'Good Bassist = Worst thing to happen to a guitar player'

[wicho]

I was in a theory class recently and ran into a couple of hipster guitarists. Since I'm a smoker, these cool kids would follow along. In their boring, hour long philosophy arguments, one of them said, "A good bassist is the worst thing to ever happen to a guitarist."

I stared at him blankly. I then asked him to back up his statement.

Without quoting him further since his response was 20 minutes long, he essentially told me that a bassist with chops and a liking to use them takes away his spotlight. This only enforces the fact that a bassist is only secondary to their leads.

I was actually quite livid at his pompous attitude, that we are just their lackeys who should 'know our place'.

I ended our conversation with a passive-aggressive stab:

I said, "Well, maybe you'd feel better about bassists if you weren't such a controlling attention whore," and walked back to class.

Has anyone else had an experience like this?

[McHack]

You should've told them to "man-up" & get better...

All gigging musicians are some what attentions whores... those wankers are just making excuses for their mediocrity.

[PBass101]

My band's guitard once complained that he plays better when I "don't do as much" on bass. This was when we were covering Entwistle's "Heaven and Hell", mind you.

I told him that the obvious solution was that he become a better guitar player and actually learn to listen to the rest of what the band is doing and play with us, not just in front of us. It worked! Hooray!

Tell those snob hipster BSer's that they don't deserve good bass players.

[McHack]

I mean seriously, we all want to surround ourselves with musicians better than WE are, so we can be forced to improve!!! RIGHT?

[bassman0221]

I have frequantly ran into problems with guitarist telling me to play "simpler"... The band I am in now is awesome, we all have input and all the other musicians are amazing at what they do. We all step back and listen to the overall sound though, then make adjustments. You have smart down to earth people out there but unfort. there are more arogant idiots out there, just find the right ones and don't worry about the rest.

[billhilly66]

**** on em if they can't keep up.

[J. Montgomery]

Any good musician appreciates the contribution of all the other members of an ensemble.

In football, you can't have a star quarterback without a solid line, and the same logic applies to nearly every other sector of life, music included.

[SMILEYSIXX]

Too many times... I had a theory class with a bunch of guitarists who played Kryptonite and thought they were cool. They told me I only played bass because I sucked at guitar and needed to simplify. I told them to plug in their guitar and keep up. I plugged into the bass amp and they plugged in their BC Rich. Metalheads for you... I destroyed that guitarist. They didn't question me again.

[MKoby]

You have witnessed proof to my theory.
There are too many stupid people.
Too many stupid people (try to) play guitar.
The world is looking for bassists.
You will gig. They probably will not.
Those stupid guitarists are plain jealous.
They will remain stupid, even when you sober up.
Their opinions mean nothing.

[Sideshow Aj]

I don't get this whole bass vs guitar thing.

[J.A. Raptor]

It mostly has to do with appearance/image. Guitarists have this misconception that because they play guitar, one of (or all of) several things will happen:

Girls will like them
People will respect them
They can make good/pretty/awesome sounding music

There's a lot more misconceptions but we'll stick with those for now.

Us Bassists know that most of the time, we're not gonna get all sorts of respect or attention or anything. Our instrument doesn't automatically make a pretty or awesome sound, which means if we want it to sound awesome, we have to work at it. Bassists also rarely get the attention on stage; most bassists from local bands i've met have been pretty laid back and chill with life, whereas most guitarists are attention whores, doing everything they can to get noticed.

Essentially, what it boils down to is we're better and everyone else knows it.

[Nomad5]

It's a perception thing for them. They have not yet realized how valuable a good bass player is. Wait til they spend some quality studio time.....

As one who spent half of his "career" as a bass player and half as a guitar player I can tell you.....there's nothing like cranking into the solo at the end of Comfortably Numb (to use an example) and taking the spotlight. I've made a conscious decision to go back to bass, because that's where the "song" tends to be - and so many bass players forget that. I know what I wanted in a bass player - so that's what I'm going to be.

.........making a comeback,

shel

[Wademeister63]

Originally Posted by wicho

"A good bassist is the worst thing to ever happen to a bad guitarist."

Fixed!


By their logic those guys should be really happy playing in a band with a bad singer and drummer too...

[J.A. Raptor]

Originally Posted by Wademeister63

Fixed!


By their logic those guys should be really happy playing in a band with a bad singer and drummer too...

+1

[MysticMichael]

Originally Posted by wicho

I was in a theory class recently and ran into a couple of hipster guitarists. Since I'm a smoker, these cool kids would follow along. In their boring, hour long philosophy arguments, one of them said, "A good bassist is the worst thing to ever happen to a guitarist."

I stared at him blankly. I then asked him to back up his statement.

Without quoting him further since his response was 20 minutes long, he essentially told me that a bassist with chops and a liking to use them takes away his spotlight. This only enforces the fact that a bassist is only secondary to their leads.

I was actually quite livid at his pompous attitude, that we are just their lackeys who should 'know our place'.

I ended our conversation with a passive-aggressive stab:

I said, "Well, maybe you'd feel better about bassists if you weren't such a controlling attention whore," and walked back to class.

Has anyone else had an experience like this?

This kind of thing is strictly kid stuff. These guys are not musicians. They're boys who haven't grown up yet. I don't have time for people like them, and neither should you.

Music is not a zero sum game...

MM

[Bochafish]

Originally Posted by McHack

I mean seriously, we all want to surround ourselves with musicians better than WE are, so we can be forced to improve!!! RIGHT?

Winner, Winner, spaghetti dinner

[Yakob]

Maybe it's just the scene I come from, but there isn't a lot of competition between bass and guitar...

There's actually a lot of sharing going on. Someone will be fiddling on their instrument, another person will be, "Oh, you should [blah blah blah]." Then a guitarist might jump in and say, "This could work as a bass line." Or if it's a bass riff, I might say, "This could work as a guitar line."

And we mix and match riffs and runs until we have something that sounds good.

[rollcall]

i can outplay most guitarists i play with. on guitar or bass. theory too

[Bofee]

A guitarist I've played with off and on for forty years has said something to me on several occasions, "You make me sound better."

[J.A. Raptor]

That's the way it should be. We should all sound better when we play as a band. Doesn't always happen that way, though.