Moses Lake High School musician learns from the pros
Moses Lake High School musician learns from the pros
MOSES LAKE — Moses Lake High School junior Chazz Warren has a big job.
As the only double-bass player in the entire school, Warren plays in jazz band, jazz choir, woodwind ensemble, concert band, percussion ensemble and pep band. The total time she spends playing music at school every day: three hours.
Earlier this month, Warren experienced the ultimate honor for an amateur player — she attended a three-day workshop in Port Townsend led by two professional double-bass players, Edgar Meyer and John Clayton. Her acceptance as one of ten chosen required an audition tape, which band director Dan Beich helped her record. The workshop initially required participants to be 18 and older. Warren is 16.
Most of the participants surrounding her were older and more accomplished, from retired teachers to those with recordings. Her first day made her nervous.
"We all sat in a big circle on the stage," Warren said. "They said, "everybody just play a piece that you've memorized sometime."
When it was her turn to play, Warren told them she had nothing prepared. She said if anyone had something with them, she would play it. A mandolin player luckily brought a piece of music to the workshop.
"I had to sight read this really weird tune and pulled it off, and everyone was really proud of me," Warren said.
After the workshop, she and her mom Dede Warren watched Meyer and Clayton perform in a concert, which they described as exceptional.
"I'm just real proud of her and very impressed with how well she's able to handle all of her obligations," Dede Warren said of her daughter.
The instrument is so big, Chazz Warren's family bought a van just to get it around. To make her job easier, she keeps her double-bass at school and uses the school's double-bass at home. In pep band she plays electric bass, the instrument she started with in eighth grade.
Warren said she is so busy, she hopes others who want to play bass join the band to take some of the load off of her.
"Then I could share it," she said.