[url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/242657147?page=0&sort=0&showBanned=0&path=0]BHMGSL#1[/url] [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/242695836?page=0&sort=0&showBanned=0&path=0]BHMGSL#2[/url] [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/242735616?page=0&sort=0&showBanned=0&path=0]BHMGSL#3[/url] Good evenin', Bnet, hope you're all doing well and staying safe. This is BHMGSPL number four and will be featuring the first bass guitarists in the series -- One Esperanza Spaulding. Born October 18th, 1984, in Portland, Oregon, Esperanza Emily Spaulding is an American jazz bassist and singer. Spalding's mother took note of her musical proclivity when Spalding was able to reproduce Beethoven by ear on the family's piano. Spalding has credited watching classical cellist, Yo-Yo Ma perform on an episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood as an integral part of her childhood and what inspired her to pursue music. The young Spaulding was a musical prodigy, playing violin for the Chamber Music Society of Oregon at the age of five. She was later both self-taught and -trained on a number of instruments, including guitar and bass. Her proficiency earned her scholarships to Portland State University and the Berklee College of Music. In 2017 she was appointed Professor of the Practice of Music at Harvard University. Spalding was born to an African-American father and a mother of Welsh, Native American, and Hispanic descent. She was raised in the King, Alberta neighborhood in Northeast Portland, which at that time was at its height of gang violence. Her mother raised her and her brother as a single parent. Likely influenced by her multicultural heritage, Spaulding has an interest in the music of other cultures, including that of Brazil, commenting: "With Portuguese songs, the phrasing of the melody is intrinsically linked with the language, and it's beautiful." According to Spalding, when she was about eight, her mother briefly studied jazz guitar in college. Spalding says: "Going with her to her class, I would sit under the piano. Then I would come home and I would be playing her stuff that her teacher had been playing." Spalding also played oboe and clarinet before discovering the double bass in high school. She is multilingual and sings in English, Spanish and Portuguese. As a teenager, she began playing in clubs in her home state of Oregon, performing her first gig at a blues club at the age of fifteen. During which time she could only play one bass line, but one of the seasoned musicians with whom she played that first night invited her to join the band's rehearsals "so she could actually learn something," and her rehearsals soon grew into regular performances spanning almost a year. According to Spalding, it was a chance for her to stretch as a musician, reaching and growing beyond her experience. Her early contact with these "phenomenal resources," as she calls the musicians who played with her, fostered her sense of rhythm and helped nurture her interest in her instrument. When asked in 2008 why she plays the bass instead of some other instrument, Spalding said that it was not a choice, but the bass "had its own arc" and resonated with her. Spalding has said that, for her, discovering the bass was like "waking up one day and realizing you're in love with a co-worker." By the time she randomly picked up the bass in music class and began experimenting with it, she had grown bored with her other instruments.Her band teacher showed her a blues line for the bass that she later used to secure her first gig. After that, she went in to play the bass daily and gradually fell in love. She has recorded six albums as a solo artist as well as having a number of guest apprearances on other works. Spaulding has been nominated for eight different rewards, seven of which she has one with her last reward being at the 2014 Grammy's for the song [i]Swing Low[/i] in which it won "Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s)". Spaulding plays both electric bass guitar and double bass. Models she plays are: • Fender Jaco Pastorius Jazz Bass (fretless) • Godin A5 (semi-acoustic, 5-string, fretless) • South Paw Fretless 5-string • Moollon Chambered Double P5 Fretless Bass • 7/8 double bass (manufacturer unknown) • Standard model S1 Czech-Ease acoustic road bass [spoiler]This concludes blah, blah, blah, you're probably watching the Bowl of the Super variety anyways. I'll probably be doing Jimi tomorrow so some of you will shut up about him already.[/spoiler]