Looking back on 2023…

This year, we’ve been hard at work publishing exciting courses and Masterclasses by some incredible new and existing artists. We’ve also continued with our interview/performance series on YouTube and covered a wide range of genres, from the rock’n’roll music of Francesca Alinovi to the contemporary classical music of Marianne Schofield.

In the summer, Rebekah and I also took a trip to the U.S. to attend a bass conference where we met many of our bass-playing heroes, including Gary Karr, Paul Ellison, Lloyd Goldstein, Sam Suggs, Kristen Korb and many more! This year has also been a time of reflection as we celebrated our first decade online.

It’s been fantastic to welcome so many new people to the website, such as email subscribers, YouTube viewers, and course students. I appreciate your support and can’t wait to share what 2024 has in store for us. But before we look ahead, let’s take a moment to celebrate a very special year.

The Highlights from Our 10th Birthday year!

January 🎼

The start of 2023 saw an expansion of our repertoire with the release of early music specialist Heather Miller Lardin’s course, Baroque Double Bass. Heather is joined in many of the lessons by her fantastic live Baroque trio (harpsichord and Baroque cello) who play a range of early music repertoire including pieces by Bach, Handel, Corelli, and Vivaldi. It really is a unique course which we are very proud of!

February 🇫🇷

In our first interview of the year, we were thrilled to welcome the incredible bassist Neal Miner. Known for his hard-swinging bass lines, rich bass tone and tasteful solos, Neal is one of New York's most in-demand bassists. You can watch Neal’s interview here in case you missed it.

February also saw the launch of our most recent Masterclass artist, Avishai Cohen. As one of the most renowned bassists in the jazz scene, it was an absolute pleasure to welcome Avishai to DDB. He shares his personal approaches to double bass technique, improvisation and experiences of playing with so many of the jazz world’s most legendary artists.

March 🎤

March was the month of interviews! We released two exciting interviews on our YouTube channel, as well as filming another one. 

The first of our interviews released this month was one of the classical double bass world's most celebrated players, Thierry Barbé. Known for his work as a soloist, educator and as the Principal Bassist of the Opera de Paris Orchestra, Thierry is at the forefront of the French double bass community with a worldwide reputation for excellence.

Our second interview is with Vladimir Torres, an innovative artist who fuses pop and jazz influences with a deep sense of groove and tasteful solos. In addition to arrangements of popular songs and jazz standards, Vladimir is also a composer, and we feature his piece Se Acabó at the end of the interview. 

If you missed either of these interviews, you can watch them here. Make sure you check out the performances at the end of each video!

As well as releasing two interviews, we filmed an extremely exciting interview with Francesca Alinovi. She’s a bassist who’s making a significant impact in rock and roll, blues, country and traditional jazz music, and we were delighted to meet her in this special interview featuring two performances from her band, Lovesick Duo.

April 👂

April was the month of Katie Thiroux! We released our second course by the jazz bass specialist; a follow on from the hugely successful From Beginner to Bandstand. Bandstand and Beyond is the next instalment in our Katie Thiroux series, with her expert teaching covering topics such as walking bass lines, improvisation, soloing, ear training, arranging and more. We are incredibly proud of this one.

We also released a brand new Katie Thiroux Bundle, combining both her beginner and intermediate courses! 🤩

As well as the release of this wonderful course, April saw the release of our most popular YouTube video of 2023. Katie Thiroux taught us how to start really listening to what you’re playing and what you can hear, to help develop your aural skills. With over 50k views so far, it’s worth checking it out if you missed it!

May 🎂

In May, we filmed an exciting project that’s due to be released in the new year. While we can’t reveal who we filmed with, here are some pictures from the session to get you excited!

May was also the month in which we celebrated our 10th anniversary. It’s incredible to think that 10 years have passed since I started Discover Double Bass. It feels lovely to reflect on how far we have come, from the early days of filming my lessons and collaborating with Lauren Pierce, to producing courses and masterclasses with artists such as Avishai Cohen, Renaud Garcia-Fons, Joseph Conyers, Chris Wood, Katie Thiroux, John Goldsby, Marc Johnson, Slick Joe Fick, Barry Bales, Heather Miller-Lardin, and many more. It's fair to say that a lot has happened at DDB in the last decade!

You can read more about the history of DDB in our 10th birthday blog post.

JUNE 🇺🇸

At the start of June, Rebekah and I travelled to the University of Michigan to attend the International Society of Bassists Convention. Over a thousand bassists from across the globe assembled to celebrate, educate and inspire with a full program of lectures, presentations, recitals and concerts. It was my 4th time at an ISB convention, but my first exhibiting with DDB! It was a pleasure to share our work with everyone there. 

In addition to the exhibitors, many of the bass world’s brightest stars presented, performed, or just hung out. Chatting with bassists, including Kristin Korb, John Clayton and Gary Karr, as well as up-and-coming artists, was fantastic. Everyone was approachable, friendly and happy to talk bass!

We were also able to film several interviews with a range of exciting artists - check them out here: ISB 2023 Videos. Here’s our interview with Lloyd Goldstein, which we filmed at the ISB, in case you missed it!

Fast forward to the end to see/hear Lloyd’s moving performance!

JULY 👋

After taking a well-earned break for the summer, we released the inspiring interview with the great Francesca Alinovi of Lovesick Duo, who we filmed with in February. It was one of our most popular interviews of the year, and we loved producing it.

Don’t miss the two full-length songs by The Lovesick Duo at the end!

August 🇦🇺

In August, we were delighted to welcome a new tutor to Discover Double Bass and our first Australian artist! Phoebe Russell is the principal double bassist of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, lecturer in double bass at The University of Queensland and a faculty member of the Queensland Conservatorium of Music. She’s also one of the bass world’s most expressive soloists and orchestral experts, so it was a joy to work with her in the production of her course, Smash Your Audition!

September 👋

September was the month of change for us at DDB. We were sad to say goodbye to our incredible Projects and Operations Manager, Rebekah, who has been instrumental in the success of DDB over the last 4 years. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with her and we wish her all the best in her next adventure.

September also saw the welcome of the newest member of the DDB team, Romy, who is a music graduate, fan of Doncaster Rovers Football Club, and vegan food blogger. She’s been doing a fantastic job since joining us, and I'm sure you will learn more about her in 2024 and beyond.

We also took time to continue with our interview series by featuring DDB Tutor, Russell Hall and his beloved double bass, Bessie! As always, there’s an epic solo performance, great advice and hip bass playing by one of our jazz bass specialists.

👩‍💻 DDB FORUM! - THE STUDY GROUP!
Our online community is available to all who are enrolled on a DDB course or Masterclass. It’s a dedicated forum which is integrated into the courses website. You can find a link to the Study Group in the header of the website, so it’s easy to switch between the group and our courses.

We are a friendly bunch of bassists and welcome new members, regardless of where they are on their musical journey. From beginners to pros, there’s a diverse range of bassists who foster a positive and supportive environment. So if you have a question about your bass playing, please don’t hold back as we would love to help you. I’m in there answering questions daily as well as the other members. If you’ve ever bought a course or masterclass, come and say hi!

October 🇺🇸

September was the month we unveiled our most ambitious project to date; Team Player by John Goldsby is designed to elevate your bass playing where it matters most, on the bandstand! The course features an all-star cast of musicians in ensembles ranging from intimate duos to hard-swinging trios, from the classic saxophone quartet to a modern sextet with horns. If you're a jazz bassist looking to play bass lines and solos that your bandmates will love, this course is perfect for you.

November/December☃️

These last two months have seen us return to the studio to film new material for courses, as well as for our interview series. It was a lot of fun to get the DDB crew back together after a break from production, and we are excited to share the results in the new year!

What’s coming up in 2024…🧐

What’s next for DDB? Well, after enjoying a break for the Christmas Holidays, we are due to share our first releases of the year in early January. We will update three courses with additional new lessons that will be freely available to existing students. We are always trying to improve our offer and hope these updates will be very popular!

Unlike many other online learning platforms, none of our courses include ongoing subscriptions to access the lessons. Once you’re enrolled, that’s it. Plus, by updating these three courses in January at no extra cost to the current students, we can provide as much value as possible for those who have already joined us. The lessons will be added to the courses automatically and there’s no action required. For updates on what courses are included, please keep an eye on our email newsletter.

January Kickstart Practice guide🚀

To start the year with a bang, we will also be running our first ever ‘January Kickstart Practice Guide’, which you can sign up for below. It’s a weekly email series focused on the fundamentals. This is a great time of year to review the basics, regardless of your experience, so I hope you enjoy what we have to offer.

To sign up to the January Kickstart Practice Guide, please select from our two options below. If you choose both you will receive both emails on the same day.

New course announcement - Music theory and sight reading for Bassists 🎼

One of our most requested topics is music theory and sight reading, so we have created a course specially for double bassists. It’s designed to get you reading new music in a fun and engaging way. The tutor did a marvellous job writing and presenting the lessons and we are looking forward to publishing it in the spring of 2024.

… While we can’t share the news of who is presenting this innovative course, here’s a photo from the session!

We will start the new year with our first overseas trip to film with a new tutor to the website. They are an incredible artist, so stay tuned for updates and backstage photos of the sessions on our Instagram Page. We will be releasing new courses by existing tutors, as well as welcoming other new artists. Of course, our free interviews/lessons series will continue to be published regularly, and we are excited to welcome more incredible bassists to tell their stories. Romy and I spent yesterday in the studio with two outstanding bass players, so stay tuned for those!

2024 is lining up to be another exciting year for our community, and I’m excited to share what we have in store!

Thank you!

So that’s a wrap for 2023! Thank you so much for reading this end-of-year review and for being part of our journey over the last 12 months. It’s incredible to reflect and celebrate what we’ve achieved in our first decade of Discover Double Bass! Let’s keep working on our playing, enjoying sharing our music, and see where the decade takes us!

Best wishes,
Geoff (DDB Founder, Masterclass Host and double bass fanatic)

P.S. Here’s the link to join our newsletter for updates 👇