I always say bass is easy to learn, but hard to get good at, whereas guitar is harder to learn but once you do it's easier to get good
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Is it hard to learn bass guitar?
- Thread starter NelsonLawson
- Start date
yeah, i think?
no..
yess?
no definitely not
but definitely yes
so i guess im saying... its easy but definitely hard but also easy.
no..
yess?
no definitely not
but definitely yes
so i guess im saying... its easy but definitely hard but also easy.
I can't really speak to how "difficult" it would be for you, but it was a natural fit for me. 35 years later, I'm still enjoying it.
IMO the biggest single advantage to taking up bass guitar is that it's really hard to get a bad sound out of one. Right out of the box and straight into the hands of an absolute beginner, a bass almost always sounds pretty good. For most guitarists it's somewhere around six months of working on their touch before they start sounding good.
I've had people come up to me after a gig and say how they always wanted to be able to play bass. And quite a few times (if there wasn't a rush to get packed out) I'd take 10-15 minutes and just hand them mine and say: You can.
I'd show them how each fret is a half step up the scale. Then I'd give them a simple I-IV-V pattern on the neck, explain the basic structure of a 12-bar blues progression, and walk them through their very first "live bass performance."
Almost all of them caught on quickly and sounded pretty good. Some even sounded really good, and displayed a feel for the music that indicated there was some genuine talent waiting to be developed further. And the look on their faces when the saw they were playing music - as in actually playing real music on a real instrument - was worth all the money in the world to me.
I'd like to think at least some of them went out and continued on with it.
Sometimes all it takes is for somebody to open the
door and say: Hey! Welcome and well met. C'mon in.
I've had people come up to me after a gig and say how they always wanted to be able to play bass. And quite a few times (if there wasn't a rush to get packed out) I'd take 10-15 minutes and just hand them mine and say: You can.
I'd show them how each fret is a half step up the scale. Then I'd give them a simple I-IV-V pattern on the neck, explain the basic structure of a 12-bar blues progression, and walk them through their very first "live bass performance."
Almost all of them caught on quickly and sounded pretty good. Some even sounded really good, and displayed a feel for the music that indicated there was some genuine talent waiting to be developed further. And the look on their faces when the saw they were playing music - as in actually playing real music on a real instrument - was worth all the money in the world to me.
I'd like to think at least some of them went out and continued on with it.
Sometimes all it takes is for somebody to open the
door and say: Hey! Welcome and well met. C'mon in.
You have a drum set, a guitar and a piano according to another post. How did those turn out? Don't expect better results from bass, there is still a common denominator.
It's only one note at a time (usually...) and the next one is higher or lower than the last one. How hard can it be, right? 
This gets asked pretty regularly. My take:
I asked a friend in college this exact same question about the Bodhran (Irish hand drum), and he answered, "It's an easy instrument to play badly and a difficult instrument to play well." When I thought about it, I realized that's true of bass - and it's true of EVERY musical instrument. Easy to play badly, difficult to play well.
The thing about bass (or any instrument) is not whether the instrument is easy or hard, it's whether the music you want to play ON it is easy or hard.
Take a piece like Pachelbel's Canon - in piano, I believe it's considered a moderately simple, maybe intermediate, piece of music. Now imagine playing it - all of it - on a four-string bass. People would consider you an amazing virtuoso. It's not that piano is more difficult or bass is easier - it's that people expect pianists to play more complex musical parts. In a sense, it's the piano that's easier to play as an instrument, because you can take on a more complex piece at a more elementary skill level.
Or to look at it the other way around, take a dirt-simple bass part, like U2's With or Without You - the same four notes, over and over and over again. Imagine playing that part - JUST the bass part - on piano. It would be... really really easy, even easier than it is to play on bass. So which is "harder?"
So the long answer is, no, the bass isn't a "difficult" instrument. It isn't an "easy" instrument either. You can usually get away with people expecting you to play easier parts on it. But it will be a long study before you can reach the level of a Jaco Pastorius or Victor Wooten.
And since you're talking about a guitar club, I should point out that something similar is true for the six-string. You can learn three or four open chords in a week and strum along to an awful lot of popular songs quickly. But it will be a long study before you're reproducing Eddie Van Halen solos or Pino Forastiere.
I asked a friend in college this exact same question about the Bodhran (Irish hand drum), and he answered, "It's an easy instrument to play badly and a difficult instrument to play well." When I thought about it, I realized that's true of bass - and it's true of EVERY musical instrument. Easy to play badly, difficult to play well.
The thing about bass (or any instrument) is not whether the instrument is easy or hard, it's whether the music you want to play ON it is easy or hard.
Take a piece like Pachelbel's Canon - in piano, I believe it's considered a moderately simple, maybe intermediate, piece of music. Now imagine playing it - all of it - on a four-string bass. People would consider you an amazing virtuoso. It's not that piano is more difficult or bass is easier - it's that people expect pianists to play more complex musical parts. In a sense, it's the piano that's easier to play as an instrument, because you can take on a more complex piece at a more elementary skill level.
Or to look at it the other way around, take a dirt-simple bass part, like U2's With or Without You - the same four notes, over and over and over again. Imagine playing that part - JUST the bass part - on piano. It would be... really really easy, even easier than it is to play on bass. So which is "harder?"
So the long answer is, no, the bass isn't a "difficult" instrument. It isn't an "easy" instrument either. You can usually get away with people expecting you to play easier parts on it. But it will be a long study before you can reach the level of a Jaco Pastorius or Victor Wooten.
And since you're talking about a guitar club, I should point out that something similar is true for the six-string. You can learn three or four open chords in a week and strum along to an awful lot of popular songs quickly. But it will be a long study before you're reproducing Eddie Van Halen solos or Pino Forastiere.
I play guitar, bass, and a little bit of keys. If your goal is to be able to "hang" in a hobbyist-level band, I would say that bass is the musical instrument on which you would be able to get up to speed most quickly. It's also fun to play. I am currently the lead guitar player in a band, and if something changed, I would welcome an opportunity to fill a bass player position. The bass player in my current band is excellent, but I have played with mediocre and downright lazy bass players who seemed to get by surprisingly well. You can be one of those, or you can decide to work hard and be able to make a major impact by being a great bass player. Some people look at bass as taking a back seat to regular guitar, but I think each have their pluses and minuses. I would say that the role of guitar has been waning and the role of bass is increasing with modern music.
At your age, I would strongly recommend trying the bass guitar. I think it would be the fastest track to your goal.
At your age, I would strongly recommend trying the bass guitar. I think it would be the fastest track to your goal.
Several years ago I did a gig where a Nirvana tribute band with a female Bass player was our opening act. I had been working on the Bass part for a Nirvana song I was playing with another band. I thought this would be an opportunity to find out how to play it from someone who knows what they're doing. I asked her about how to play it and she said "I have no idea. My husband (the band's guitarist) just tells me where to put my fingers."
Like the old othello box says, minutes to learn a lifetime to master.
I played live on stage 3 days after first touching a bass, I hit many of the right notes at the right time. My fingers hurt.
35 years later I'm still working on figuring out how to play bass, but my fingers never hurt
I played live on stage 3 days after first touching a bass, I hit many of the right notes at the right time. My fingers hurt.
35 years later I'm still working on figuring out how to play bass, but my fingers never hurt
It all depends on whether you have the gift and how much practice time you put in. By the gift, I mean playing an instrument comes easier to some people and to some it doesn't. It's like your brain's already wired to play. You just have to bring it out.
I remember when I was 9 and the first time in a sam ash I grabbed a bass and hit that low E. That body vibration in homer is exactly how I fell in love with this instrument.
It can be easier to get started on bass because you will only be playing one note (the root) of the chord at a time. Just learn the notes below the fifth fret and you will be off and running to start playing with people for fun, provided you have some innate sense of rhythm and musical timing. But, you know, it's a musical instrument, so the there is no upper limit on how much work you can put into it or how "good" you can get.
You can get a beginner Squier kit for a weekend's beer money, and there are plenty of lessons on YouTube to get you started, so why not give it a shot?
You can get a beginner Squier kit for a weekend's beer money, and there are plenty of lessons on YouTube to get you started, so why not give it a shot?
