How'd you get started?

A Minor · #1 05-01-2006, 05:31 PM

I'd like to hear different people's stories on how they ended up playing on bass....here's mine.

So I started out playing alto sax in 4th grade, moved to bari in 8th, and then played bari all the way through high school. But one day while i'd went over to a friends house to uh....relax and listen to them jam i heard the drums and guitar and it was pretty much what i expected, guitarist is kind of annoying so it ruined my mood, but then the bassist layed down the groove and i made everybody shut up and let him play alone, and i thought it was extremely cool. then the guy who's sort of teaching me came over a different time to play and he played a little of classical thump and some claypool (can't remember the song for the life of me but jesus his hand was moving so fast) and then i was set on playing it, now a year later i can play classical thump decently well but wouldn't dare dream of touching claypool....well not yet at least....

anyway let's hear everybody else's stories

p.s. sorry if this has been done before

fr0me0 · #2 05-01-2006, 05:54 PM

It been done before but its probably pretty far down.

I started playign when my best freind, a bassist, borrowed me a broken bass a couple years ago.

blast_tyrant · #3 05-02-2006, 05:07 PM

When I was 14 (so long ago, this reply should start out "once upon a time"......), a friend of mine had been taking guitar lessons. I was at his house listening to him do a pretty good version of "Rock Bottom" by UFO after only about ten lessons! When I told him it sounded pretty good and that he had just inspired me to take up guitar, he said "no, don't do that!" and handed me an old Univox bass. Essentially, he said "do this while I'm playing this". It was my first and only lesson. I learned by ear and have been playing for over thirty years. Terribly (I prefer "simply"), but still playing.

jrduer · #4 05-02-2006, 05:35 PM

I was playing rhythm guitar in a blues band in Austin, TX. We landed a sit-down gig (every Friday and Saturday night) at a club on E. 12th Street. The second night of the gig, right before we went on, the bass player quit.

I asked the bandleader, "Who're you gonna call to fill in?" He just grinned, and handed the bass to me. I'd never played one before, and the following months involved a lot of woodshedding.

Luckily for me, my bandleader (and lead guitarist) had played bass for Freddie King in the old days, when Freddie would swing through Texas without his own band. He taught me a lot (and more than just music, but that's a whole 'nother story).

~John

ak50324 · #5 05-02-2006, 05:49 PM

I was always envious of the people in guitar class(i took symphonic band(go clarinet!...or not) which REALLY helped my theory). S0 I went online(this was 4 years ago) and after decided to get a bass since "No one plays bass".

Standalone · #6 05-02-2006, 05:56 PM

Age 12...The Harmony short scale called to me from the pages of the JCPenney Mail Order Catalog....

Bluesdog · #7 05-03-2006, 03:03 AM

When i was about 14 , a bloke rented the house next door for a few months , and after only a day the guitar playing eminating from there caught my intrest. The next day I just walked on in an thankfully ( he didn't just beat me up ) he let me watch initially, and after a few weeks let me hold an old acoustic of his. I learned the bar chord that day and in the next week the blues scale, and had my first smoke of a joint.The next couple of months were a blur , and I wagged school every friday to help him pack his stuff for the weekend gigs he played. He was only there 3 months and when he left I hit the local music shops looking for a guitar, and ended up coming home with a bass, an Ibanez EB3 copy which I still have.

James Hart · #8 05-03-2006, 03:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by joejnyc

Age 12...The Harmony short scale called to me from the pages of the JCPenney Mail Order Catalog....

same here but my Grandfather rescued it from someones trash and fixed the jack and missing tuner.

**cheezewiz** · #9 05-03-2006, 03:23 AM

I started guitar lessons when I was 9, and a few years later when my first garage band got together, we found we had two guitar players and no bass player. I thought it seemed like a cool instrument and talked my mom into spending $40 on a Kay Gibson EBO copy. I was pretty much hooked from that moment on.

The BurgerMeister · #10 05-03-2006, 03:53 AM

i started playing when i was 12... i was first influenced by primus. and a defiance of my older brother, who told me that my arms weren't long enough to reach the first fret. (knob)
my parents and i went to cintioli's in philly, where we picked up an ibanez roadster bass (p-bass copy)... it's heavy as %^*@, but i still have it and love it. i took some lessons, played in all the jazz bands at school, then got into the upright and played in the orchestra and wind ensemble and pit orchestra and pretty much anything else i could find....... loved every second of it. still do.
that's it. i've picked up and tinkered with pretty much every instrument out there since... but bass has always been The One True Thang.
all is based on the bass, mang.

bevel19 · #11 05-03-2006, 04:24 AM

I started out as a pianist/trombonist.My grandmother was a professional piano teacher and my dad was a pro pianist/trombonist so I didn't have a lot of choice to start with.Picked up a bass at age 12 and never looked back.My best friend played the drums,his dad was a piano teacher as well, so we formed the backbone of several garage bands before making the step to pro playing.I found that I could sing pretty well and as I was one of the few singing bass players in my city I was always on new bands hit lists for a phone call to play.........I've just had a thought,12 years old was 30years ago!!

WickedClownGoth · #12 05-03-2006, 06:00 AM

I started on piano when I was like, 12. After about 3 years of that, I began to teach myself the guitar as well. Another 2 years went by and I stopped getting piano lessons and focussed on guitar for about 12 months. Then myself and some guys I was jamming with were having trouble finding a bass player, so I switched to bass. Shortly after switching, I realised I enjoyed playing bass much more than guitar, so I stuck with it.

I recently recieved a blow to my confidence however when someone whose experience and opinion I respect told me I let my ego get in the way of me being a good bass player and I don't do what is needed for the vocalist to have a good harmonic basis to work from.

TheDarkReaver · #13 05-03-2006, 03:33 PM

When i was nearing the grand old age of 17 i decided to pick up the guitar and take some lessons at school. after half a year of lessons the holidays came and went and back in the 6th form 2 of my guitar playing friends wanted to form a band. wanting to get in on the action i offered to play bass for them and went out and bought a Shine bass. i enjoyed it much for than the guitar and decided to make it my main instrument. now at university i have left the old 6th form band behind and joined a band here in newcastle where i hope my bass skills to grow and flourish further.

#14 05-03-2006, 06:54 PM

Growing up, played primarily piano at first and sang until I took up trumpet. I played for roughly 11 years until about last March. Around that time, I was playing keyboards and trumpet in a jam band (I sucked at keys having just picked them up after a long layover, but I'm slightly better now), then I composed a song and wanted a certain bass line in it. After I realized the bassist didn't have much clue how to play something other than a one-note line, I took it upon myself to woodshed like crazy on the bass until I got that line down, a pretty tough line for a beginner (universally not too tough). About a month later, that band broke up, but by then I actually quit playing trumpet full time in lieu of learning bass. Fast forward from March/April 2005 until now, I somehow managed to pull off on bass what I couldn't accomplish in 11 years of trumpet, that coming from a former first chair johnny-ace. I'm not Jaco, but I can hold my own on a fretless bass in a jazz fusion setting, and I haven't stopped improving (nor do I intend to), and it's much funner learning the bass than it ever was trumpet (I think, it's been awhile).

bassjus · #15 05-03-2006, 08:48 PM

When I was around 10 years old I realized how much I loved music. Being the curious young'n I was I tried as many instruments as I could get my hands on. My mother had an old clarinet, that lasted like a week. I tried trombone, lasted about a week again. I tried bass, lasted a little longer. Tried guitar, lasted a couple weeks, and then went back to bass. From then up until around the beggining of my freshmen year I didn't play with anyone, I just casually learned songs that I liked. My freshman year I took music theory because I really wanted to see what that was all about. That's when I really fell in love with music. All I did for the next two years was play bass. If I wasn't at school I was playing bass. I didn't hang out with too many people, and when I did if we were at my house I'd be palying bass. I guess I was a pretty big loser but whatever. Middle of my sophmore year a friend(bass player) invited me over and I thought it was the greatest thing ever. He said how he thought I was really good. This was a super confidence booster. So I continued practicing nonstop that whole summer, and then junior year I started a band, and got very serious about music. I played(and still play) any chance I got. Junior year being a teenager took over me practicing bass nonstop(although I still did a lot, but I actually had a life) I joined jazz band, orchestra, and did anything that I could get involved in.

Thunder Lizard · #16 05-04-2006, 12:23 AM

Good Lord, it's been a while since I thought about it..... it all started when my best bud and troublefinding compadre pulled out this guitar that couldn't be tuned......an old Kalamazoo..... we decided that since he had a guitar and I had a clarinet, we could be a band.
When that didn't work, I decided to move to bass clarinet.
Somehow, that still didn't work.......and when we finally went to high school and I said to him one day "you know, if I had a bass, that guy we know with the drums could come over, and that would be more like a band"....and I kid you not, the guy at the next desk says "I got a bass for sale...... with an amp.....hunnert bux"
He really did........ I did ( an old Mansfield SG copy and a MONSTER Traynor tube+ 2x15) and the rest is my personal history.......

malicous · #17 05-04-2006, 12:30 AM

I used to play classical guitar as a teenager, then my friend got me to start playing electric and steel string accoustic for his band. He eventually asked me to play bass, because we had too many guitarists, and that is how I got started. Have been playing bass ever since (about 8 years now).

GarethBull · #18 05-04-2006, 01:39 AM

The voices inside my head told me that if I didn't start playing bass I'd spend the rest of my life as a social outcast. I've started playing bass but the promised fame and popularity still elude me, I'm still a social outcast. I can't believe those voices in my head would lie to me like that.

One of these days I'm going to get back at those voices in my head, just you wait and see.

reachjkh · #19 05-04-2006, 01:06 PM

At about 11 I wanted to play drums so bad I could taste it. Parents could hardly afford food and rent, so a kit wasn't in the picture.

I went to my grandfather's house and was diggin' around in the basement and found a Kent 1x15 amp and a Hagstrom bass. He let me have it. A rock star was born... just on a different instrument. *sigh*

Nooco · #20 05-05-2006, 10:12 AM

I played guitar and piano many many years ago, when I was 9 or something I guess. Well years later my uncle gave me a bass, and I started studying to play myself. I always adored Flea and Red Hot Chili Peppers. I started to play alot with my bass. And more. And more. And more. Then I came insane. Now I am writing T H I S post to a cool forum.