Brendan O’Donoghue ’12 is a freelance bass player based out of Denver, CO. While maintaining an active gigging schedule as a freelance musician, he also regularly performs with the Tenia Nelson Trio, the Timberline Troubadours, and the O’Connor Brothers Band.

O’Donoghue reminisces about his time at CC as one that gave him a bit of an edge in the professional music industry. His connections with faculty, the flexible Block schedule and structure, and even the opportunities for leadership and performances have all directly influenced his successes as a performer.

While at CC, O’Donoghue studied with faculty Marc Neihof and Joe Head, and highly regarded Neihof as one of the main reasons he learned “functional” ear training as a jazz musician, which prepared him to take lessons with professional “first call” jazz bassist, Ken Walker. He also worked with former CC piano tuner and instructor, Bruce Pennington, who challenged and pushed O’Donoghue in ways that resembled more traditional teaching strategies before the art became highly institutionalized.

Pennington not only taught him in the historically traditional way, but eventually aided him in getting some of his first paid gigs in Colorado Springs. Meanwhile, O’Donoghue attended jam sessions like the Second Sunday Jazz Affairs organized by the Pikes Peak Jazz and Swing Society, and eventually started subbing for Marc Neihof. It was these connections as well as the freedom in structure at CC that established a more well-rounded approach to his career. O’Donoghue says that “when conservatory musicians are first out of college, a lot of times they try to make everything they play [sound] like a jury where they have to check a box trying to demonstrate that they know all these things…but it’s not something you need to demonstrate on a song-to-song basis.” He believes that not having juries at CC was helpful because teachers would teach him how to “do the thing” rather than how to “pass a test.”

He believes that both the Block Plan and student life on campus create an expectation of what freelancing would be like. On campus life he says, “there’s just so much to do and you just have to do it, which is what freelance music is going to be about.” He mentions being part of student-led ensembles and putting a band together for house parties. “You could rent a PA from the A/V department essentially for free, so if you could get five people together, all the house-party houses pretty much wanted live bands instead of an iPod. Nobody really cared about the band if the music was danceable. That alone was valuable because we were learning how to read audiences, which you don’t do in faculty-led ensembles.” 

O’Donoghue states that things felt natural to him on the Block Plan. There was a rhythm to it that reflects what the daily life of a freelance musician is like. He says the schedule sort of “took care of itself” as he attended classes in the morning, joined his ensembles and lessons in the afternoon, and finished homework in the evening. He was a member of many of the student-led ensembles, some of which often took valuable time away from his classes, but he says “the way the real freelance world works you always have too much going on. So, to prepare 100% for everything that happens, learning to ration your time and energy, and learning just how well you need to know stuff. It’s never something you’re going to solve. You just get better and you get more comfortable with playing to everybody’s satisfaction even if it’s not quite up to your own standards. You’ll never have enough time, and that’s okay.”

O’Donoghue can be seen in and around Denver performing with other freelance musicians and bandleaders. Check out his Instagram Page and his Webiste!