Giuseppe Bordasco

I am deeply passionate about music since childhood. After having approached the first music steps on keyboard, I started playing electric bass at 14 years old, when I used to listen mostly Rock, Grunge, Metal and the like. The more I played, the more I wanted to listen and understand different music styles: from Funk, passing through Soul, reaching Jazz, which are the genres that I still play the most. After some years, in which I have been having fun with my firsts bands and I had luckily received my first bass lessons, I realized that I was totally hooked by music which became my life path from that moment on.

Therefore I decided to apply to Pescara Conservatory where I graduated in “Pop” (Bachelor) and “Jazz” (Master). The desire of studying Brazilian music led me to graduate for a second master in “World Music” at Codarts, in Rotterdam, where I decided to stay and live after having built up a consistent music network in this beautiful artistic environment. Along with my studies I managed to keep a busy live music schedule as well as a teaching activity at home and in different local schools in Italy and Netherlands. My music activities involved any kind of gigs: from pubs and restaurant to big festivals, passing by wedding and party gigs. I have always been willing to play different music styles. This brought me to play in different type of ensembles (from Big Bands to duo) and, lately, to approach the creation of a solo bass repertoire.

First of all, it means to convey to my students the passion that I feel for this beautiful instrument and the variety of music styles that can be played with. I have been fascinated by teaching since my first steps in music. From that moment, I always tried to analyze the different methods that my teachers used to explain me various topics. This, through the years, allowed me to copy and create structured ways to explain step by step different styles, techniques and all aspects that I worked on during my career.

In practice this can be translated in giving the students the right tools to deal with the music that he/she likes and stimulate the curiosity about other styles in order to artistically grow as a musician.

If you are new to the instrument, no problem: you can use one of my basses to begin! (but I certainly recommend to buy yours as soon as possible to practice). In the first lesson I am gonna show you this beautiful instrument in all its parts. We’re gonna approach the first steps to the technical exercises that will fix the correct posture on the instrument, preventing any body pain problem. This will give you a good starting point to learn quickly how to play the first notes for any music path pursuable.

One part of this lesson is dedicated to know you and your musical taste: It will allows me to better define the course based on your musical tendencies.

You can show me which aspect you want to work on (groove, sound, timbre, specific styles, harmony etc.), tell me about your goals as musician or, even, just play something so I can get an idea of which aspects we could work on. From that we can elaborate a structured program in steps to achieve the defined subject. For example, if you want to work on jazz we are gonna build our walking lines lesson by lesson from scratch in order to learn how to improvise comping on all the neck.  Do you want to learn something about Brazilian music? We’re gonna analyze how the bass works in many of its different styles. Are you interested about Funk/Soul/New Soul? We can learn how to improve our sixteen feel.

Playing is gonna have an important rule during the lessons since it’s often the faster way to learn certain music aspects, but music theory, harmony, ear training and solfege are gonna be important as well.

Furthermore, I am always willing to suggest new music to my students so you won’t go out of the lesson without discovering new artists to listen to! I think this is a crucial element for a musician because it broadens the musical horizons and can give the student new ideas to work on.