How did you start playing bass

[denhou1974]

1993. Everyone I knew played guitar. I thought my chances of being in a band would be better if I learned something else. Drums were no good since I lived in an apartment. I wasn't about to try singing. So bass was the choice.

Saw a Yamaha BB300 for $200 at the Pawn Shop. Saved up the money and bought it. Wired it up to my home stereo since I didn't have an amp. The rest is history.

 

[mohrds]

I'm sorry, I didn't read all the responses to this thread (so someone may have already pointed this out), but one thing the OP said made me grab my hat and say "What?!?":
Then Why is she referred to as 'first wife' ?

Maybe he has plans for the future?

I used to call my first wife "My first wife" when referring to her. It was always good for a chuckle or sometimes I did it in front of her just to annoy her... Yeah, I know. I wasn't always a nice guy.

 

[BboogieXVII]

This was my sophomore year of high school. A friend of mine bought a drum-set from goodwill for like 60$. With him starting out drumming, he was kinda eager to join a band so he would get more out of it. He started a band with some of his friends that, from the stories I've heard, was a total mess. The guitarist didn't care at all, members would bring in new people with no talent nor passion all the time, and the bassist didn't even own a bass, she was borrowing it from the singer. Needless to say this band lasted a couple months before it sputtered out and died. I wasn't as close with the drummer back then, I was going along my own path back then that would kinda bring me to the same place. See, I was crushing pretty hard on this girl around then, and she was really into guitar. I'm ashamed to admit that she was probably what first got me considering it. Similarly I had a friend who had just decided he wanted to play guitar. Everything kinda fell into place and I made my decision to pick up bass when the drummer, asked the guitarist friend if he wanted to start a band. See, I had always kinda pocketed the idea that if I picked up an instrument it would be bass, because I had a couple of years of guitar class under my belt, but had issues with the smallness of the strings and spacing. I bought a bass and formed a band with the drummer and the guitarist friend. I also invited a friend who had a couple years of guitar experience, but had moved away from it for a couple years. The friend who was new to guitar never showed up to practice with this band. Eventually we kicked him out and combined the band with the remnants of the drummer's prior band. I've since fallen out with both the guitarist and the girl. However, the band we formed is going strong, and we're about to record our first album in a couple weeks. Pardon my youth and relative inexperience with the bass.

Your thoughts may be good but are definitely bound up in your ability (or lack of) to organize!

 

[DirtDog]

My dad bought my mom a cheapo acoustic guitar when I was about 11-12. Sat for a while and then I had my buddy’s dad show me some cowboy chords and taught myself a bit from there. That morphed into jamming from Beatles song books with me and my buddy switching between guitar and bass. The bass was plugged into the home stereo for amplification! Thus started both my guitar and bass journey at the age of 13. That bass was a Stagg or Vantage Jazz knockoff 3TS and tort pickguard!

 

[Alacajun]

Glad you didn't know my brother back then. I'd have been out of a job!

What I didn't mention was that I had to have them explain to me what a bass was!
I had no idea then, but I've never looked back....

 

[deste]

Typical story: early 80's, teenage band, three guitars, the guy who plays worst has to move to bass. I was the "good" one, but the "bad" one refused to lose two strings, so I bought me the cheapest bass I found (anonymous 4001 copy, not too bad after all).
By the way, more or less in the same days I also switched from viola to double bass, although I kept for a while in thinking myself as "a guitar/keyboards player temporarily playing bass, while studying classical double bass".

 

[J-Bassomatic]

I was in a little backwoods high school in Portage County Ohio when a band director named Ron Follas was hired. He was going to put together a 'jazz' band and he asked if I wanted to play bass. I was a tromboner in the concert band. I love bass clef. So he fixed me up with an amp and a bass, (sorry Ron) a Japanese hollow body abomination and a National amp (made by Panasonic) that would fart out if you played a transistor radio attached to it. I had to drive all the way to some Gourd forsaken town in Ohio called Columbus Grove to purchase this bass. I had a learners permit so he was the adult in the car. Let me digress for a moment about towns in Ohio. Once I had to make a delivery (I worked for an art gallery) to Upper Sandusky. No sweat, I had been to Sandusky (Cedar Point) so what the hey. I couldn't find it. I asked at a gas station(this was a while ago, late 80s) and they started laughing. Turns out Upper Sandusky is about 40 miles SOUTH of Sandusky.
Anyway I had this bass and an amp and I was hooked, the jazz band never materialized. You can look up Ron Follas on the internet. Great guy, very talented musician. If he knew I would eventually end up in a punk rock band who knows what he would have thought.
That's my story.

 

[Deleted member 188127]

I found a 3-string, beat up acoustic guitar on the side of the road and got addicted to sitting in my room trying to figure out guitar parts to my favourite songs, but since my ear was new to transcribing I found the bass parts easier. When my mum offered to buy me a proper guitar since I loved it so much I said "actually, I think I want a bass."

Many years later now and I'm not the best, but love writing music. Newest song:

 

[Magthegrate]

At 41 years old, I decided that I was done being a graphic artist / printer, which I'd been doing for 20 years. I quit my job, became a firefighter (they actually let me drive code 3... suckers...), and bought myself a used Ibanez SR500. I hadn't played any musical instruments since I quit piano lessons at age 10 or so, but bass lines have always spoken to me.

Call it a mid-life crisis, but it beats the hell out of divorcing my wife and buying a Corvette. Well... maybe I still need that Corvette.

 

[Paul Leenerts]

I basically got talked into playing bass by some friends that wanted to put together a group at the base I was stationed at in Germany. I had no musical training and never touched a bass before then, but they were patient and taught me everything I needed to know. I honestly haven't had so much fun and I do when I'm on stage playing. I don't even care what the music style is. I love playing bass!

 

[bedrockhead]

Been a drummer since high school, but I've always had a guitar and bass in my possession since the early '90s. Fast forward to 2002 when the band I was a drummer in went through bassists like Imelda Marcos went through shoes. So I ended up playing bass and drums on our demos. The next band I was in had the same bassist luck. It was a classic rock cover band and I said "if it's easier to find another drummer I'll switch to bass, I don't care." Well, at our next practice I became our bassist. Been in bands as drummer or bassist since.

 

[Kathy Clark]

I was playing 6 string in a band that needed a bass. That was about 50 years ago never looked back

 

[Justinvs]

I got hooked on guitar early when my cousin stayed with us one summer and brought hers along. By the time I was in high school I thought I was really good (I wasn't), had a band, played lead in it until we got mad at each other and blew it up. Long dry spell where I quit playing, then got back into music in my early twenties and desperately wanted to be in another band. I happened to go to a lecture by Jack Horner, the paleontologist who worked on Jurassic Park, and on a whim stuck a note on the bulletin board that I played guitar and bass and was looking for work. (Again, I didn't play bass very well) Got a call a couple weeks later from a lady in one of the busiest bands in the area that they needed a bass player. I was supposed to have a month to learn the materiel - everything from Jazz Standards to Top 40 - but wound up playing my first gig as a bassist the next weekend. Got fired once, rehired, and was busier than I've ever been before or since. Took me a while but I finally figured out the bass is its own instrument, not just guitar for slow learners. When that band sadly ended people found out I could play a bass and my own gear and things just kind of went on from there.

So basically, you can blame Jurassic Park for all the bad notes I've thumped out over the last thirty years!

 

[slappin sammy]

as a 40 year drummer and the slapping part of upright just came to me and trios are what small places are looking for here in VT.

 

[Berger912]

I was in middle school and was in orchestra and played the cello. My two best friends who played guitar asked (told) me I was joining their band. I bought a bass and a amp, we got a singer and a drummer and played a gig at our youth group convention for over 500 people (not bad for your first ever gig) I was hooked on performing and loved being a bassist never wanted to be anything else.

 

[borgward]

Some friends wanted to jam. The Bass player wanted to play guitar. Handed me the Bass and said put your fingers here and move them here. The rest is history.

 

[da old guy]

Grew up in a "classical music family" so was started on piano as soon as I could reach the keyboard from the bench at about 5. Our living room had a baby grand and a concert grand in it. Studied bassoon thought high school, got good enough to make a recording of the Verdi Requiem with my Father on first horn and full choir and then never touched the bassoon again after graduation in '75. Turned off the radio at about the same time in the mid 70's when the disco era hit and never turned it back on again. Fast-forward 40 years... Discovered Christian contemporary music totally by accident when searching for a local church that would be interesting and have lots of energy for our early teenage boys. Made the fatal mistake of walking around behind the sound board to see all the pretty lights and knobs... Someone grabbed me by the shoulder and shouted "you look like to want to learn to do sound." Being into all things technical and high-fidelity equipment in particular I said "sure". He later departed that church and I ended up being the lead tech guy. Running FOH and seeing how much fun the worship team was having and always having wanted to play bass I went and bought a used $100 bass and taught myself how to play. Then everything spiraled completely out of control. Became the lead bass player at that church and got into an original blues band and then a classic rock band. Had a blast! Now playing at several larger area churches and running FOH at one of the largest churches in NH with totally amazing state-of-the-art gear and doing some paid FOH gigs as well but playing bass is still #1. Our AWESOME Lord works in strange ways!

 

[Dirk Rockbottom]

The background is a little complex so I’ll stick to basics.

I played a little acoustic guitar and knew maybe four chords. I had been playing just over a year and didn’t know anything about licks or riffs. I may possibly have been able to play “House of the rising sun” by then.

This was 1969 I was 17 and living in a small town on the coast of BC and met two other teenagers spending the summer in Canada who happened to be from Mendocino California. One was a drummer and one was a guitarist.

They wanted to form a group while they were living on a piece of rural land clearing trees for one of their dads to build a house. They needed a bass player and I got talked into it.

Only we had no bass nor was there one anywhere in the neighbouring villages to buy, beg, borrow or steal. So I borrowed a Harmony Meteor electric guitar and we took the two high strings off, borrowed a Sears amp and turned all the controls on the guitar and amp to “Bass.”

The guitarist then set to showing me bass patterns and I spent the summer memorizing them. I didn’t really “learn” to play bass that summer, but was taught the notes and learned them by rote and repeated them.

I had no ear for chord changes at all and actually 49 years later still struggle with that. But He showed me the basic boogie woogie pattern in A and I memorized a lick for “Season of the witch” and I learned “Wipe out” and “You really got me” and similar songs.

The guitarist really had a hard time with me because I couldn’t figure out the changes to the blues without memorizing how many times each pattern had to be repeated before switching to the next chord.

“You have to feel it, can’t you just feel it?” he said repeatedly. Well no, I didn’t and couldn’t.

Like I said before, I had never played single note licks before on anything, just chords, so I had to learn how to make my fingers move around and hit one note at a time.

Well, by the end of the summer we had enough songs together to play one gig; a dance at the local community hall and it was a great success.

I returned the Harmony to its owner and didn’t get a bass until 7 years later when my first wife bought me a fretless Japanese Jazz bass copy off a Czech political refugee who had taken up banjo. I still have the bass. And the wife. You keep a woman who buys you a fretless electric bass.

The background is a little complex so I’ll stick to basics.

I played a little acoustic guitar and knew maybe four chords. I had been playing just over a year and didn’t know anything about licks or riffs. I may possibly have been able to play “House of the rising sun” by then.

This was 1969 I was 17 and living in a small town on the coast of BC and met two other teenagers spending the summer in Canada who happened to be from Mendocino California. One was a drummer and one was a guitarist.

They wanted to form a group while they were living on a piece of rural land clearing trees for one of their dads to build a house. They needed a bass player and I got talked into it.

Only we had no bass nor was there one anywhere in the neighbouring villages to buy, beg, borrow or steal. So I borrowed a Harmony Meteor electric guitar and we took the two high strings off, borrowed a Sears amp and turned all the controls on the guitar and amp to “Bass.”

The guitarist then set to showing me bass patterns and I spent the summer memorizing them. I didn’t really “learn” to play bass that summer, but was taught the notes and learned them by rote and repeated them.

I had no ear for chord changes at all and actually 49 years later still struggle with that. But He showed me the basic boogie woogie pattern in A and I memorized a lick for “Season of the witch” and I learned “Wipe out” and “You really got me” and similar songs.

The guitarist really had a hard time with me because I couldn’t figure out the changes to the blues without memorizing how many times each pattern had to be repeated before switching to the next chord.

“You have to feel it, can’t you just feel it?” he said repeatedly. Well no, I didn’t and couldn’t.

Like I said before, I had never played single note licks before on anything, just chords, so I had to learn how to make my fingers move around and hit one note at a time.

Well, by the end of the summer we had enough songs together to play one gig; a dance at the local community hall and it was a great success.

I returned the Harmony to its owner and didn’t get a bass until 7 years later when my first wife bought me a fretless Japanese Jazz bass copy off a Czech political refugee who had taken up banjo. I still have the bass. And the wife. You keep a woman who buys you a fretless electric bass.

 

[Kingmixer325]

It was the mid-60’s, I played rhythm guitar - a typical “bass player quit” story but indulge me: I was 17, went to a pawn shop (no instrument store in my little Oklahoma town in 1968) - chose a used EBO over a Pbass because I played lefty with strings set up for right handed players & the double cutaway body looked more balanced with the tuners on both sides of the headstock instead of 4 pointing South. In addition, the EBO’s strap peg was located on the body allowing me to reach higher frets. I didn’t buy my first left handed body bass until 1972 & it was a Pbass; special ordered from McCord Music in Dallas. I’m turning 67 next month & own 5 lefty basses - still gigging most weekends. Oh, & I sure wish I had that EBO back!

 

[Bar Band Bassman]

I was 12 years old, 1967, and my older sister had just gotten a "portable" stereo record player (we weren't allowed to use dad's hi-fi). I heard the bass lick from "Day Tripper" coming out of her room and it was as if a switch had been turned on inside me! 50 years later (although you wouldn't know it by my playing) I still have a visceral memory of that moment. I said to myself - "I don't know what that is, but I gotta do that!". I didn't know what an electric bass was! I thought The Beatles were 3 guitars and a drummer! I had to ask around before I learned McCartney was playing a bass. Never looked back!