| My advice: If you can't get a real double bass and a teacher to teach you to play it, wait until you're at a point where you can. Bass guitar and double bass are completely different instruments. I don't think it's possible to teach yourself to play double bass; you'll either end up getting frustrated or eventually hurt yourself. That said, once you can play both instruments, there are some aspects that cross over from one to the other. In my experience just building up some muscle from playing upright helped my electric playing, and without having learned upright there'd be no way I could play fretless decently now. Playing the music that often goes with playing upright (classical, solo, traditional jazz, etc) also in my opinion helps open your mind to new styles and techniques in playing electric. So I say yeah, go for it. But go about it the right way man! | 
