On Stage   OFF STAGE Name: Kevin G. Mauldin Instrument: Double bass, electric bass guitar Hometown: Memphis, TN At what age did you begin playing your instrument? I started on the violin at age 9 and moved to the bass at age 13. I started bass guitar at age 15. Who have been your greatest musical influences? My bass teachers John Chiego and Frank Proto. Also Francois Rabbath, Edgar Meyer, Ray Brown, John Clayton, the Count Basie Band, Earth Wind and Fire, Stanley Clarke, Neils Henning Ørsted-Pedersen, James Brown and all of the gospel, blues, funk jazz and soul music that I absorbed as a youngster in Memphis. Who are your favorite composers? My fave five are: Beethoven, Bach, Richard Strauss, Mozart and Dvorák. What career path would you have taken had you not chosen music? I think that I would have been in music, but not in classical music, perhaps in a jazz or a fusion-funk ensemble. What's currently playing on your iPod or CD player? Nothing is currently playing, but I'll be listening to some audio books during my drive to Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Daily practice rituals: Daily???? When I practice, I warm up with large muscle exercises such as long tones, large interval shifts (known as vomits in the bass world), scales, combined with: a) fingering patterns, b) rhythms, c) bowing patterns, and d) improvisatory patterns on each scale degree. Also, I will learn to transpose a jazz tune to a few keys and improvise on it.

The question you're asked most often about your instrument (and your answer): "What is that extra piece of fingerboard at the top of your bass for?" My answer: "It's an extension and allows me to play the extremely low notes that are often needed in orchestral music." Or sometimes people ask, "Don't you wished you chose the piccolo?"

Your favorite part about playing in the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra: My favorite aspect of playing in the NPO is the orchestra's ability to play at a generally high level regardless of the music (or conductor) that is in front of us.