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Do you play more than just a bass?

#21
Bighouse said:
I can’t help but notice in many photos people post of their music rooms or setups that often there are other instruments other than bass guitars shown. Guitars, drums, keyboards, and even today I saw trumpets and other brass instruments. I mostly assumed it was a band space issue, or multiple players in the house- but some photos have a “it’s all mine” feel.

Which instruments do you play other than a bass?

Was the bass your first instrument?

If you play other instruments, which instrument is your “go-to”?
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I noodle with acoustic and electric guitar, especially 12 string acoustic. Just noodle.
 
#23
I started on guitar circa 2007-2008 but moved to bass 2011. Got to play properly 2013 and never look back. As pandemic hits, I bought cheap guitar and re-learning it. Since all my musical project on hiatus since August this year, I'm revisiting guitar to write songs. I also play keyboard (poorly), ukulele (at my office, lunch break), and about to giving up learning harmonica
 
#26
Totally. I started with trombone in grade school, picked up guitar and drums in high school, got a modular synth for my 30th birthday, then got into samplers (MPC, Octatrack) and laptop/SW stuff (Max, Ableton, Supercollider, Monome). Just recently got my own bass (mostly noodling around). Glad to be here
 
#28
I played rhythm guitar from 1965 to mid 2013 when I started playing tenor ukulele, never touched my guitars again, and a year later started playing bass uke. I tried playing harmonica in the late 1960s, but couldn't get it until I worked as an assistant prop master at Paramount studios in the late 1970s on a pilot with Lyle Waggoner (the handsome guy on the Carol Burnett show) who played his harmonica on a break while shooting.

I told him I couldn't get it from the paper instructions (long before the internet), and he showed me how he was taught by putting the side of my hand in his mouth and played it like a harmonica. I got it then and there. A few weeks later I was on another pilot and a young actor came over while I was practicing on a break and showed me blues bends.

Now the bass uke is my primary instrument, ukulele a close second, and harmonica. With the loosening of covid restrictions, my uke group of about 30, plays on the patio of a sandwich shop every other Sunday where I play uke while our other bass uke player is on, and harmonica for any blues songs we do.
 
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#29
As a child, I had a nylon string guitar, can’t say that I got far enough along with it to be the mediocre guitarist who gets demoted to bass(it was for a summer camp activity). The top E and B strings broke, but I found myself drawn to thumping around on the bottom strings, so the course was set. After playing bass for a few years, I went back to guitar to learn it properly…advance my knowledge of theory, chords, song structure, etc, and now can show, if necessary, the guitarist(s) their parts on covers I’ve chosen(or songs I’ve written), let alone hold my own in playing solos. I’m pretty fair on slide/lap steel, and electric upright(stick)bass, have a fretless bass uke, dabbled with mandolin, harmonica, keyboards(did a lot of synth bass), drums, and am an absolute terror on Aztec death whistle.
 
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#31
Bighouse said:
I can’t help but notice in many photos people post of their music rooms or setups that often there are other instruments other than bass guitars shown. Guitars, drums, keyboards, and even today I saw trumpets and other brass instruments. I mostly assumed it was a band space issue, or multiple players in the house- but some photos have a “it’s all mine” feel.

Which instruments do you play other than a bass?

Was the bass your first instrument?

If you play other instruments, which instrument is your “go-to”?
Click to expand...

I also play guitar and keyboards ... Bass is my primary instrument.
 
#33
Trumpet was my first instrument and then I played just about everything brass other than trombone or tuba. I started playing guitar while I was in the Army but couldn't play the barre chords F G F GG in Rush's "Distant Early Warning"while I was learning, switched to bass and never looked back. Since then I've played some guitar, both electric and acoustic and I can get by on keys if I have to.
 
#36
Bighouse said:
I can’t help but notice in many photos people post of their music rooms or setups that often there are other instruments other than bass guitars shown. Guitars, drums, keyboards, and even today I saw trumpets and other brass instruments. I mostly assumed it was a band space issue, or multiple players in the house- but some photos have a “it’s all mine” feel.

Which instruments do you play other than a bass?

Was the bass your first instrument?

If you play other instruments, which instrument is your “go-to”?
Click to expand...

only bass, just bass, electric bass actually, not upright. starting at age 12
 
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#39
I started my musical life as a trumpet player (unless you want to count my mother trying to give me piano lessons when I was 6...which I don't). Traded my trumpet in in 1990 for my first bass. Haven't had, or played trumpet since (unless you count me messing with my son's when he started playing back in 2011 or so...which I don't).

I have two guitars and a keyboard, but I would definitely not consider myself a player of those instruments as I barely do anything other than noodle around on them, although I did record some keyboard parts on an album me and a friend did many years ago, but I had to look up the chords online to figure out what to play.

I have a harmonica in my Den of Geek, but I wouldn't say I even remotely know what to do with it.

Now, a kazoo...I can rock the snot out of a kazoo!! :roflmao:
 

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