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Why did
Justin Marx, accomplished Jazz bassist, transition into Web designer,
photographer and entrepreneur? Justin, who is currently a student
at New York University, tells us all about it.
 Early
Years
I was born in Vancouver, BC, Canada
on February 17, 1980, and lived there until 1990, when I moved to
Ann Arbor, Michigan. All through middle school I played the viola,
although I wasn't interested in it enough to practice. In 8th
grade (1993) I bought an electric bass, and asked my orchestra director
if I could switch from viola to acoustic bass, but all of the school's
basses were already being used. I ended up quitting viola completely
in favor of the electric bass.
I attended Community High School,
an alternative high school that attracts mostly artists (although
it isn't an art school per se.) It has a great jazz program that
consists of about a dozen small combos, divided up by skill level.
My sophomore year (1995) I was put in the top ensemble, and the
director told me I needed to learn to play acoustic bass. After
several months of practicing I was finally able to play it in public,
and I loved it so much that I gave up electric bass to play acoustic
(although I still play electric from time to time.)
European Tour
Community's jazz program provided
some incredible opportunities for me. As part of the top ensemble,
I had the opportunity to do four tours to Europe, playing in England,
Holland, Germany, and Switzerland. On these tours we played at jazz
festivals, and in clubs, schools, and town squares, and on some
of the tours, played almost every day for three weeks. The tours
were extremely educational in that the European audiences treated
us as professionals, instead of as high school students. We were
esteemed as musicians, which was a welcome change from many American
audiences, who often did not respect our musicianship on the basis
that we were still in high school. That respect had a very positive
effect on our playing, and some of my best playing in high school
was on those tours.
Berklee College of Music
After high school (1998) I went
to Berklee College of Music in Boston on a partial performance scholarship,
with the intent to study jazz performance. Once there I realized
that I was playing enough around the school that I could study something
else and still play most of the time, so I declared Music Business
and Management as my major. In the spring of my freshman year I
started developing carpal tunnel syndrome and tendentious as a result
of overplaying, and by late fall in my sophomore year it had gotten
bad enough that my physical therapist suggested I stop playing,
or at least cut back drastically; if I didn't I would suffer most
likely permanent nerve damage. This came at a time when I was really
getting tired of Berklee's cutthroat competitive atmosphere, and
when I started to want more of an academic (nonmusical) challenge
than Berklee could not provide. I knew that if I stayed at Berklee
I could not sufficiently cut back on my playing, so I decided to
transfer to New York University.
Continued
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