MarkPrzybylowski.com

MarkPrzybylowski.com Mark Przybylowski is a freelance double bassist, electric bassist, orchestra teacher, and private instructor.

Mark is in his 13th year as a public school music educator and maintains a website and blog with educational writings and resources for teachers.

09/16/2025

What if you could down with your instrument and create basslines, harmonies, solos — without needing every note written out?

Or looking at a lead sheet and confidently crafting a solo or groove that flows from chord to chord...

That’s exactly what we’re doing inside the Modern Strings Collective — a small group program (just 3–5 musicians) designed to help you get unstuck and start improvising with confidence in a variety of styles.

Inside, you'll learn how to:

🎵 Use triads and 7th chords to move through changes
🎵 Create smooth, connected basslines and solos
🎵 Read and interpret lead sheets with ease
🎵 Understand harmony so you can learn tunes faster
🎵 Groove in styles like jazz, rock, and blues

✨ Enrollment is open now, and spots are limited on purpose — I’m keeping the group intimate so you’ll get hands-on support.

DM me GROOVE for details.

09/15/2025

🎻 Did you know improvisation used to be a normal part of playing string music?

From the Baroque era to early jazz, and even in traditional fiddle tunes, string players were expected to create — not just read notes on a page.

But somewhere along the way, in many classical circles, that skill faded into the background.

I created the Modern Strings Collective to change that.

It’s a small group program (just 3–5 musicians) where you’ll learn how to:

✅Confidently improvise

✅Play from lead sheets and chord changes

✅Explore different styles and expand your musical voice — beyond the page

Whether you’re a student, teacher, or working musician, this is your space to grow.

Spots are very limited because I’m keeping it personal and collaborative.

🔗 Want to join us? Details in the comments.

If I am honest, most of my students just want to jump into the music each rehearsal and skip our warm up time. However, ...
10/08/2021

If I am honest, most of my students just want to jump into the music each rehearsal and skip our warm up time.

However, I try to explain to them that just like an athlete knows the importance of stretching before a game to prevent injury and prepare mentally for the game - we too as musicians need to stretch and prepare mentally for the music.

Warm up time is not just for loosening up muscles, but is also for transitioning to music making, capturing our sound, listening, tuning, focusing, and learning new skills.

In this article I cover some favorite warm ups and the intention behind each one. See the link in the comments below.

What do you like to do during warm up time?

Online resources for educators are so important right now. So many public, private, and studio teachers are working with...
01/06/2021

Online resources for educators are so important right now.

So many public, private, and studio teachers are working with students in the remote setting.

If you don’t have a ton of money for subscriptions or resources - here is a super simple way to create lessons for reviewing terms and music literacy skills with kids.

Link to the article in the bio.

There is still time for you to get the Holiday Play-A-Long Collection for your students.Send them off on winter break wi...
12/23/2020

There is still time for you to get the Holiday Play-A-Long Collection for your students.

Send them off on winter break with some favorites to practice. Keep the love of music growing.

Link in the bio.

Winter favorites and classic holiday tunes.These are super fun and my students have been enjoying playing along with the...
12/19/2020

Winter favorites and classic holiday tunes.

These are super fun and my students have been enjoying playing along with them.

Free download or feel free to donate in kind. Parts for treble, alto, and bass clef with backing track all included.

Every year my students and I would work up some winter favorites. We’d trek down to the lobby of our school - violins, c...
12/15/2020

Every year my students and I would work up some winter favorites. We’d trek down to the lobby of our school - violins, cellos, basses, music stands, music. We’d have fun playing for students who passed by and our school community.

Since we are fully remote I wanted to try to bring that music making to them.

I’ve written out 5 winter/holiday favorites for violin, viola, cello, bass and C instruments. Backing track play-a-longs included for each tune.

These are a lot of fun and the kids have been enjoying making music with them.

Download for free or feel free to pay what you like for these efforts.

Sharing them with educators and string teachers who might find them useful.

Happy Holidays!

This season has pushed many of us to learn new skills. That’s a good thing!I’ve experimented with home recording and edi...
12/01/2020

This season has pushed many of us to learn new skills. That’s a good thing!

I’ve experimented with home recording and editing a little over the years, but have been forced to really delve into it for the benefit of my students. How do we replicate performances and give our students some sense of creativity, expression, and collaboration?

Nothing will or can replace live interaction and music making. Nonetheless, we can try to do something. Something our students can be proud of.

This is the 3rd virtual orchestra performance I’m putting together. It’s work! I’m learning, but it’s good.

Hopefully the end product is something the kids will be proud of.

We have to be creative and do our best in these times and keep kids involved in music!

11/25/2020

I always felt simple pattern work for young string students was really beneficial for developing their ear, intonation, and technique.

It’s not a lot of information so you can hone in on the essentials while you still work on longer etudes and music beyond that.

Fundamental work makes learning music easier and hopefully faster for kids.

The String Teachers Classroom Pack is a collection of scales, finger patterns, and rhythm work, all in unison for string orchestra. Here is a demo of what’s inside.

Link in bio.


It has been a while since I have written my thoughts down on teaching. Recently broke that lull after being inspired by ...
11/18/2020

It has been a while since I have written my thoughts down on teaching.

Recently broke that lull after being inspired by one of my colleagues and her use of slides to teach basic music concepts in an interactive way.

Decided to make some lessons of my own for my students. Slides are super simple and can be interactive for kids and a quick way to assess knowledge and gain practice.

Link to the article in the bio.

10/30/2020

The String Teachers Classroom Pack is a collection of resources I created some years ago for my orchestra program.

In this video I’ll share part of the Essential Finger Patterns worksheet, the sequence, and how I use this resource in my orchestra.

Link is in the comments.

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Philadelphia, PA

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