Welcome to the Bassobbligato blog!
Greetings folx, I am called Giuseppe 👋 Of the many hats that I wear, I am a bass player and educator. Please, with grace and kindness, accept this post as welcome and brief introduction to me and this blog. Below are some of the nuts and bolts, necessaries and incidentals, that seem sort of... obligatory.
Basso Obbligato
(BassObbligto)
This capricious elision has stuck with me for decades. I remember learning about the basso continuo as a high school student, nerd. No longer can I recall whether I saw it printed as one word, a single "o" as a bridge linking these terms, or if it really is the fruit of my own imagination. It hardly matters. I was immediately struck. Has that ever happened to you? Did you see or even maybe create something sort of cute and it just stuck with you? You couldn't unsee it?
As I started studying music in earnest, I came across words like ostinato, obbligato, thorough-bass, and their associative forms like the passacaglia, chaconne, and the lament. What a treasure trove of sounds! I love the way some words taste. You must know the mouthfeel of words you love saying, no? The words that tickle, and flow from your mind's ear out into the world. Words that have a feeling and feel personal to you. They are more than units of utilitarian communication. Those words are not mere vocabulary and function, but straddle the fine line of life-theater (simulacra and simulation) and full extemporized authentic free expression. The lexiconic treasure trove of concepts! Coming from a background in rock and jazz, these words and what these words represented, the forms and compositional practices, made immediate sense to me. The bass made sense to me. I wanted to drink it all in and gobble it all up. Here was the link between repetitive song forms and classical music!
I am getting ahead of myself. Before I get completely carried away, here are some auto-biographical thoughts for your consideration:
I have been a professional multi-genre freelance bassist for over 20 years.
I was born and raised in New York City, where I attended the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts.
I studied double bass at Purchase College, State University of New York, the Hugh Hodgson School of Music at the University of Georgia, and several summers at the Conservatorio Antonio Vivaldi in Alessandria, Italy.
More about me later.
Why this blog? Why me? Why Now?
If you've made it this far, the answers to those questions and the questions themselves are irrelevant. Well, not irrelevant. No, but rather allow me to pose these very questions to you, dear reader. They are relevant to me but about you! Why my blog? why are you here now? With all of the great resources like string virtuoso, tone base, contrabass conversations, double bass headquarters, discover double bass, and youtube, what drew you to this space?
