when did you start playing bass?

[Squnk]

a simple question when did you start playing bass, age? year? and all that stuff. tell some storys, tell what made you start to play? why you play? why you still play? thanx for sharing!

[bassjamn]

I was in switzerland on a farm with my bros and dad, my older bros had been playing guitar and drums for a few years and convinced me to pick up the 4 string.

They gave me a buncha rush tapes to listen to while out on the farm and i was amazed at Geddy Lee's playing, which got me really itching to learn and play.

We got back and i started playing the weekend Stevie Ray Vaughn's plane crashed. Yeah ...just remember that stuff cause of the importance of the time.

[James Hart]

at 12 in 1980 I got started... one of these days I'll get the hang of it. Wanted too since I was 7ish

I've got a bio on the bio page of my band link... and my profile has some more info too

[embellisher]

I was twelve.

I idolized my older brother, who played drums, guitar, and bass. He was 8 1/2 years older than me, and I wanted to be just like him. He tried to teach me guitar, but said that my fingers were too short and stubby. Of course, I overcame this limitation and today can play bass better than he can play anything, although at one time, before he got out of practice, he was an amazing drummer.

My dad pastored a small church. A divorce in one of the large families split the church, and them and all of their friends(60+ people total) left the church. All of the musicians were in the group that left.

Our assistant pastor played piano, guitar, bass, and a little drums. I started drums(to be like my brother), my sister started learning organ, and my best friend Bobby, the assistant pastor's son started bass. Bobby had no ear for music, so his stepdad would call the changes out to him from the piano.

After a couple of months, Bobby decided he wanted to try drums, so we decided to 'switch off'. He showed me where C, F and G were, and how to play with my index and middle finger. I showed him how to keep a beat with the snare, kick, and high hat. This all took about 10 minutes, my only bass lesson taking about 3 or 4 of that.

Poor Bobby wasn't much of a timekeeper either. I played bass at church that night, and he played drums. I found out that God had given me a great ear for music, and I didn't need anybody calling out changes to me.

Over the next few months, Bobby missed a lot, and when he wasn't there, I played bass. And loved it! Eventually, he quit coming.

Fast forward six more months, I was playing drums at a fellowship meeting. I wasn't Neil Peart, but I could play a solid groove, and do some nice fills. A preacher insulted my playing from the pulpit and shattered my confidence. For years after that, I could no longer keep a steady beat on the drums. I can today, but can't play near as well as I could at twelve.

So, I switched to bass full time. Best decision I ever made. I have been playing 25+ years now, and am a better bassist than I ever was a drummer. I am not Victor Wooten or anything, but over the years quite a few people have told me that I am the best bassist they have ever heard. Obviously, they haven't heard very many bassists.

Today, I can play bass, rhythm guitar(even though my fingers are too short) drums, keyboard, and I am teaching myself piano. But I am at my best, and happiest, on bass.

[keb]

Bass wasn't my first instrument, but it's certainly my home now.

I started on piano when I was, I guess 7 or so. My mom made little homemade overlays that slipped behind the keys so I knew which notes I was playing. But I think the seed for bass was planted when I heard and watched a guy playing the Barney Miller line on an upright at a music workshop my elementary school had one day. I thought that was the coolest thing in the world. Anyway, time went on, when I was 13 I was playing piano, but a friend and I decided we were going to start a band, and he would play guitar and myself bass. At that time I was aware of players like Sting and Geddy Lee who sang and played bass, and I thought they were way cool. But that never came to pass. Time goes on again, and I'm pretty much a piano/synth kind of guy, delving into more electronic music and writing music on piano and keyboards. I started to want to get into drums, but my parents wouldn't have it (later on I did end up finally learning and playing a little bit of drums, through bandmates and such.) When I was about 19, I started learning guitar because I was starting to get into more prog rock (a friend introduced me to Genesis and Marillion to suppliment my Rush and Yes habits which began a few years back) and my interest in electronic music was starting to wane a bit. About a year later, I literally woke up one day and decided to get a bass that very day, and I did. Bass was always something I enjoyed (the seed was there, thanks to Barney Miller!) and I always enjoyed playing and composing synth bass lines in my old electronic music, so it seemed natural. And bam, that was it. It's been my primary instrument for nearly 14 years now. I still really enjoy playing guitar and keyboards and drums (when I happen to be around a willing drummer's kit), but bass is where it's really at for me. I love challenging myself with it and learning new things.

[Steph Dawe]

Four years.

Started in year 8 (first year of high school), first band in year nine (GGHS Jazz Band, also the time I first met Pat the drummer), joined the school rock band the year after that, and this year I did one of the neighbouring school's musicals.

Yesterday I got Pat to listen to a recording of me playing drums, so now I'm thinking of investing in some stix.

[barkatozz]

I actually started out playing drums at age 15 in 1986. When me & the guitar player had a falling out with the bass player we tried finding another bass player to no avail. Finally for Christmas in '87 I got a bass for Christmas in hopes of getting someone to learn how to play it but it never happened. A year later I started fiddling with it. I actually started getting better at it than I was at the drums. After a few auditions for drums & having to lug all that equipment around & a chance meeting in 1991 with my current drummer I switched full time to bass. I still have that bass too--an early 70's Gibson Grabber.

[vbass]

I just started a few years ago when I was 20. I don't have a cool story, I just wanted to start playing so I bought a cheapo bass. Best. Decision. Ever.

[lbanks]

In '76, the lawyers took my trombone and gave me a bass. The only time the law has worked in my favor.

[Planet Boulder]

Started at age 13, in 7th grade. I'm 38 now.

Started because everyone else was playing guitar and I just wanted to play something different.

In the words of moe. "How could I know what (it would) do to my soul?"

[Don W]

Like a lot of people bass wasn't my first instrument. I started playing guitar when I was 16 and picked up bass two years later. Bass has been my main instrument pretty much ever since then (I'm 25 now).

[Viviuos]

Not wanting to be a repeat story but I also did not start on Bass. My first instrument was a violin, I was in grade school (5th grade I think) and it looked really cool. About 7th grade I had to quit because my family and I moved to a town that did not offer it. A few years later, the summer after my High School graduation I went out a bought one. I had been wanting one for about four years. So now I have had my bass for about 3 months now and I an happy I made the choice.

[Erlendur Már]

I started playing when I was 14. I'm 21 now. I just love the low frequencies!

[Bryan R. Tyler]

Originally Posted by bassjamn

I was in switzerland on a farm with my bros and dad...

I would love to live on a farm in Switzerland

I started pretty late. Our family inherited a cheap banjo when my grandfather died when I was 16, and I love messing around on it. It had four strings, and I figured since I loved basslines in song I might as well get a bass. I got my first one a week after my 17th birthday back in 96, so a little over eight years now.

[Aaron Saunders]

I, too, idolized my older brother when I was twelve. Got my bass for christmas, didn't touch it for two years. Picked it up near the end of grade 9 (March or so). Bought a new amp a year and a half later, and my first fretless this past May. Fretless is now my main bass, I've joined a band that's in the process of writing its third original (first with me in it) and has a practice tomorrow, and I'm in a semester-long focus program with almost thirty other musicians learning the ins and outs of recording, live performance, and songwriting. Rockin' cool!

[Funk On Crack]

I started around this time in 1999 at the age of 12.

[Joey3313]

I started around November or December of last year.

Bass always interested me (no quite as much as drums though, which I why I have been playing that longer). Stores downtown in our city do something once a year called "Midnight Madness". Every store is open until midnight (obviously) and there are intense sales and what-not. So after my drum lesson (located in the same area of town), some friends (and strangers who were there in my little group) made the trek down to various stores...as we were passing the only store worth going into (huge pawn shopwith everything), I saw my beautiful bass in the window...I rush right to it, and the guys I was with knew I had a thing for bass (which they could all play minimally, most of the were guitarists/drummers). After conversing with them (and getting one to converse with a salesman), I walked away with my beautful EDB690 and a gig bag for $450 (we got $50 off the price, not bad).

That was probably the single greatest night I've ever had...I normally end up regretting bigger purchases (Sega Dreamcast/Saturn/Anything comes to mind), but this was soooooooooooo worth it.


And then I bought an amp 7 months later.

[Tyler Hole]

December 5th, 2002, my 15th birthday.

[dls59]

1974, when I was 15. I thought bass might be cool, because it seemed everyone was playing guitar, and I liked being a bit different.

[pyrohr]

I started playing drums (reading) at the age of ten, switched to bass 4 or so years later (approx 1971) were I got the chance to learn all those soulful basslines that motown, stax, atlantic records had created. I loved playing all those slow "grindem up" songs at gigs,and getting all the chicks was a plus! Met Marcus Miller around 72-73 when he played bass with my x-wifes brothers group (they practiced at her house!) At the time he was going to music and art H.S. studying clarinet. He kinda had the Jackson 5 afro thing going bigtime and even played a jazz like Jermaine (thus the pup cover till today). I would also lend him my Bruce amp w2x15's in it to play the bigger gigs he did.