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Guitarists looking down on bassists?
- Thread starter Cadillac_Mike
- Start date
Bah. Guitar players are a dime a dozen. Give me a band with no guitar, a B3, piano and a couple horns.
Nate East is definitely a better musician than Clapton.
Nate East is definitely a better musician than Clapton.
I always love it when I hand a bass to a guitarist and they are like "HOLY S*** how do you even play this thing?"
One of the timeless mysteries of music is that the bassist gets treated as an equal, even if we don't deserve it. It doesn't need to be argued or proven, it just is.
This rule has borne itself out in my experience, even when playing with musicians who were a lot better than me.
I think there are a couple of reasons for this. First, nobody is really sure exactly what the bassist does, and doesn't want to try their luck with a bad bassist or no bassist. The second is that most musicians are just cool people who want to enjoy the hang, and treating everybody as equals greatly improves the hang.
This rule has borne itself out in my experience, even when playing with musicians who were a lot better than me.
I think there are a couple of reasons for this. First, nobody is really sure exactly what the bassist does, and doesn't want to try their luck with a bad bassist or no bassist. The second is that most musicians are just cool people who want to enjoy the hang, and treating everybody as equals greatly improves the hang.
Bass is objectively easier—it’s why I play it instead of guitar. I do about 80% less work than everyone in the band and I still get to be on a stage and play.
devnulljp
Supporting Member
Charles Darwin talked about this 150 years ago, it's called sympatric competition.
‘the competition will generally be most severe between those forms which are most nearly related to each other in habits, constitution, and structure’
It's why motorists hate cyclists but don't have opinions about pastry chefs, skiers hate snowboarders but couldn't care less about quantity surveyors ...
‘the competition will generally be most severe between those forms which are most nearly related to each other in habits, constitution, and structure’
It's why motorists hate cyclists but don't have opinions about pastry chefs, skiers hate snowboarders but couldn't care less about quantity surveyors ...
Oh that definitely explains the violin viola thing then. They're so close that to outsiders the might not even know which is which (especially since there are 1/2 and 3/4 scale versions of each). To outsiders the animosity there is puzzling, but their very similarity explains it.
I really hate that we can’t unite behind that fact that guitarists and bassist’s can agree that we are better than drummers.
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I got a trunk monkey, came with the car. He can't play a Strat, but the guitarist knows not to mess with him.
Honestly, over the years....
I stopped giving a single poopie. Who cares, honestly.
The jokes can quickly get a turn-around -> it's guitar players who have become quite very commercially unsuccessful lately - you won't see many more "guitar heroes" slammin' on their guitars for big bucks, attracting hundreds of thousands.
But yeah, this is a reality that hurts quite a lot, and hurts me too. I love to hear a well played guitar, even in a commercial setup. Actually, especially there. I find it nerve-wrecking seeing top money projects being constructed over some run-of-the-mill MIDI samples instead of the real deal.
But yeah, again, who cares. About the jokes that is.
The joke is on us all.
The other subtle difference is that they require different fingering technique because the reach is too much to use violin fingering on a viola.
As someone who started out playing bass, then guitar, then vocals/guitar, then guitar, then vocals/guitar, and then occasionally bass (admittedly not a real bass player here) for rock:
1) Any "lead" guitar player I've ever seen that has an attitude about importance has crappy rhythm and can't hear what the band is playing and play with it. I would never play with these people. People who are amazing guitar players, "lead" or otherwise, tend to be really good musicians and hear and know everything everybody else is doing and respect how it all ties together.
2) Guitar players tend to have more ignorance about what the rhythm section is doing than disdain if they're not really tracking. They may notice when the bass isn't there, but they also might try to EQ in way too much low end in their guitar because it sounds cool to them alone. Unless that guitar player brings something amazing to the table (songwriting, vocals) I'd find someone else.
3) There are endless guitar players out there. Some of them are even good/appropriate for what they play. The hardest people to find are drummers and then bass players, especially when you want good ones.
4) You can be kind of sloppy playing guitar in a rock environment and get away with it, especially with gain. If the drummer or bass are sloppy, the rhythm is crap. If the rhythm is awesome, the guitars and vocals could be pretty not great and you'd still have people liking it.
5) The best people in a band are the ones who do what needs to be done to make things good for the live show. Legit bass players regularly have this as their baseline job, they are actually tying the whole thing together and locking it down.
If you have a guitar player that actually looks down on you for playing bass, consider cutting them loose. Bass players are the commodity.
1) Any "lead" guitar player I've ever seen that has an attitude about importance has crappy rhythm and can't hear what the band is playing and play with it. I would never play with these people. People who are amazing guitar players, "lead" or otherwise, tend to be really good musicians and hear and know everything everybody else is doing and respect how it all ties together.
2) Guitar players tend to have more ignorance about what the rhythm section is doing than disdain if they're not really tracking. They may notice when the bass isn't there, but they also might try to EQ in way too much low end in their guitar because it sounds cool to them alone. Unless that guitar player brings something amazing to the table (songwriting, vocals) I'd find someone else.
3) There are endless guitar players out there. Some of them are even good/appropriate for what they play. The hardest people to find are drummers and then bass players, especially when you want good ones.
4) You can be kind of sloppy playing guitar in a rock environment and get away with it, especially with gain. If the drummer or bass are sloppy, the rhythm is crap. If the rhythm is awesome, the guitars and vocals could be pretty not great and you'd still have people liking it.
5) The best people in a band are the ones who do what needs to be done to make things good for the live show. Legit bass players regularly have this as their baseline job, they are actually tying the whole thing together and locking it down.
If you have a guitar player that actually looks down on you for playing bass, consider cutting them loose. Bass players are the commodity.
"Guitar players are a dime a dozen."
Maybe.
The ones I want to play with? Not so much.
Maybe.
The ones I want to play with? Not so much.
And I still feel like the idea of the bassist as a "token gesture" member of a band or ensemble is enjoying a cultural shift in the opposite direction. Modern music is far more bass focused and "kids these days" see guitar as more of a quaint novelty "dad's old smoking jacket" kinda way whereas they see bass as a necessity.
Bass players used to be the "weirdo/nerdy" kids, but we're the cool kids now. These days, I tell a young cat I play bass, their reaction is usually, "Yo, that's really cool!"
Bass players used to be the "weirdo/nerdy" kids, but we're the cool kids now. These days, I tell a young cat I play bass, their reaction is usually, "Yo, that's really cool!"
