Guitarists or Bassists Playing Guitar?

[MrAB4003]

Tonight, a zombie thread from 2020 came up about guitarists who have switched to bass. One of the comments was really interesting:

It also works the other way in how some guitar players play it like a bass. That's the case for me. I've never used a pick on either instrument, but I have strumming techniques (and quirks) on both. We have to remind ourselves that both are guitars.

So I thought to myself "This can be the start of an entire thread in the new Guitar for Bass Players forum"!

I started playing guitar in earnest almost a year ago and I admit that I play my guitar like a bass. Bass is my first instrument after all, so I find it natural to play them similarly. I never play guitar (or bass) with a pick - I only play fingerstyle on both instruments. I'm faster and more accurate when I play single notes, melodies, and solos with my pointer/index and middle fingers compared to a pick. I also don't like the way picks feel in my hands.

What are the telltale signs that a bassist is playing lead or rhythm guitar?

 

[DirtDog]

When I’m singing lead vox and playing bass, I resort to playing bass *almost* like rhythm guitar. Lots of 8th note downstrokes or alternative picking (not quite strumming). Always with a pick.

When not singing lead, I’ll play bass more like a bass.

All depends on the song, though.

eg. I played bass and sung lead on our cover of “The Boys Are Back In Town”. “Lead Bass”!

 

[Michedelic]

“Whereas I…”

 

[Passinwind]

What are the telltale signs that a bassist is playing lead or rhythm guitar?

Rational volume, impeccable taste, and no groupies.

 

[iiipopes]

I started playing both guitar and bass pretty much simultaneously in 1975-76, with playing guitar with friends and playing bass learning to read jazz band charts in summer band camp. I realized early on:
1) Guitar is fun. Girls are fun. But together they make you stupid. (apologies to That '70's Show)
2) Guitar and bass have completely different techniques, despite the similarities in frets, tunings (an octave apart), and other details.
3) Lead guitar players are a-dime-a-dozen. Playing bass, you will always have a gig when you want one.
So over the last thirty-some years of my over fifty years of playing stringed instruments, focusing on bass, I have focused on bass, and my Schedule C filed every year with my 1040 confirms I made the correct decision.

 

[FollowMeDown]

What are the telltale signs that a bassist is playing lead or rhythm guitar?

They listen to the rest of the band and play in time?

 

[MrAB4003]

“Whereas I…”

Listening to Lemmy (RIP) and Motorhead taught me how to play piccolo bass and later guitar! He's probably my biggest influence on guitar and one of five on my Heavy Metal Bass Mount Rushmore.

 

[zontar]

That works both directions, and fir other instruments
I have played bass like a guitar player, but I try to play like a bass player, and many have said I do.
I do find though that my bass playing informs my guitar playing, especially with power chords, and vise versa, but with twists for both.

But I do play keyboard like a guitar 0layer, and have heard people play guitar like a keyboard player.

 

[ajkula66]

I started on the guitar BUT I knew even as a kid that I wanted to become a bass player, mostly because of Paul McCartney.

While I'm competent on electric guitar, my approach to it is vastly different from bass, as well as from the acoustic - not Spanish - guitar. To me these are three very different instruments. I don't use a pick/plectrum on any of them, though. I *might* resort to grabbing a pick in the recording studio when doing a solo on an electric, but even that is far and few between.

I seriously do need to get more into the keyboard side of things, though. Seriously. But that's a topic for another thread/forum altogether...

 

[Jeff Scott]

I started on bass, but within the year I borrowed a friends guitar and began teaching myself to play it. I consider myself equally both a bassist and a guitarist.

 

[FluffyDog66]

I started on guitar, and when I added bass to my skill set, I originally just could not play the bass fingerstyle. Too alien; had to use a pick no matter what.

Now have become very accustomed to fingerstyle and have shifted some of that mojo back to guitar.

The biggest thing about bass I discovered is you can never rest. If you drop out for even a moment the song feels it. So, I often find myself in a monotonous drone of note sequences that sometimes feel like slavery to play over and over. (Alas, the life of the rhythm section.)

However, as others have mentioned, my mediocre skills as a bassist are far more in demand than my much better and flashier guitar skills ever were.

Also, NBD! Just got a Yamaha BB734a in Fired Red.​

 

[mambo4]

The drummer I have been jamming with commented that I play guitar "like a bass player"
Probably because I default to "Root, noodle noodle, root, noodle noodle" kind of playing
I'll play a specific root rhythm and tend to use chords and chord fragments as my backbeat.
I basically play two part , call and response ideas
I think In general I am very heavy handed and rhythmically precise when outlining the changes,
where as a 'real' guitarist might be more melodic and 'floaty'

 

[ajkula66]

When I add up my acoustic and electric guitars they outnumber my basses by quite a margin. It has pretty much always been that way. I could also trim my small bass collection down to three from current six and live happily ever after. Meanwhile I'd have an incredibly difficult time letting go of any of my guitars. Go figure.

 

[el jeffe bass]

I started playing guitar at six years old, was pretty proficient by the time that I was 12. Sometime in my mid thirties I became a bass player. I now play a half dozen instruments at various levels of proficiency. I still love playing guitar and try to consistently improve. I don’t play gigs any longer because I’m disabled but use learning instruments as a puzzle to try to stave off further cognitive decline.

 

[Kacey Y]

I feel like I have bassist brain and guitarist brain and never the two shall meet lol. Most of the bands I've played bass with were power trios, for which I also sang, and the guitarist was holding down rhythm. So I focused on pushing myself to play dynamically between rhythm and melody, syncopate with vocals, keep things interesting, but tasteful. Most of my "bass heroes" were similar type of players, though I certainly admire the prototypical session bassists like Jamerson and Kaye and have tried to learn from them (and have been in band situations that called for that and weren't "my band"). When I've played guitars in bands, I was either singing and holding down rhythm, or I was playing more dynamically/melodically and not singing at all (or maybe just some bgv).

Lately I've been writing instrumental songs for drums/bass/guitar/organ, and I'm typically writing around guitar and organ melodies. So my bass playing has been very traditional, in the pocket, holding things down, staying out of the way. If that project ever gets to the point of being a full gigging band, I wouldn't even think to be on bass for it, as it's definitely something I'm writing with "guitar brain" and just acting like my own session bassist. It's pretty much the same if I write music starting on bass, I'm usually writing guitar to support and fill out the sound for what I'm writing on bass, to hand off to someone who I wouldn't expect to have a very strong signature playing style on them.

 

[The Golden Boy]

I started playing bass.

My folks were not "rock" music people- I remember 'hit' songs of the 70s, and as I got towards like 3rd and 4th grade I developed that taste for the rock and roll that the kids were into (as well as the Village People)- I wanted to play bass to be like Paul McCartney. I didn't grow up with the Beatles in the house. I don't specifically remember, but for a 9/10 year old kid in 1979 I must've loved "Coming Up" a whole lot. There was a guy from church who lent me a faux Hofner and then a faux Jazz bass- and my amp was a broken tape recorder.

No other kids that I knew were playing, so after a few years of going "thok thok thok" on my own, I learned to play guitar to be able to play songs and then play with other kids. When I got into high school other kids were playing electrical guitar and drums and stuff, and I pulled back into bass playing.

Over the rest of my life I've played guitar in bunches of bands, and I've played bass in bunches of bands- there have been times that I've felt more comfortable playing guitar than bass, and other times I've felt more comfortable playing bass over guitar... but I think I've always had more of a feel and always been "better" at playing bass.

In 2012 I got my left (fretting) hand crushed in an 1920s freight elevator and have lasting nerve damage. My hand hurts, itches, burns, swells up... lots of fun for playing. I'm playing bass in one relatively busy band and got a first gig with a new band of "ringers" that I think might end up kinda busy. I used to play guitar with a bunch of different projects, but I've kind of drifted away from those- and because of that, I've really drifted away from playing guitar. It's been literally MONTHS since I've done any more than strumming a few chords here and there. This Friday I'm getting together with some people that I used to play guitar with- and I'm going to have to relearn how to play guitar in a couple of days.