Do you ever wish you started out on a different instrument?

[StyleOverShow]

Started on saxophone/guitar, came to bass because competition was lighter on 4 strings.

Skills not as transferable from bass, eg, how many times do you play the melody, ever? Or solo, except for jazz or fuziod.

 

[twinjet]

Wish I had started on bass. Started piano at 9.

 

[organworthyplayer337]

Yeah, I wish I started on Bass

 

[OOD]

I find it strange that people wish they had talent on a different instrument. I've never wished I could play any of the instruments I play. If I want to be good at something I practice until I'm good at it and then I practice some more.

I don't see how starting on something different affects what you want to play now. If you honestly care about it you'll put forth the effort.

 

[Lee Moses]

I suppose I would call my "first instrument" tuba. I plunked around on a couple of instruments before that, but I played tuba in band in 4th and 5th grade. If I could go back, I would have made string bass my first instrument. And I would change nothing about picking up electric bass at age 14. I enjoy playing other instruments from time to time, and have profited from studying them...but I'm a bass man through and through.

 

[jg42]

yes!

 

[Buzz E]

I wish I had had piano lessons as a kid. Would have opened up a lot of doors in terms of understanding music theory a lot sooner. I still think about buying a cheap keyboard and learning the basics from time to time.

This...

 

[Jay Mastro]

To be completely honest when I discovered Jojo Mayer he blew my mind. He made me wish I started on drums but at this point I'm glad I'm a bassist and will be forever.

Also, I actually started on guitar... but never played it seriously, bass made me a musician

 

[Toddcaster64]

Took piano from about 7-16. Hated almost every minute of it (until the end when I started to play some Beatles songs). Mom, long since passed, always said one day you'll thank me for it. Lots of screaming at each other. But later, when I picked up the guitar at about 16 because some high school friends played, I caught up and passed them by the time we graduated. That was because of piano. Piano is the theory. In college, it allowed me to have a minor in music. To this day, playing guitar, if I envision a chord, I still visualize it as keys. A bass line, I see notes on a bass clef. I truly believe that if you can play piano you can then play anything. Even drums takes me back to piano lessons. I rarely touch a piano anymore, and I'm by no means a great guitar or bass player, but I think it made learning those instruments a lot easier and therefore a lot more enjoyable. Thank you Mom, you were right.

 

[faulknersj]

Yes. Drums. No notes. Groove. Hit things. No keys. No chord shapes. Come to think of it, I'm switching to drums. Is there a Link Removed yet?

 

[Emanuel Apascaritei]

Yes, on bass. I started out on piano but I don´t repent, playing the piano really helps you out with music theory, in a visual way. Than I started on doublebass....wish I had continue

 

[FerK]

I started on piano when I was 9, but stopped playing completely after high school. Barely touch it now. Then I started on bass some 5 years ago. I wish I had either stuck to piano, or started on bass from the beginning. I know I wouldn't have stopped playing had I started on bass to begin with.

 

[FretNoMore]

Yeah, I wouldn't mind if I could start all over in a different way. I started out on flute and then clarinet, probably because that was what my school's music teacher wanted and not what I particularily longed to play. There was a lack of woodwind players in the school orchestra I guess, so a lot of people were pushed that way. I wish I had been more lucky and started on guitar or piano, that would have been so much more useful. I took up bass much later, I like to believe I would have been a much better bass player if I hadn't wasted my early years on clarinet and marching band music. It made me stop playing for many years from my late teens as this was not the music I listened to, and only chance brought me back, now on bass.

 

[Medicine Man]

I played classical and jazz trombone for 15 years before switching to bass. I had played guitar for a bunch of years in there too. Within the first 5 minutes of substituting for our bass player, I knew a permanent shift has happened. Playing bass feels like destiny, and you all know there ain't no better feeling than standing between a beefy stack and a crowd and letting low end rip. A kid at a gig this spring told me "you're really good, you should play lead guitar." I tried to explain that bass players aren't guitar rejects, but people are stupid.

 

[Bunk McNulty]

Started on violin at age 8, switched to trumpet at age 10, brief episode with double-bass (I was too small), picked up guitar at age 12, started on bass at age 16, played bass and guitar for quite a few years, then the guitar playing kind of fell away. Although every time I load speaker cabinets, I wish I'd learned to play flute, or maybe recorder.

 

[Zooberwerx]

Piano / keyboards are top of the list as a learning tool...even if you switch to another instrument.

Riis

 

[Batmensch]

I did start on guitar, but I found it too difficult, mostly because I had a crap guitar with medium gauge (!) strings that was almost impossible to play. I got the idea to try bass from watching band on TV, thought it was a guy playing a regular guitar in an odd way, a friend set me straight. Thought I'd give it a go since it had two less string s and I fiured I wouldn't have to play chords. fortunately, my first bass (a re-branded Univox) was a hell of a lot better than my first guitar and I was a little more inspired to keep at it.

 

[TheLowEndMedic]

The short answer is yes.

I started on oboe in middle school, but hated it. Picked up guitar in 9th grade when my grandfather bought me a squier starter pack (I wanted the bass, but it was more expensive). I never really felt comfortable on guitar. Then my dad started playing bass for my the church we attended, and they gave him a bass to take home. I picked it up, and within 20 minutes had figured out the slap line from the RHCP cover of higher ground (I didn't even know what slap was), after that I was hooked. It's been 12 years now, and I've loved every minute of it! I wish though, that I'd either started with bass, or at least trombone, because trying to learn theory last rather than first made things more difficult, and definitely cost me some gigs.

 

[El Barbero]

I remember my bass/guitar teacher said to me before if he could go back or could just transfer his talent from guitar (his first instrument) to any other instrument he would in a heart beat. I have heard people say they wish they started out on drums or guitar instead of bass (example). I have even heard people say I am a guitar player but I feel like I was really meant to be or think like a drummer.

My teacher even said when he would write riffs on guitar he would think to himself that would sound great on saxophone or something else. My teacher had been playing thirty years so I can get that.

If you could go back would you still choose bass? (or whatever your first instrument was).

Do you feel like a bass player at heart or do you feel like another instrumentalist in a bass players body?


For me I am glad I chose bass. I have played guitar ten years and when I play it feel like I have a split guitar and bass personality but at the core feel I am a bass player. I admit sometimes bass can get stagnant for me and will focus on guitar for a little while but I always go back to bass and end up falling in love with it all over again.

No, I just wish I'd started 40 years sooner.

 

[bolophonic]

What?!? No way... I have been a bass guitarist since day one.