
BIO

Larry Smith is a teaching artist currently residing in the Rogue Valley of Oregon and specializes in bass playing, composition/songwriting, education and audio engineering. Larry holds a Master of Music in Commercial Music Performance Electric Bass from California State University Los Angeles as well as a B.M. in Jazz Studies and B.A. in Music Technology from California State University Stanislaus. Larry is active personally as a performer, educator, recording artist/producer, songwriter, engineer and sound designer while continuing to seek work in these categories.
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As a performer, Larry writes, records, and produces his own work under Smittybass: an all bass project where-in the entire sonic soundscape is being created exclusively from his bass. Most recently, Smith has been part of a duo that collaborates on a video project covering influential Progressive Rock songs with various colleagues from across the country. His role includes arranging music, mixing, video editing and organization of all projects in addition to playing bass. In Los Angeles, he had the opportunity to write, record, and perform with a variety of artists as a session musician. Larry is the founding member and composer for MAMA (Modesto Area Music Award) nominated band, Wait For Sleep, which has shared the stage with national and regional acts. He has been in the pit for various musical theatre productions that includes: Once on This Island, Rent, South Pacific, Cabaret, and Anything Goes on both electric and upright bass. He has also been recognized with the Louis Armstrong Jazz Award in 2008 and Reno Jazz Festival Outstanding Musicianship Award 2013. He is currently a session music around the Rogue Valley for musicians and theatres and a musical director.
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As an educator, Larry is a professor at Rogue Community College and Southern Oregon University as an Adjunct Professor of Music and Theatre. In the role at RCC, he teaches an assortment of courses such as the Music Theory and Aural Skills sequence, History of Rock, Jazz History, Guitar, Songwriting, Music Technology and more. At the SOU Music department, he has taught Aural Skills, lead the Musix ensemble, Audio Music Production, and History of Rock. For the Theatre department at SOU, he has taught Fundamentals of Sound, Sound Design and led the Sound Crew for productions for the department. Most recently, Larry has joined the Master of Theatre Studies program as their Sound Professor.