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Bass player mental health?

#104
Frank Tuesday said:
If a band has a great singer or guitarist, people say, "That singer/guitarist was great.". If the band has a great drummer and bassist, people will say, "What a great band."

If you're playing/making music for the adulation of strangers, go back to guitar.
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settedollar said:
Sooooo, odd question from a troll who never really posts: I've played guitar longer than bass (please no hate), but I've since discovered that I'm totally a natural at bass and often like playing it more. I can't hit my guitar hard enough to work out my aggression, after all. :)

HOWEVER, all bass player jokes aside, let's be honest: few people go to gigs to see any bass player, except maybe if your Victor Wooten calibre. Honestly, it's messing with my mental health. If I let myself think about it too much, I think of myself as just being the "extra guy" that nobody pays much attention to or cares about. Couple that with chronic pain issues that worse on bass than guitar, I think often about stopping the whole bass thing. Of course, over 75% of my gigs are on bass, so it's a Catch-22.

Anybody else have similar issues? How do you get over it? Should I go all Stuart Smalley & tell myself "I'm good enough, I'm slappy enough, and goshdarnit, people like me."
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Many questions here.... A bass player is not noticed for 2 reasons
1 Not a good player
2 Playing in a rock band that's so loud it makes no difference what you do.
Try finding a band where the bass can be heard and contribution acknowledged. Embellishsh tthe bass line
with subtle drive always pushing the song forward.
I saw a country band once that I thought had a great drummer & said I would meet him afterwards and say how I admired his playing to let him know that he was appreciated. I had to stand in line to do that. Good playing that is not a part of just noise is always appreciated.....really. Most of the time people will not approach you with compliments even when they feel you are good. A single compliment means there are many more who feel that way but will not respond.
Don't be Victor Wooten. He has no place in an ordinary band. We play to our level at all times.
 
#107
Frank Tuesday said:
If a band has a great singer or guitarist, people say, "That singer/guitarist was great.". If the band has a great drummer and bassist, people will say, "What a great band."

If you're playing/making music for the adulation of strangers, go back to guitar.
Click to expand...
When someone comes up to me on a break and says, "I like your bass playing," I always ask, "What instrument do you play?"
 
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#110
I get a lot of compliments. The males because they grok that the drummer and I are the reason the band works, the ladies because that rhythmic pounding, lower and deeper turns them on. You must not be doing something right. In fact, many guitarists labor under the delusion that they can play bass. It just ain't so. I can't play electric guitar worth a damn but I have monstrous fingerstyle acoustic guitar skills. They're completely different animals that demand totally different technique, approach and mindset.
 
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#111
petrus61 said:
To be honest, I question the mental health of people that go to see Victor Wooten play bass.
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Then question mine. It's OK, I've been questioning it for as long as I can remember.

hrodbert696 said:
Have you ever been to a Victor Wooten concert? He puts on an outstanding show. I've been twice, with my wife, who is not a bassist. The first time she went along to humor me. The second time she was excited to hear that he was in our area again because she had so much fun the first time, and the second concert did not disappoint. I'd strongly recommend it. It's not two straight hours of rapid slappity soloing. He's a consummate musician and entertainer.
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+2
After seeing Bela Fleck and the original reconvened Flecktones a few years ago, Management is also excited about the esteemed Mr Wooten returning to the area... this time backed by the BPO... Russian Fantasy – BPO

She's overjoyed that we managed to get 2nd row seats, again.
 
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#112
pcake said:
you're not the only one - i've played guitar since 1968, started playing bass in 1993 and fell in love with it. i also have pain when playing, although for me it was worse playing acoustic guitar because of the stretch over the deeper body. i've had to get all lighter basses, and short scale helps, too. but i miss playing aggressively on long scale basses.

i've perhaps been fortunate or perhaps the people i chose to play with valued me as a bass player, a musician and often a person who unofficially led the band or shared BL duties. every player i've played with has asked me to turn up if they couldn't hear the bass clearly, has wanted short bass solos or a few extra licks in some songs, has spoken highly of my playing and contribution to the band's music to others. i've also had people in audiences yell "bass! bass! bass!", and believe me, i'm no flea. i do tend to be connected with the audience, doing under and over playing, moving with the music and so on, and considering myself not a side "man" so much as a secondary front person - that is, if i'm not also the singer.

i hear a lot of bass players on board and sometimes in person who felt they were ignored, under-appreciated and felt bad about it. some didn't feel bad about it but did feel it was par for the course.

in the late '90s i saw flotsam and jetsam at i think the key club. jason ward was the bass player - he stayed at the front of the stage, doing all sorts of bits of business, shooting audience members with his bass and generally entertaining as well as rocking that bass. and people on that side of the room kept their eyes on him, not the singer. the same was true of a couple local bands i liked - the bass players were very much secondary front men, and the audience and their bands loved what they were doing.

of course, doing physical stuff to keep people watching and all that eye contact is more work than just playing the bass. lots of people wouldn't want to do it, even if their bands were okay with it. and if you haven't been doing it that way, you may well get pushback from the band(s) you're in as they're used to you not bringing attention to yourself.

if your band treats you like the "extra guy", maybe it would be worth forming or joining a band where you and your bass playing is appreciated. maybe after thinking it, doing more physical stuff would be hard with chronic pain, not to mention coming up with moves, or maybe you decide the spotlight isn't for you. but even so, being part of a band that appreciates you and your playing could be a much more emotionally rewarding experience.

oops - didn't mean to turn this into a rant...

* steps off soap box *
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Try 70% DMSO as a topical treatment for pain in the hands It works for me.
 
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#114
Frank Tuesday said:
If a band has a great singer or guitarist, people say, "That singer/guitarist was great.". If the band has a great drummer and bassist, people will say, "What a great band."

If you're playing/making music for the adulation of strangers, go back to guitar.
Click to expand...
This is because if you don't have a great drummer and bassist you don't really have a band just a bunch of guys playing 'together' or more likely not.
 
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#116
If the rest of the band recognizes your input and major influence on the sound as a whole, your job is complete. Lock in with the drummer and kill it, but don't over-play it.
If you need or crave the attention on stage, just be better-looking that the rest of your bandmates, Lol, (True story). Move around a bit and get into your performance. Don't be an Entwistle, unless you can play that well then F 'em all! :D
Lastly, if you can be better at your instrument than the other guys are at theirs, you'll get the attention you want/crave. Personally, I just dig playing music and don't really need an audience, but occasionally it's nice to boost the ego when you DO have an musically-educated crowd. They know what you are doing and how well you're doing it. You're the guy/girl that keeps it all together, remember that.
Peace!
 
#117
settedollar said:
Sooooo, odd question from a troll who never really posts: I've played guitar longer than bass (please no hate), but I've since discovered that I'm totally a natural at bass and often like playing it more. I can't hit my guitar hard enough to work out my aggression, after all. :)

HOWEVER, all bass player jokes aside, let's be honest: few people go to gigs to see any bass player, except maybe if your Victor Wooten calibre. Honestly, it's messing with my mental health. If I let myself think about it too much, I think of myself as just being the "extra guy" that nobody pays much attention to or cares about. Couple that with chronic pain issues that worse on bass than guitar, I think often about stopping the whole bass thing. Of course, over 75% of my gigs are on bass, so it's a Catch-22.

Anybody else have similar issues? How do you get over it? Should I go all Stuart Smalley & tell myself "I'm good enough, I'm slappy enough, and goshdarnit, people like me."
Click to expand...

Maybe if you develop some sort of schtick...you know, dress outlandishly and move around a lot, be something eye-catching on the stage. After all, 98% of the audience cant hear what music even sounds like. They all just "like" (think facebook) a song if everyone else is liking it -taking their cue from that, not from their ears. And that's tragic, but...So they're cueable, and essentially you need to somehow TELL (cue) the audience, visually, that you're what's hot and interesting.

I was telling a friend who's too cheap to invest in a stage look that if you come out looking like the guy who sweeps up after the show, THEN THAT IS WHAT PEOPLE WILL THINK OF YOU. Conversely, LOOK like something exciting and over the top, and the audience will have no reason to disagree that you are just that. An example of this was Sly Stone, circa the 70's. The man was actually short, not anywhere near as cool as we were led to see him, and he didn't actually get high. But his dress and sunglassed constant smile was a great, created image that implied he was one of the coolest things happening!!

Another example..of the sheer power of presentation was Michael Jackson...ie, a music company getting folks to 'agree' (and parrot) that a weird hack was "the greatest music artist ever". How did they get this idea across? Look at any you tube of him performing...every move was choreographed to imply that what you were seeing was the biggest star ever. ..including having wind blowing on him, and every little nuance designed to imply you were in the presence of greatness. And thus someone weird, awful, and even jail-able made more money than a music artist ever did, just from money-fueled PR and packaging, pointed at tone-deaf vulnerability.

IT WAS NOT THE SOUND OF HIS MUSIC THAT GOT HIM WHERE HE WAS!

So forget the idealistic notion that how you sound is what you should be be judged by, because your audience isn't fellow musicians. They respond to visuals and attitude foremost, A SHOW is what they see. And sound is only one element. With that in mind, perhaps you can cook up some way of implying that you are what is truly interesting on the stage. (which kind of necessitates becoming more visually interesting than the singer...something that can get a guy fired, so..be careful not to steal the light entirely, share it. Be more interesting at points, then, back off. Then do it again, then back off...)

Another example of my point , hypothetically: What if David Lee Roth had sung exactly as he did, but instead of leaping around in spandex, he dressed like Richie Cunningham, standing in one spot, meekly looking down at his shoes? How would the audience have received him then?

Seriously though, what I noticed is if the bass is just a dull under-thud, then no amount of being physically animated will make the sound you're producing more interesting. Trying, when I've seen it done, just seems kind of sad. BUT if you're playing music that features the bass line as very up front, distinct and of its own life, then you can ride it...if you know what I mean. Bass that sounds so distinct from the rest of the music that if it were missing the song wouldn't stand up. That kind of bass, not the kind that's just sort of blending in and disappearing into the kick drum and/or the rhythm guitars low end.

If you sound distinct you can be distinct.

There IS an "I" in team! Four or five of them probably.

===================================================
ALSO: an essential element to creating the image that you are a feature
is to have the band's help in this. Add a song to the set that features
you playing some really tasty walk a Capella, and throughout the groove
you set up. Something made to show case bass. It's only fair (should do
this for the drummer too, it's showmanship). But yea, this would cement
it in the audience's mind that you're something!


.
 
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#118
Fishyfishfish said:
The only attention I want is if the band sounds good because I made that happen.
The end....
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Pretty much this. I feel like this is the essence of being a bass player and for that matter a good musician. The role of the bass in most music is to knit the other instruments together, to set up the changes, to make everyone in the band look (and sound) good. And (in partnership with the drummer) to make people dance. It's not to stand out and get noticed.
 
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