The Bassist slash Pianist

[camello]

I personally started playing piano when I was 5 but throughout the years I've always paid more attention to what the bassist was doing. so much so that I decided to play the bass. Then I got involved in the Latin music scene and became friends with other bassist. One thing that I've noticed is that out of 20 bassists ... at least 7 play piano. I just recently joined a band and the pianist told me that, years ago, he used to play bass!!!!

Of course, I've played with pianist that have never touched a bass and bassist that don't know where C is in the piano.

As a pianist I'm much more developed musically than on bass. Funny to me is that my ear is sharper on the bass and when we're rehearsing a new song my band members would always ask me in what key we're in. --- It takes me a while of guessing out notes on piano before I know what key I'm in. Within the last year I've been switching from piano to bass and back and I've noticed improvement in music theory/chord progressions/ music knowledge in general from the use of both instruments. I would say piano is not a "key degree" intensive instrument, nor have I ever heard of a tetra chord before picking up the bass. applying modal theory to piano and understanding how it works in the mix seems to make music even deeper. Playing along to a CD and adding modal key changes adding a 4th dimension to the music and appying that same knowledge to piano and exercising that knowledge to that melody on the CD. It has a privately gratifying feeling.

I just find it curious that I constantly bump into Bassist/Pianists