How did you pick up bass stories?

[Lanzy]

After I got out of Navy boot camp, I went to Memphis for electronics training. The base there was a major aviation training center and had thousands of students. They had a marching band, a drill team, and a choir made up of students. If you belonged to one of those groups, you got out of some unpleasant chores. I had been playing trombone since elementry school and gladly signed up.
One day I went to the rehearsal hall and found a group of 2 guitars, drums, and tenor sax. I got to talking to the leader and he was complaining about not being able to find anyone who played electric bass. Since my only exposure to bass at all was messing around with an upright in high school out of curiousity because my dad played one. I asked if an electric bass was like an upright or a guitar. He explained it and I said I thought I could learn it, so I asked if showed up with an electric bass would he help me learn it and maybe I could be the bass player after I had learned it. He said if I showed up with a bass, I would be the bass player. And so I was.

Nice...
I wish i started earlier.
I want to be able to look at a piece and just be able to play it...i know notes but i struggle with chords.
I want to hear a song and play it by ear..

 

[Pandastylebass]

I started a punk band with my friends in high school, I was supposed to be the singer, but since I played cello in elementary school my friend said "you are going to be the bass player" end of story

 

[Elkaykue]

played Piano and had a theory teacher from a youngster

This enabled me with the knowledge to realise that everything revolves around the bass.

I generally believe everything revolves around me.

I promptly bought a bass.

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

Nice...
I wish i started earlier.
I want to be able to look at a piece and just be able to play it...i know notes but i struggle with chords.
I want to hear a song and play it by ear..

You must know chords to play bass. Playing by ear will come with time, but even this involves knowing not only chords, but some music theory.
You need to know the chords used in a song. You don't necessarily have to know each chord in eac key, but you need to know the relationships.
For example, in the key of C, the primary chords are C(1), F(4), and G(5). For the key of E, it is E(1), A(4), B(5).
This is how they lay out:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
C D E F G A B C
E F# G# A B C# D# E

Then you get into secondary and tertiary chords. For expample, A minor is a secondary chord for a C major, and so on.

If you don't know basic theory, you will not know which notes to play in a song.
Good luck to you.

 

[Lanzy]

You must know chords to play bass. Playing by ear will come with time, but even this involves knowing not only chords, but some music theory.
You need to know the chords used in a song. You don't necessarily have to know each chord in eac key, but you need to know the relationships.
For example, in the key of C, the primary chords are C(1), F(4), and G(5). For the key of E, it is E(1), A(4), B(5).
This is how they lay out:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
C D E F G A B C
E F# G# A B C# D# E

Then you get into secondary and tertiary chords. For expample, A minor is a secondary chord for a C major, and so on.

If you don't know basic theory, you will not know which notes to play in a song.
Good luck to you.

I started 8 months ago. I know theory. I joined orchestra and i do fine, without ever having played an instrument before (Upright). I can look at songs in our jazz band and know the notes and be able to play it, not sight read it so to say but be able to play walking bass lines fine. I can find chords but not quickly, it takes me a good 10 or so seconds per chord to figure it out.

I know all that stuff, i just want to be able to use it or do it quickly.

 

[s0c9]

I played lead guitar in a "variety" band for about 7 yrs - NOT the big corporate band type. We'd go from Bon Jovi to MJ to Jason Aldean to Grand funk to Journey. We had a versatile front man in our heyday (3 of the last 4 yrs thru 2010). He finally quit. He had a degenerative spinal disease that required him to be on permanent pain meds and it finally got too tough for him to continue gigging. After going thru 3 vocalists in about 7 months, with the associated search/audition pain, we ended up with another good and very versatile vocalist. But our bookings started to fall apart in late 2011 with venue closures, band members work schedules and so on. By late October the band pretty much agreed to go on hiatus. Last singer calls me the week after Thanksgiving 2011 and asks me if I play bass.. I said yes, but only up at church (for about 5 of the same 7 yrs I'd played lead guitar) which he already knew. We'd rehearsed in a room at that church for years.
He wanted me to come out and fill in on bass at a "service" a week later. I said I would if I could learn the 10 songs in time - send me the set list.

This is the sad part... The service was for his bass player and BL of the Country band that he was in. The guy (54) had a heart attack, run his pickup off the road and was killed in the head-on collision with the tree. He might have survived if not for that.

I learnt the 10 songs.. played with them (no rehearsal other than sound check) and was called 5 min after I left (while driving down the service road to get on the highway) and asked to join the band. Played with them for just shy of a year. Split is another story.

Been with current band since June 2013. I can't sight-read bass or guitar, mostly play by ear, but have enough playing experience to wing it in most of the time. I did a one hour set with a rock band (benefit gig with multiple bands) because their bass player didn't show up! They asked me if I could sub, as my band was about to start the last song of the set. Walked right up to the stage!! They were up next and obviously in a bind. I looked at their setlist and turns out that I had played many of them on guitar.. I had to transpose to bass, and it was far from ideal, but nobody knew it was a wing-it set!

The one thing I have learnt about playing bass over the last 3 yrs is that there's fewer rests (you can't just not play like you can on guitar) and knowing guitar does not = being good on bass. It's a whole different style, different approach, different instrument.. even if the notes are the same... I'm still learning it daily..

 

[Neon Blues]

I started out as a Guitarist, not that I was any good. I played for about 7 years on and off. No gigs, just learnt songs at home. I could play a lot of difficult solos but was fairly sloppy.

I bought this massive Multi-effects pedal which had an Octave effect. I found myself learning basslines using this effect and found that I could write my catchier lines on bass than guitar. I ditched all my guitar gear, bought a little Roland Cube and a Gibson SG Bass and have never looked back. The first time I picked up a bass, it just felt right. I knew straight away that it was the instrument for me.

I am 1,000,000 times better on a bass than I ever could have hoped to be on guitar.

 

[Jay Mastro]

We were trying to start a punk band, I played guitar, my buddy played guitar, his brother played drums, and we needed a bassist so their younger brother played bass, he wasn't into it as much as us and didn't really want to play so I took over on bass for a little bit while we tried to find a bassist. We never found a bassist so I pretty much became the bassist, which I had absolutely no problem with. I used the guitarists Squier P for a while before buying a MIM standard Jazz, and after I bought that bass I was officially locked in as a bassist, we played about 15 shows, was super fun, especially being a young teen at the time.

 

[WashburnAB95]

I was in a worship band with two other amazing guitar players. I decided to try bass to carve out my own sonic space. I bought my instrument on a Friday. I practice one song on it for Sunday. I showed up on Sunday with my guitar and bass figuring I would only play the one song on bass.. The leader told me "put that guitar away you are playing bass now" and that was that.

 

[Lanzy]

Cool great stories guys!

I hope to be in a semi-successful band or be able to do session work when I'm older ^

 

[zontar]

I've wanted to play guitar as long as I can remember, I don't know why--I just always had the desire as far back as I know.
So when I got older & started playing guitar I took lessons--as I progressed the music school I went to had a band option--but you had to learn bass as well.
I was reluctant, but wanted to be in a band--so I took bass lessons as well.
My Dad bought me a bass and amp.
I found out I liked it, so I kept doing it--although in that band program I never played bass--I always played guitar.

But I'm glad I started playing bass.
And since I got my fretless back in February, I've been playing bass more than ever.

 

[Deacon_Blues]

I switched from guitar to bass around 2001. One reason is that we had several problems with the bassists in the old band I had (One had attitude problems, the next had hand issues not allowing him to play for long periods). Another one is that I found myself playing basslines on my guitar all the time, and I wasn't happy about my guitar skills either. I borrowed a bass from a friend for half a year and played a lot on it. After that period I bought a Warwick Corvette, and took finally over the bassist's role in the band. It wasn't an easy switch though, as I also did all lead vocals. In some songs, which were very difficult to play and sing simultaneously, my prodigy brother played bass on his keyboard instead (which he did better than most bassists I knew at that time...) Anyway I got better, but as we all were studying in different places there weren't much reason to keep the band active anymore. I continued playing bass though and practiced a lot by myself until I started playing more actively again in the new town I moved to in 2004. Had a few lessons in 2006 which helped me a lot. Still I wish I had better technique, but I'm probably never getting significantly better as I practice way too little. Overall I'm quite happy though with my skills level, even if they are quite average or slightly above. As I know at least eight professional bassists from my deep involvement in a local jazz club for 9 years, I'm well aware of my limitations, but do not let them hinder me anyway.

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

I started 8 months ago. I know theory. I joined orchestra and i do fine, without ever having played an instrument before (Upright). I can look at songs in our jazz band and know the notes and be able to play it, not sight read it so to say but be able to play walking bass lines fine. I can find chords but not quickly, it takes me a good 10 or so seconds per chord to figure it out.

I know all that stuff, i just want to be able to use it or do it quickly.

Okay, that is just a matter of time. Practice.

 

[shadowtippy]

A couple of guys I worked with would get together to play. They were guitar and drums with both doing vocals. I started listening to them and got invited to sit in on guitar, which I am not all that good at. We needed a bass player so I bought a bass, took some lessons, and, as they say, the rest is history.

 

[Bob_Ross]

I started my first band as a guitarist when I was 12 years old, before I really knew diddly about playing guitar. But I did at least know that for our band to be complete, we needed a bass player. By the time I was 13 I'd found a friend who played bass (rather well), and we all started rehearsing together.

Turns out this bass player friend also played guitar...and much better than I did! So after a few aborted reherasals where she had tried to teach me the guitar parts to the tunes she had written, she finally handed me her bass, picked up my guitar, and we learned all her tunes with that configuration.

By the end of that first rehearsal playing her bass I knew I had to become a bass player! Something about how the instrument felt, sounded, and propelled the band really connected with my primitive musical aesthetic.