Here’s the course trailer if you’re interested and one of John’s most popular videos!

February

In February, we released our second interview with Italian bassist and composer, Valentina Ciardelli, where we chatted about solo music and arranging for the bass and she gave us a great solo performance of her own composition.  

We also hear from Zoltan Dekany for his second interview - where we dig into switching from bass guitar to double bass, something that many of us, including Zoltan and Geoff, have done. 

March

One of our top highlights of the year was our interview with the hosts of the Bassists with Boobs Instagram platform. They were great to talk to about gender and representation in the bass world and their channel where they support and share the works of under-represented groups. They also hosted an Instagram takeover on our account on International Women’s Day which you can still watch on our IG profile highlights.

March also saw the celebration of Francois Rabbath’s 90th Birthday, advice on bass set up for thumb position from Yuri Goloubev, and one of Rebekah’s favourite videos from Joseph Conyers, Letters for Articulation.

April

April saw the release of the next installment of Joseph Conyers’ courses, Orchestra Chops Vol. 2 as well as creating the bundle, Orchestra Chops: The Complete Collection. It’s a superb series of lessons based on popular orchestral excerpts from the repertoire. Here’s a lesson on Mozart’s symphony no. 40.

May

In May, we featured two more artists in our interview series - the first was a performance spotlight with bassist and singer, Nina Harries. She plays us three of her compositions which showcase her unique, cross-genre compositional style.

We also heard from Yuri Goloubev in his second interview about the best bass set up for thumb position.

June

June saw the relaunch and update of both our Scales and Arpeggios Play-Along Collections. This was a huge project to update all the sheet music in the courses, create new backing tracks, add in extra scales and arpeggios that had been requested including 3 Octave scales, and add in a series of video lessons for beginners by Geoff Chalmers. We are so proud of the updates and it’s been great to hear that lots of students are enjoying the updated materials. Here’s one of Geoff’s scales lessons we released at the time.

Also in June, we shared this popular interview with John Goldsby on a very commonly requested topic: how to play fast!

We were also delighted to be Gold Sponsors of the online ISB convention this month. It was a great series of events and we can’t wait for the next (hopefully in-person!) edition.

July

At the DDB office in July, we were mainly busy organising our trip to Nashville, TN, rescheduled from back in 2020. On our channel, we featured Yuri Goloubev again giving his top tips for flying with your double bass, which is always a nerve-racking experience for bassists! We also shared a preview from Jason Heath’s Beginner’s course on Bow Lifts, and heard about Joseph Conyers’ bass gear and set up.

August 🎉

Happy 8th Birthday to us! This month we celebrated 8 years of DDB by releasing this performance and transcription (download here) by Geoff. You may have also noticed our new theme music and logo animation at the start of all our videos, with the theme music composed and performed by the great Craig Butterfield.

A couple of videos from August:

September

In September, we were mainly busy filming lots of content in a vintage studio in Nashville, USA (more about this below!) which is certainly Geoff’s highlight of the year. We cannot wait to show you the content very soon.

We also released some preview lessons from Jason Heath’s new course for intermediate classical players on some pretty useful topics:

October

The great course Intermediate to Advanced Classical Bass by Jason Heath was released in October. This unique course was designed to follow on from Jason’s first course, Beginner's Classical Bass but is also suitable for any intermediate bassist who wants to get to grips with shifting, thumb position, and more complex techniques and music. This course also features seven new composition commissions from seven excellent composers for the double bass. These compositions are available exclusively in the course and are each designed to challenge the student on a particular technique or concept. It’s the first time we have commissioned new music for the double bass and it was a wonderful experience.

You can also check out Jason’s podcast episode on Contrabass Conversations where he talks to the seven featured composers about their compositions.

Excitingly in October, we also had a team trip to Rotterdam in The Netherlands as Media Partners for the 2021 Dutch Double Bass Festival. We ran some of their Talking Bass live Q&A sessions with performing artists at the festival: Dave Holland, Ben Williams, Božo Paradžik, and Jasper Høiby. We also managed to catch up with the Artistic Director of the festival, James Oesi for a special interview and stunning solo performance in the foyer of the Theatre Zuidplein.

November

In November, we were thrilled to release the fourth course by our jazz tutor, John Goldsby: Lay it Down: Creating Jazz Bass Lines.

Check out an awesome preview lesson from John’s latest course:

We also managed to fit in some interview filming this month which we’ll release in early 2022!

December ❄️

Throughout December we’ve been releasing all our Talking Bass sessions filmed live at the Dutch Double Bass Festival in Rotterdam and we celebrated 200 years of Bottesini with a performance from Marcos.

This month, we also celebrated two years since Rebekah joined DDB as our Projects & Operations Manager. She is a key part of the team, doing amazing work in all aspects of the business and the reason we are able to publish so much high-quality content.

But mainly, we’ve been busy in the office preparing for our exciting new releases in 2022…

Coming up in 2022

This brings us to what’s coming up next year! One of the most common requests from our students is to offer courses on styles other than jazz and classical music. With that in mind, we are delighted to announce that we have spent 2021 preparing a comprehensive course on rockabilly slap bass by a new incredible tutor. Filmed in Nashville and featuring a stellar band, the course is currently in the final stages of production and is due for release in the spring of 2022. We are also working on several other courses covering a range of new topics, so stay tuned for updates.

Also in 2022, we will be introducing a brand new offering to Discover Double Bass, The Masterclass Series! The Masterclass series features in-depth interviews with the bass world’s most renowned artists. These long-form discussions will take a detailed look into the featured artist’s signature techniques and musical vision. The videos will be presented alongside detailed transcriptions of the musical examples and provide exclusive access to unique artists.

Be sure to sign up to our email list for updates on our new courses and the Masterclass series.

Here’s to 2022 - We’re so excited to see what it will bring!

Thank you for all your support over the last 12 months, we really appreciate you being part of our community.

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM GEOFF, REBEKAH, ALL THE TUTORS, AND THE EXTENDED DISCOVER DOUBLE BASS TEAM.