how and why you started bass

basstoven · #1 04-13-2011, 12:19 PM

When i was in Jr high and early high school I wanted to be a guitar player. I was going to get one for Christmas and I wanted to start a band. My friend got a drumkit for his birthday. Our other "bandmate" played guitar already and they both said, "hey all we need is bass." Being the only instrumentless "member" of the "band" i took up the noble role and asked if i could get a bass for xmas instead. We were horible and the guitar player eventually became a drummer (damn good at that.) I stook with the bass and almost a decade later here I am. Whats your story?

ric3xrt · #2 04-13-2011, 12:35 PM

My Mom wanted me to play the piano, I sucked, but My teachers lif partner was a bass player, One day I picked up his Jazz bass that was resting agianst the piano I started to play some random notes. they both were impressed at the "natural" feel I had for the bass, It was about a month after I picked it up, when they told my mom that I was learning how to play bass insted of the piano..Man she fliped...'No son of mine will play any type of guitar.... my grandfather heard me play ..told my mom to shut the f**k up and let me run with it...I've never looked back(still can't play the piano to save my life.

CauliColin · #3 04-13-2011, 12:39 PM

I play piano, but I could never play what I really like (Metallica. I had a go and it was horrible). My dad was a bassist, and he had bought a Warwick off his ex-colleague, it had been lying around for a few years, so I asked if I could have a go at learning it. It's working. Also, my sister is a guitarist and my twin a drummer!

MIgroove22 · #4 04-13-2011, 12:39 PM

when i was like 6 my friend got a bass guitar, and when i played it i loved it so much, so i asked for one for Christmas. My mom went to our local music store so she could check them out and talked to the "professionals" there, who said i should play guitar first. I begged my mom to get me a bass and not a guitar, but she got me a guitar. I hated it. And all these years later decided to save up some money to get a bass and for my 13th birthday i got one. Now I'm in a band and its really fun.

Lawkeeper · #5 04-13-2011, 12:46 PM

My stepmom had a bass lying around already (an old Westone ST), which was object of my affection early on. Eventually I bought a bass of my own, a Squier Affinity. I'm starting out, but I'm glad I picked bass instead of a guitar.

**pacojas** · #6 04-13-2011, 01:16 PM

played everything except bass as a child. at age 12, i asked for a bass and was pissed to see a guitar under the tree. that day my two best friends got guitars also. well, it was ten years later that i finally got my bass.

cool thing was, i could already play piano, flute, clarinet, harmonica, and alittle guitar. ever since it's been all bass and drums for me!

shadow_FIX · #7 04-13-2011, 01:30 PM

Started piano at 6, was training my whole childhood to be a classical concert pianist. That didn't totally flip my switch, but it laid a very solid musical foundation for me to spring off of. Picked up viola in late elementary school, and quickly realized that it's...well...viola. A buddy of mine was starting a rock band in 7th grade, told me he had everything but a bass player. Knowing my sister had a crappy Johnson P-bass she never played anymore, I said 'OK, I'll play bass!' It was the beginning of the end...I don't play anything but bass now and I'm a music performance major in college.

makkE · #8 04-13-2011, 01:33 PM

When I was 15, I started playing drums. Another band from school needed a bass player, and since I had picked up some basics already from my brother's guitar playing, I said "sure", and borrowed a bass from another bloke who wasn't going far with it.

I kept on playing drums and later guitar, when years later another band asked me if I would play bass. That's where I learned to love it.

After a break from music after several years, the same situation came up again. That was when I finally got a bass of my own and I'm getting into it more and more ever since.

Having played drums, guitar, and even some puny attemts at lead singing, I can now day that bass is my favourite, the role I like most in a band. We have a lot of power over the music on the low end, without the hardships of drumming, and without being the center of attention like the guitars or singers. I like that.

MikeCollatos · #9 04-13-2011, 01:42 PM

Played drums for 25 years but always wanted to learn bass but just couldn't pick it up (fingers just didn't get it). Had several rigs I bought and sold each time I would try and learn.

Finally moved from the drums to lead singer 4 years ago and had our bass player quit out of the blue with shows booked months out. Told everyone I would learn, one month later I was playing all the songs on bass while singing too. For some reason it just came to me all the sudden. Maybe cuz I was focusing on singing, IDK...

Anyway been playing steady since and love it!

EdMerc · #10 04-13-2011, 01:49 PM

Got my first guitar when I was about 9, but it never really took. I can play, but it was never instinctive.

When I joined a newly formed church band 30+ years later, and was faced with playing an awful song for guitar, the band leader said he'd lend me an old bass he had if I thought I could learn the bass part which was much better.

I've never looked back.

KRYPLRbass · #11 04-13-2011, 01:50 PM

It all started for me the summer I came home (MO) from New York. Up there it was all rap. When I got home my uncle had moved back to town and was staying close. I was 11 then and was visiting my uncle. When I showed up I heard thus crazy rock sound coming from his windows. Low and behold it was METALLICA and the track playing was "(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth". I was blown away that it was a bass not a guitar making these crazy sounds. I knew then I wanted to be a musician. When I turned 13 I received my first guitar. A few years later I was chatting with my uncle when he told that if I wanted to be in a band I needed to drop the guitar and pick up the bass. That week I traded in all my guitar equipment for a crappy bass. I haven't looked back since. Thank you Cliff Burton and my uncle for showing me the way.

Melvin7822 · #12 04-13-2011, 01:59 PM

I had asked for a keyboard for my 7th birthday and started taking piano lessons when I was 8. When I was 10 I picked up alto sax and when I turned 11 switched to tenor sax (I was enjoying the timbre of a lower pitched instrument). By age 13, I finally switched to bari sax and really enjoyed such a powerful instrument.

At age 14, my dad decided he wanted to get back into playing bass because he did it in college. So we went out and bought a candy apple red Yamaha RBX-250. He barely ever touched it and more and more I would pick it up because it would always be lying around.

The end of my 8th grade year was coming up and I had to decided what I wanted to do for marching band. I hated the idea of marching with a bari sax and decided I'd rather be in the pit. Luckily keyboard bass was an option.

As time grew closer to band camp, I kept thinking how lame playing keyboard bass was. One day I decided to learn the whole entire show on electric bass. I spent time figuring out where the notes were. Since I wasn't used to reading and playing electric bass yet, I developed a system of writing the string letter and fret number above each note. So that day I had essentially memorized the entire show on electric bass and the next day I pleaded with my band instructor to let me play it. After seeing that I had the whole show down, he agreed. From there on out, I declared bass as my major musical focus and the rest is history.

viper4000 · #13 04-13-2011, 02:02 PM

Started playing tuba in 5th grade. I actually started on tuba, and wasn't a trumpet/trombone convert. Played all way the until college sophomore year. I played guitar (very badly I must say) from junior year in high school. I was jamming with a buddy one day, and he said something to the degree of "Have you ever been trained on bass? Of course I said "huh? No, I'm a guitar player". He then went on this explanation about how everything I play is counter melody and roots and grooves. Nothing I played sounded like guitar licks. I dismissed it as most youngins do. Fast forward to college and my neighbor was a church bass player. And they were hard up on cash, so they sold me their back-up bass (an old Martin Stinger 4, who else has one of these btw?) So, once I got a rig, I started playing and all that "formal training" came back to me. That is to say, the tuba mentality came back, and a bass player was born...err uh transformed. I still play both, and have gotten better at guitar along the way. But I always was, and always have been a bass player, whether I knew it or not.

essentre · #14 04-13-2011, 02:04 PM

I started playing bass to fill-in for a friends cover band. I had played guitar for years but I'd never really played a bass seriously before... but they were in a pinch. Turns out I was actually pretty good and I really enjoyed it! From there I decided to join a band playing bass and the rest is history. I love it!

los100malditos · #15 04-13-2011, 02:14 PM

19 years ago some guy brought a Yamaha bass to a friend's house and i just fell in love with the damn thing ... i had seen electric guitars before, but never a bass ....then i asked for one ... that is the story .... Love at first sight

NoiseNinja · #16 04-13-2011, 02:17 PM

I had been playing guitar for a couple of years, when someone were searching for a bass player to their noise-rock band, exactly the kind of band I'd been looking for. At that time I had already begun to fall in love with the tone of the bass, and it's seemingly simplicity of just 4 strings.

HarlequinsRugby · #17 04-13-2011, 02:23 PM

Well you see, I wanted to be a guitar player really bad, my mom said "No Guitars are allowed in my house." Well after awhile I started listening to Yes, and loved how the bass sounded and went nuts for one for a few months, saving every penny I had to get one, welll Christmas came around and I asked for a bass, and I got a Squier Jazz bass, and ive beat the hell out of it, being my first bass, but I love it and I love to play bass

and rugby too

MisterFabulous · #18 04-13-2011, 02:24 PM

Would you believe it? A friend of mine gave me a bass (1990 MIJ Fender Jazz)

I messed around with guitars in my teens. I was terrible. A guy I played guitars with had me fill in on bass so he could play guitar over it, and I remember how natural it seemed to me compared to a six string.

So...26 years later when my friend offered me the Jazz, I took it!

theretheyare · #19 04-13-2011, 02:24 PM

I built a tea-chest bass (variation on a washtub bass) for 5 guilders ($2.50) with 1 pice of washing line, a chest used to pack tea in, and a 5 foot 1-by-2. Thumping along with records. Then friend asked me to join his 'jazz band'. Got a Hondo-bass with paperroute and spent the next 8 weeks with my buddies learning the first 8 bars of Dave Brubeck's Take Five. (..and here's how to do that: 1. tune up the d string to e-flat. 2. finger the Bb and db on the a string...). oh memories...

TheVoiceless · #20 04-13-2011, 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by basstoven

When i was in Jr high and early high school I wanted to be a guitar player. I was going to get one for Christmas and I wanted to start a band. My friend got a drumkit for his birthday. Our other "bandmate" played guitar already and they both said, "hey all we need is bass." Being the only instrumentless "member" of the "band" i took up the noble role and asked if i could get a bass for xmas instead. We were horible and the guitar player eventually became a drummer (damn good at that.) I stook with the bass and almost a decade later here I am. Whats your story?

Very similar to yours, but when I went to go buy a guitar, combined with the fact that my two other friends already bought guitars a week or two before I could, the store owner said " you don't want to play guitar!! Learn the bass, the world needs bass players". He was right and I'm thankful for that.