After so many years of bass playing.

[GianGian]

I was thinking about how our playing "ages". I have been playing for over 8 years now, I know, it is nothing compared to the most experienced players here, but I can definitely feel differences in my playing. As I write songs too, I can feel that I have improved a lot, but I am also slowing down. I write better but I write less. I play better, but I play less.
I am not so looking foward to be in a good band, because I have seem that it is so unlikely to happen that I have develop a love for playing on my own and doing other things on the time that I would spend rehearsing and learning material.
I want to play for all my life, but I don't feel that rush that I had in my first years. I have already achieved a lot of things technique wise, and I know now the kind of things that I can play and the things that I won't be able to play or don't really want to play.
Tell us about how your playing and your vision of playing music in general has aged through the years, how you still feel a passion for playing music, what you do to keep yourself interested. It is always good to hear other people's experiences.

[eddododo]

man i have to worst situation like that
I was a great classical baritone player and a decent bass player. REALLY good theory from an early age etc..
But i have the worst passion.. or lack thereof. I dont listen to alot of music on my own, dont practice much; justalways gotten by on being coordinated for playing and knowing what to do mentally...

So i hit ALOT of road blocks... vocabulary, or even desire/pleasure of playing.

Take a week off the bass. dont touch it, dont look at it, dont read music. Either think about it or don't, they both can be useful; point being sometimes you need to let yourself unwind to break out of patterns

[lowendfriend]

I gave it up for 40 years after my high school garage band that got me into Engineering.

At 60, I'm not in it for the babes and fast livin'....I believe that music is my special friend until the end....

I love to listen to music and bass playing enhances what I hear in the music since I can visualize participating in making it.


I play in an all-employee band for company events and the level of appreciation and friendly response from that reality is way pay enough.

I'm retiring in a couple of months, and I'll probably try to affiliate with playing for charity benefits, etc which is half the gigs I play now with the company band. Maybe some blues jams to get connected to musicians....hey, it's all good!

[zachoff]

Off and on for 20 years... Started out playing thrash metal, switched to ska in the mid 90s because it was the cool thing, switched to punk then back to more proggy metal and now I'm playing sorta slower metal stuff... I'm definitely better now than I ever have been both with writing and with playing, but I still don't know crap about theory or anything.

[smeet]

I've been playing bass for about 25 years now, and before that I played violin for about 15 years. I've always had a passion for music, although its nature changed. For a while I wanted to make my living being an on-call studio musician. Then I came to my senses and got my engineering degree, playing in bands on the side. I alternated playing rock, jazz, blues, etc. After a while I got sick of flaky musicians.

I took a few years off playing with people, did electronic composition with just me and a computer. Now I'm back playing bass with a vengeance. For the first time in many years, I want to make money playing, so in addition to my art-rock originals band I'm looking for an established cover band, and musical theater gigs etc.

The originals band I'm in is super open-minded, and the bass is always viewed as an equal partner. I'm building up a pedal board and they are all excited about the possibilities. They are all creative and crazy but stable guys like myself. Sometimes getting older is awesome. Musically I'm less insecure than I used to be. My fingers don't move as fast as they used to, but I'm more solid and musical now. I'm looking forward to this next year to be the best ever, musically speaking.

[MrLenny1]

Just wrapped up 5 busy years of gigging. Burnt out by the business. Bars, drunks, poor pay. I would love to do project type gigs, concert style venue. I'm teaching a few students and listening to a lot of different stuff and working on my sight reading.

[Thunderthumbs73]

Originally Posted by GianGian

I was thinking about how our playing "ages". I have been playing for over 8 years now, I know, it is nothing compared to the most experienced players here, but I can definitely feel differences in my playing. As I write songs too, I can feel that I have improved a lot, but I am also slowing down. I write better but I write less. I play better, but I play less.
I am not so looking foward to be in a good band, because I have seem that it is so unlikely to happen that I have develop a love for playing on my own and doing other things on the time that I would spend rehearsing and learning material.
I want to play for all my life, but I don't feel that rush that I had in my first years. I have already achieved a lot of things technique wise, and I know now the kind of things that I can play and the things that I won't be able to play or don't really want to play.
Tell us about how your playing and your vision of playing music in general has aged through the years, how you still feel a passion for playing music, what you do to keep yourself interested. It is always good to hear other people's experiences.

Good thread!

[MalcolmAmos]

Started late in life, took up banjo at 65. This led to a spot with a country band. Rhythm guitar entered my life. Lot of afternoon gigs, take heart, there is a need for afternoon bands. We play the nursing and retirement home circuit, fairs, birthday events, church functions, Salvation Army family night, American Legion dance night. Next week we open the Gilmer, Texas Yamboree festival. Been the opening act (11:00 AM) for about 6 years now. Things like that.

Been with the same band for over 10 years and yes my rhythm guitar is on auto pilot. So --- I learn other instruments. Keyboard - chord piano. Fiddle - taking more time that I wanted to give it, so the fiddle is history. Clarinet - it's coming. Four string bass - loving it. Play bass every Thursday afternoon at one of the local nursing homes.

Enjoy learning new things, always have.

[Alvaro Martín Gómez A.]

Started playing bass in 1986 at 19, playing tropical music exclusively although I didn't know so much about it since rock music was what I grew up listening to. After getting gigs, I made the huge mistake of thinking that, just because I was in a band, I got to know everything I needed.

Fast forward to late 1990: I got to know a great local bassist who showed me the instructional videos from Jaco Pastorius and Stuart Hamm. That made me realize that I really didn't know anything and started a steady practice routine that lasted until I entered the university in mid 1994 to get my music diploma as a double bass player. 1991 to 1994 were so wonderful years since I was obsessed with practicing and, while I consider that I barely achieved a 10% of my projections at the time, those were extremely formative and productive years for me.

Early '00s (can't remember the exact year): When you start your life as a bassist in a tropical music band, you learn that lots of lows and scooping the mid frequencies give you the "best" bass tone. From the time I started practicing seriously, I was in discomfort because many of the things I wanted to play with the band lacked definition. I didn't see the point of trying to do any embellisment to the lines I played since they were buried in the mix. One night, before starting a wedding gig at a local hotel, I decided to turn off the "Contour" button of my Crate bass amp and raised the low frequencies on the graphic equalizer to compensate for the notorious reduction in the bass "rumble" (which is what most tropical musicians want to hear). I was expecting weird looks and complaints from the band when we started, but nobody said/did anything about it. And I could feel the difference! Ditching the "mid-scoop" approach (not that I use a predominantly "middy" tone either) has been one of my biggest improvements as a bass player IMO. And I decided to try that after reading a lot about it on TalkBass. Just one of the reasons why I feel so grateful with this awesome site.

Of course, many things have happened in 24 years of playing bass guitar (not to mention that learning to play double bass widened my scope as a bassist), but I feel those have been the biggest turning points for me.

[Johnny Crab]

Sold everything(yes, EVERYTHING) in 1989 to move the family from Louisiana to Texas in pursuit of eletrical engineering work. Got a pawnshop bass and a Behringer POD somewhere along the line after 6 children at home turned into only 2 left. Started playing but only in headphones with stuff I wanted to learn or my teen children brought to me that sounded interesting. In 2006 I got an email from my guitarist brother(played in bands with him in NOLA from teen years to 1988 when he went to GIT) asking me if I could learn 100 songs in a month....they had issues with their long-time bassist and needed a new one. 4+ years later it's up to about 240 songs on the "anytime, anywhere, it can get called" list.

Bass has been a friend since 1965 when my Dad got me one(10th birthday IIRC). Sure, I don't plan on dumping everything and doing world tours or "taking the country by storm" but the fulltime smile while on stage performing is still there as is the joy/excitement/rush(?) of learning new material and nailing it. I practice when time allows and 4~8 hours per week of performing does the rest....and there are times when I look at my hands and tell them "Look, you guys have been doing this for 44 years(45 next week) so you CAN play this(referring to new stuff)".

Have fun and try not to ever lose the joy.

Quote for all:
"When you go on a gig, you have to remember that it's a privilege to play any kind of music -- even sitting in your house by yourself. Music is this wonderful, universal language. It's meditative and spiritual. A lot of people get caught up in the frustrations, and they lose it, the way a preacher loses the calling. When you pick up an instrument, realize how blessed you are. It doesn't matter whether you're playing for 50,000 people or by yourself. I'm not saying I'm a guru of this stuff. It's just that when I pick up a bass, I'm conscious of how much it has given me, and I try to take that onstage with me wherever I go."

- bassist Darryl Jones, who’s played with Miles Davis, Sting, Madonna, The Rolling Stones, and many others.
http://www.ricksuchow.com/press-group-80.html

Tons of good stuff at the link above.

[capnsandwich]

My situation is like this; I play gospel and modern rock. I've learned that in gospel, I can play as much as I want and still sound good. They love the bass. However, in rock, I've got to choose my notes wisely. I also do session stuff from time to time and that stuff limits me to no end. However, when I play live, I'm usually given the green light to let loose and open up. Thank God too because I'd go nuts if I had to play roots the entire time.

[dannster]

33 years and I just keep getting busier and playing more and more. It has for the most part been a steady upward arc. I'm having more fun now than I ever have. Things really started happening when I looked at my life as a whole and decided that first and foremost, I'm a bass player.

This next year I'll be touring, releasing an album, making videos etc... You are never ever too old.

But I do need a little more body maintenance to keep up with myself. Aches and pains and such. Stay limber and lots and lots of stretching and Yoga-ish type stuff.

[xed]

I've been playing for around 23'ish years now. Initially I was going to do it as a career but for a variety of reasons I decided that I would just be a recreational player and whatever came along... came along.

Playing music makes me happy and I realized early on that "playing music" could be done in a lot of different ways. Currently that normally takes the form of me sitting at work listening to music and then thinking "damn, that's a great song. I'm going to learn how to play that." and then trying to make some time over the next few days to make that happen. I get a lot of satisfaction out of doing that. That's not to say that I don't think fondly back to my years of "playing in a band" but I take personal pleasure and pride where I can get it now-a-days and that isn't a bad thing.

When I was young I had lots of time; now there aren't enough hours in the day to do all the things I want to do which is fine but "making time" means short changing something else so it's all in the balance.

All I ever wanted to do was to be happy playing music. I do that now (plus a lot of other stuff)