| Hello my fellow bassists
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My name is Steve,
I found this forum doing an internet search, trying to learn more about my recently purchased Line 6 Bass Pod.
basic introduction ends here. Continue to read if you want a mini novel about how God brought me to playing bass for His glory
Up until about a few months ago, I wouldn't of even considered myself a "bassist", I will explain why in this message.
I grew up with my father playing 12-string so eventually I started learning very basic chords on his Guild. I have been a self taught guitarist for many years, basically traditional chords with very simple strum patterns.
I wanted to start learning bass, So Christmas of 10, my wife picked me up an Ibanez 4 string acoustic / electric bass.
The Worship Leader (WL) started teaching me scales and patterns just to see how serious I was about wanting to learn the bass.
During that time he asked me if I wanted to learn a song for worship on Sunday. (I was already on the worship team, in the choir.) I said sure and he gave me a copy of the song and his correct-a-tab and I started creating my own correct-a-tab as I listened to the song.
During that time our current bassist slipped and fell hurting his back, so I was asked if I wanted to learn the other three songs. I accepted but shared with Brian (WL) that I would not be able to put the detail into the remaining songs due to time.
He assured me that just adding a root tone to the song would work for this Sunday. When very well, other than it was obvious that I was concentrating very hard on what my hands where doing, finger location is still to this day a developing skill.
From there I have learned to play all over the fret board, still learning finger location and still need to glance down to confirm that my hands are where they need to be.
The following is for God's glory and his alone. It also explains why I didn't call myself a bassist until about three months ago.
The reason is / was is because I have a disability from birth. When I was born I was pulled from the womb by my right arm as a result it severely tore the nerves in my shoulder of that arm.
As a result my right arm is shorter then my left and my right hand is smaller than the other. And fine motor movements are practically non existent.
I can not hold a typical pick, I started playing by growing out a fingernail to be my pick, however I found out that the string doubled fantastically as a nail file...lol
From there I tried various finger picks without any success, so one day I started cutting and shaping a old gift card and came up with a shape that I could holds in my right hand.
So now my only limitation is my speed, I had to accept the fact that I will only ever be able to play only so fast. I over come this by playing half of the movement, if the movement is in 16th notes I would play it in 8th notes instead.
I rely heavily on a series of hammer and strum to get faster rhythms.
That is my story, thank you for taking the time to read it.
God Bless. | 
