First time you picked up a bass...

SMILEYSIXX · #1 02-24-2010, 02:18 PM

When was the first time you picked up a bass and tried to play? For me, I was fourteen at my cousin's house. He's a guitarist, but he bought a bass to play around on. Turns out, he thinks bass is harder than guitar. WIN. But anyways. So I picked up his out of tune, rusted squier P-bass and played random stuff and it sounded awful. Then I got my first bass a few months later. Anyone else care to share their bass history?

R. Laevinus · #2 02-24-2010, 02:22 PM

...methinks we need a The Lonely Island tune for this - "I just played a bass, and I ___ in my pants!"

SMILEYSIXX · #3 02-24-2010, 02:31 PM

Essentially that is what happened when I learned my first song...

rmkesler · #4 02-24-2010, 02:44 PM

I must have been 14 or so at the time. I was interested in playing bass so I went with my older brother to his friends place to look at his bass. He had a Peavey T-40. Don't remember much about it other than I could barely pick the thing up.
Talked mom and dad into getting me a bass for my birthday so we went to Rhythm City in Atlanta. (Any one remember going there?) Talked to a salesperson and told the guy I was interested in a T-40 as that was all I knew at the time. He tells me "Peavey makes good amps but not so good instruments. Let me show you this Fender" and the rest is history. Still have that 86 PB-551.

algernon · #5 02-24-2010, 02:46 PM

Ahh, sweet memories

Was 22-23 at the time when I borrowed a Precision (that Telecaster style) cheap Romanian copy from a good friend. It had no-name rusty strings and a neck that would make Robin Hood proud and all horny

. Couldn't slap it, that's fo sho, but it had two (also no-name) Strat style single-coils, which were not bad at all.

Stayed at me for about a year, would play it quite often through my home-made guitar tube amp along with Black Sabbath, Manic Street Preachers and, in general, all that would have digestible bass lines. In the end, decided that I suck, returned it, and got back to guitar, at which I also kinda sucked

Years later, my wife got me a Lakland 44-01 as a birthday present and I'm damn hooked since then

Regards,
Adrian

bound'n'blocked · #6 02-24-2010, 04:50 PM

I messed around trying to pick out songs for a long time thru my youth, but for real about 10 years ago. I was playing guitar in a band. It was Tuesday night and we had a gig on Friday. I was just sitting at practice waiting for the bass player to show up, noodling around on the the bass we had when the phone rang. The other guitar player answered, mumbled a few curse words and hung up and said to me, "Well, I guess you are playing bass Friday night! cuz the bass player just quit" I said nope, and he replied, "Well, I'll play bass and you can play all the lead parts I usually do!" I said, "Bass sounds fine". I played bass a few times afterwards, but mostly guitar til about two or three years ago when another bass player quit, and I just decided to do it full time. Really glad I did too, as it is alot more fun to me than the guitar seemed.

BnB

Gopherbassist · #7 02-24-2010, 04:51 PM

I didn't try to play it because they wouldn't let me borrow a strap. Also, it was really heavy. Still haven't picked up a bass that heavy again.

Flyingaero · #8 02-24-2010, 06:20 PM

I was 13 and my friend wanted to start a band but needed a bassist. The next week I found out someone had donated a rogue to my church. I eventually brought my own because I could never get my hinting through.

Mrdak · #9 02-24-2010, 06:55 PM

1968.. I was 11, and was already doodlin' on the electric guitar for about a year. My next door neighbor played bass, and believe it or not, he would leave one of his Fenders at my house. A 60 something precision bass. He saw how much I enjoyed playing around with it, so he says..... You like that? ok, I'll leave this one over here. When I need it, I'll call you. I remember how I felt, as if it were yesterday........All I could say was Damn, this thing is so big!

My Dad bought that bass for me about a year or so later. Worked a deal with the neighbor......

bergy9650 · #10 02-24-2010, 06:56 PM

at a music store...i was 13 and had no idea what i was talking about walked in bought a pack of guitar strings for my bud and said im interested in getting into bass have anything decent for cheap? he said hold on looked around brought me a squier p used hahah things great never found a better bass... that was six moths ago

jacohead · #11 02-24-2010, 06:59 PM

I was at Mars Music Store.. that was a great music store btw. I tried out a brown yamaha rbx. I can still remember that feeling that i got yet i cant really explain it. kinda like winning the lottery feeling

Woofer · #12 02-24-2010, 07:07 PM

Around 16, bassist for the high school pep band had graduated and they needed a replacement. I volunteered, since I also played Baritone Sax and was no stranger to the low end. It was a CAR Fender P. It was all downhill from there...

hinklegm · #13 02-24-2010, 07:10 PM

It might seem like I made it up, but this is the 100% truth. At the time we lived right down the street from my grandmother. She was very sick, and my uncle and my parents had been spending the better part of the last few months taking turns taking care of her. My uncle is a professional bassist/drummer, and he had been keeping a practice bass of his at her place for when he was there, an American Jass V. One day, during the first week of summer vacation, I was helping my uncle and I just randomly picked it up his bass and started playing it. He started showing me basic technique, when my grandma started coughing really badly. He went in to help her, and came out with tears in her eyes and told me she had just died, and that I could take the bass with me to my house and go tell my mom to come up. I spent that whole summer working in the warehouse of a furniture store in order to come up with the money to buy my 57 AV RI Precision. It was, and it still is, the best looking and playing bass I've ever had the fortune to hold. I also named it Veronica (Ronnie), after my grandma.

nutso42 · #14 02-24-2010, 07:43 PM

At a friends house, having dinner. The guy was a guitar player, but also had a bass (Yamaha RBX) that he'd play with some. While we were there, my brother saw the bass and wanted to know how to play it, so this guitarist taught him a simple bass line and they played a song together. It irritated me, because they had some Mystery Science Theater 3000 we were going to watch....

....but it turned out that he let my brother borrow the bass. So while it was sitting in his room I picked it up and noodled around with it, and I was hooked.

Now I own the bass, and hoarded three more of them......

FenderPunk · #15 02-25-2010, 11:16 AM

i was fourteen like alot of people. at my friends (now ex friends) house and i picked up his cheap A** ibanez. He was a self proclaimed bassist andf guitarist. he showed me how to play dance dance by FOB. HE did it the wrong way haha. after that i talked to my uncle who is the bassist for a popular local heavy metal band and he lent me his old peavey dyna bass

denhou1974 · #16 02-25-2010, 11:47 AM

November 23, 1993, the day after the Primus concert in Houston. I bought a bass from the pawn shop for $200. I didn't have an amp so I wired it to the home stereo system. Joined my first band about a year later. Still got the bass plus a couple others.

staysictonkpils · #17 02-25-2010, 12:06 PM

my dad took me to guitar center and i was in the bass room and he ask one of the guys there if i could play on one of the basses. i played on a squire and a ibanez starter basses my dad asked me if i wanted one of them i picked the squire p bass.

jmercer91 · #18 02-25-2010, 12:14 PM

i held it backwards and felt like an idiot.

Sizlack · #19 02-25-2010, 02:41 PM

I was 17 and asked a guitarist friend of mine if he would teach me how to play since he had a bass that was collecting dust at his house.
He brought the bass over with the bass tab for Enter Sandman, grabbed a screwdriver and started tapping it on the side of my desk as a metronome. So I'm trying to read the tab, figure out where I am on the neck and play in time having never touched one before. Needless to say this didn't go too well, roughly 12 years later I've picked it up again, and thanks to the internet and sites like TB I've stuck with it for 8 months now and look forward to picking it up everyday.

SomeKindofRobot · #20 02-25-2010, 05:17 PM

I never even considered playing a bass until senior year a good friend of mine wanted to start a band. He needed some people, and since I couldn't play drums, guitar, or sing at the time, he said I should pick up bass. Being the gung-ho teenager I was, I went to musiciansfriend.com ordered an Epi EB-0 (I liked how it looked) and a Drive 30 watt combo amp. In two weeks I was at band practice having never even held a bass before it arrived. Rest is history I guess.