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Do you let people play your bass?

Touch or no-touch

  • Total voters
    449
#82
chuck norriss said:
I was practicing Fri night; the drummer asked if he could play my bass. I agreed & stepped out for a minute. When I got back he was playing it aggressively like he was Abe Laboreal or something! Not that he can play like Laboreal but he was playing it like he wanted to be if you know what I mean. Sheesh! I had a heart attack. It's an acoustic Gretsch--not as solid as say a Pbass etc. Anyway it's expensive & precious--to me, and I have to wait a half a year & save up in order to have a decent instrument.
It gets worse: I noticed when I got home that my intonation was off & all kinds of dried sweat on the body. WHAT?!
I noticed Duff McKagan's P has a tape sticker on the head that reads, "TOUCH THIS AND I'LL KILL YA."
Do you or don't you let ppl play your instruments?
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It's not always a yes or no question. Most of the time it's no. It depends on who the person is & my relationship to them. There are a few I trust with my "kids" (as I call them), for all others, it's a firm "NO!" I've had too much of my stuff damaged or broken by people that don't treat other people's stuff well. Walking away from someone you let handle your bass was your first mistake.
 
#84
T-MOST said:
Rarely. If I know the bassist and we are friendly I will let them check it out for a few minutes. They do the same for me.
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I have a similar philosophy. I would never hand my bass to someone who I didn't trust, so it has never been an issue.

Edit: an example of how this can work out nicely happened when my co-worker asked about my bass after work one day. He is a dedicated bassist. My entire rig was at the shop, so I told him he should try it out and he wound up jamming out for about an hour while I worked on a bicycle I found. I got to hear my bass in a whole new light and the dude treated it like gold. He also sounded awesome, playing in a completely different style than I do and I am sure that he will let me try his Lakland one of these days.
 
#85
I play at my church and tell the guys in the youth band to pack ALL their stuff up. this includes instruments and cables. there are two other music groups besides us.

we've had bad experiences before and this is the only way we won't have "lost" cables, broken stings, blown amps.... and yeah, all that has happened :scowl:

I voted NO.
 
#87
Conditionally.


YES:

If they are a fellow bassist, who I know will be careful with it, and knows how to actually play it, then yes. That's fine.

If it's a pretty girl who wants to pose with it in a picture....what the heck, no man can resist that! :p (but I'll still keep at least one hand on it to keep it safe...)

If it's my guitarist, drummer, or dad (who's also a musician), yeah.



NO:

If they are some kid who just bought a squier P at a garage sale, joined a punk rock band, and thinks he's hot stuff because he wears his noisy, tastelessly trebley instrument at his crotch and hits the strings with his pick like he's punching out Mike Tyson, ABSOLUTELY NOT!

If they are a (I'm sure I'll get heat for using this word...) "guitard" (I mean some metal head who can't play a single chord and knows nothing of how music works, yet thinks he's the next Eddie Van Halen because he knows some insane riff by August Burns Red) who wants to play that ridiculous riff only to tell me "Man this thing is ********, I can't shred it at all" or "This is so easy, you just have 4 strings!" (as he sounds like a monkey banging on the strings with no finess or sense of rhythm at all...) GO AWAY!

If they are a bass player who just showed me up at a combined gig....no. I'd rather not be upstaged on my own instrument. We all must keep our dignity.... :hiding:
 
#88
I let my old singer's son play my bass a couple of times...wasn't crazy about it it, but he was a nice kid.

I also (on the fly) let this young kid, in an opening act, play my bass after he broke his A string on the first song....I get it back and he bled all over my Oly white J bass...F'n kid.

He had such a scared look on his face when he gave it back to me. It was cool though...cleaned her up when I got home.
 
#94
Ill let my bandmates play them if they want. But only people i trust.

Cant say i've had a situation come up yet where i have even been asked. Most likely, id say no, unless the guy was a bassist or musician who understand how to treat nice stuff.
 
#96
i play a 6 string fanned fret Dingwall. so, either it's bassists that are interested in the difference between fanned and non fanned fret or people that are turned off by the "extra" strings and/or crooked frets. if it's somebody in a band i know i have no problem with letting them try it out. i do hang out and watch though. i could NOT just leave the room.

i'd pee i nervousness. whoops. think i just did. visualized it a bit too hard there. oopsies.
 
#99
I think of them kind of like I do my motorcycle. I'm not so uptight that I wouldn't let someone sit on my bike, and I'd even offer it if someone seemed interested and I got a good vibe. I'd be a little reluctant to let them do much more than that though, unless it was a friend or there was some trust.

If I ever came back to my bike I had left parked though and I saw a stranger sitting on it (or even touching it) without permission, it's a respect thing...I might get crazy.

So, generally yes. Except when it's no.
 

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