Joshua Young is one of those bass players that if you haven’t heard of him yet, you’ll hear of him soon enough.
Young is and has been a student of music his entire life, beginning at the age of 9 with piano lessons in his hometown of Queens, New York, through his early teens where he was given his first bass guitar at age 14 and joining Victor Wooten at his annual Bass/Nature Camp in Nashville at the age of 16.
One might argue that that age 16-17 period was the transformative period for Young as a budding musician.
While at the Bass/Nature Camp, Young learned from the established whose-who of bass players including Anthony Wellington, Adam Nitti, and Chuck Rainey.
In late 2006 while attending Bass Player Live in Manhattan, Young met and learned from even more established figureheads of bass guitar including Stanley Clarke, Jeff Berlin, Tal Wilkenfeld and Billy Sheehan.
At age 17, Joshua was awarded a full-tuition scholarship to study at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA
While at Berklee, Young sharpened his skills as a composer and arranger and even auditioned for P. Diddy, Lady Gaga, and Kelly Rowland while still a student.
At age 21, he performed and shared the stage with grammy-award winning bass icon Victor Wooten at a book banquet held by the Liberal Arts Department at the David Friend Recital Hall.
Joshua has been chosen to be featured on the world renown Gospel Chops Bass Sessions Vol. 2 along with bass giants Justin Raines, Sharay Reed, Anthony Crawford (who was also a part of the How I Play series!), Mark Peric, Evan Marien, and Katsuji Morioka.
Young was also featured in a Washington Post article, highlighting his skills as a young bass player and as a recipient of a tremendous scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Massachusetts, valued at $200,000!
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Where are you currently located? Boston, MA.
What is your current gig? Working on my compositions, 24 fugues for bass guitar in all keys, Chamber orchestral piece with bass guitar as focal, and a string quartet piece as well.
What is one word that describes your playing? Contrapuntal.
What is your current set up and what is your favorite piece of gear? My Ibanez SDGR and my favorite piece of gear right now is my bass.
I don’t have a bass rig right now.
Funny story, I actually sold it to buy a really nice iron tea set collection.
It was some really good tea, the flavor was rich, and the tea cups absorbed the heat so it was perfect drinking temperature.
It was when I was taking a year break from music and playing.
What is one thing you can’t live without? I can’t live without jumbo waffles covered in vanilla ice cream with whip cream!! In all seriousness who can’t live without that!!?
Hehe, no in retrospect, I cannot live without my family & friends. I’m so grateful for them.
What is your practice space like? If it’s a beautiful day, I practice by the river or in the park.
I usually just go to the Berklee campus and practice on a comfy chair surrounded by people and noise.
I like to be surrounded by distractions, because if I can zone everything out I can increase my focus in a zen-like manner.
What album are you currently listening to? At the moment I’m listening to Coldplay’s new song entitled “Magic”.
What are you currently reading? I’m currently reading online publications like a “Journal of the Society for Music Theory”.
It’s about stream segregation and perceived syncopation.
It’s an analysis of the rhythmic effects of implied polyphony in Bach’s unaccompanied string works. Goes well with some coffee.
I would like to see ______ answer these questions. Federico Malaman
What is the best advice you ever received? the best advice I received was, “don’t settle for what people want to give you, because your only going to get what they want to give you and not what you deserve because you are not out there getting it!”
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