Is playing bass easy?

[Fat Freddy]

My son summed it all up for me the first time that he heard me playing bass....

"Not exactly what you'd call a natural, are you?".......

I don't give a flying funt however.....

I just keep thumping away.....

 

[jasonmatthews]

"Easy" is subjective.

Some things that are "easy" for me are impossible to others. Some of those things I've been playing for twenty years and just never really found them to be difficult.

Some things are that "easy" for Adam Nitti are impossible to me. Sometimes it's not the notes that are difficult but it's the fingerings that just don't make any sense to my brain... I always find myself going through licks trying to understand why my fingers don't want to use his fingerings and ultimately I have to come up with something else to get it to come out right.

Then there's the idea that playing things is often "easy" but making them sound really really good is what's difficult. Eliminating fret noise, or making a shift smoother so you don't hear the shift in a recording. Or realizing your E string was droning at some point so you have to figure out a new way to mute that string. Or realizing that pulling off to a note doesn't give you the right accent on that note so you have to go back and figure out a new right hand technique to get the attack correct. And so on and so forth.

That kind of critical thinking is what makes good instrumentalists great, and it's why students have teachers. As a cellist, playing the notes was usually easy; I paid (well, my parents paid) thousands of dollars to teachers for them to teach me about phrasing, dynamics, vibrato, etc. Fortunately as a bassist those lessons stuck, and you're usually only conscious of them after you hear yourself play, which is why I tell everybody you HAVE to record yourself or watch yourself play. It might sound great while you're playing, but you learn so much more after you hear it played back. Easy to play, difficult to master.

Thinking you're a natural is great because it gives you confidence to keep going.
Thinking you have no room to improve is terrible (not saying you think that!).

 

[slobake]

Banging on quarter note roots is easy. So is banging on barre chords. Depends on how good you want to get.

I have met people who keep time like a broken sun dial. They just can't do it, kind of like Steve Martin in "The Jerk."

 

[Element Zero]

Is it easy to drive a car? Yes. Is it easy to drive a car fast? Yes. Is it easy to drive a car fast AND proficiently?

... I think you have your answer.

 

[bassbully]

Yes..Yes it is.

 

[Jeff Scott]

I have met people who keep time like a broken sun dial. They just can't do it, kind of like Steve Martin in "The Jerk."

Fortunately, he's gotten a bit better since that time.

 

[Modler]

I've been playing keyboards for many years and started on the bass just recently.

And my experience so far: If you already know all the basic music theory stuff from playing another instrument, then it is rather easy to become a mediocre bass player. Much easier than it is to become a mediocre keyboardplayer (I've spent the last 10 years going from "pretty lousy keyboardplayer" to "fairly acceptable keyboardplayer").

Once I'd got past the initial struggles on the bass (I hadn't touched a stringed intrument for a really long time), it became fairly easy for me to learn and play rock tunes with simple bass lines, such as Born to Be Wild, Baba O'Riley, Pink Floyd tunes like Another Brick and Sorrow... stuff like that.

But that's where the "easiness" seems to stop. Getting to the next level seems to take a lot more effort - at least for me.
I was, for example, quite suprised to learn how difficult even a simple disco bass line can be. One thing is playing the right notes, but getting it to work rhythmically, sitting tight with the drums... phew!

 

[bassestkkm]

Bass is simple if you can put rhythm to emotion. Bass tends to move and flow and speak it's own language which is why it's needed in almost all of music. To make a really simple bass line sound good you have to know how it fits in the context of the music just as a complex line needs technique and execution to sound crisp and refined.

So no, it's not that easy. Cause you gotta have skill to play. And a little more skill to play well.

 

[crios]

I'm a natural bass player. I think in bass. It comes naturally to me.

I am the same way...bass playing is a natural thang! I feel the beat; I am the groove. I'm the bass and the bass is me.

 

[glocke1]

I spent years as a mediocre guitarist. A friend asked me to play bass in her bad and I was in love with bass from the first time I picked up my beat up Mexican P. I picked it up really fast and my band mates say I am a good bassist.
I have been wondering is the bass simple or am I just a natural bassist? I have been doing my own little study by trying to teach people a simple song. Simple whole notes that go A E C E. No one has been able the play that song right out of the gate like I did.
Next up the first song I learned on bass, U2's "With or Without You." A very simple song, right? Same result, no one has just picked up the bass and played out the gate like I did.
All this to say I guess that some of us are just meant to play bass.
What do you think?


P.S. Don't be offended.

I don't think any instrument is easy...to play or do anything well takes practice, time, dedication and commitment.

That said, when I was young I had always found myself attracted to bass..Even before I touched one i listened to Led Zeps first album and thought the coolest instrument on there was bass, than I discovered John Mayall, and yup...again thought the coolest instrument on bass.

Later on I'd go into music stores and play around with the bass and one time the owner of the store said I was a "natural" and should take lessons so I did. 35 years later the cynical side of me looks back and thinks he was just trying to bring more business into his store.

Looking back over the past 35 years of playing bass I wouldn't say I was a natural or gifted, as I had to put a lot of time into the instrument to get where I am at today, and frankly there are still things I pretty much suck at (like jazz...I can fake it to some extent, but I'd never pass myself off as a jazz bassist).

Is the instrument easy? depends on what you are playing..simple three chord rock, sure. More complex stuff ? nope...it's not easy.

 

[NoiseNinja]

Well, no doubt that the basics of playing bass, as long as you stick to just root notes and don't care too much about how it actually comes out sounding, definitely is easier than playing guitar.

I would claim that playing bass well or even mastering it is just as hard as any other instrument.

I kind of can relate to your story though.

I started out playing guitar, and was quite decent actually at it too, then I someday picked up a bass and the first infatuation for the instrument that was to become my main instrument of choice started.

A love story that quickly picked up pace when I shortly after decided to answer and add by a drummer and guitarist/singer looking for a bass player to join their pursuits in making melodic noise rock.

I went to an audition knowing very little about playing bass and I didn't even own one myself at that point.

After the audition I was sold, they complimented my bass play on how what I came up with for their songs fitted them perfectly and added to them further, actually the exact words from the drummer who was actually a quite skilled musician even back then, and both knew both how to read and write music and also quite adept playing on guitar and piano as well, was that he was impressed by my bass playing.

Somehow it just seemed to come more naturally to me than playing guitar.

Suddenly there was room for me using the small pieces of melody I always had in my head when playing songs without it sounding out of place, on the contrary they worked perfectly on bass lifting the songs further.

For the first time I actually felt 100% comfortable playing with other people, and felt like I could relax more.

Also I loved both the feel of playing the bass and the full deep sound of it much more than the guitar.

Yes, I felt that I was actually truly at home playing bass.

Soon I knew that bass would be what I would concentrate mostly on in the future, and guitar quickly became a second choice of instrument.

I still play guitar though and me playing bass has improved my guitar playing a huge deal as well.

I have evolved a whole lot musically since then, but still bass is and will most likely always be my main instrument and choice for expressing myself musically.

I'm better at pulling the strings from the back line, instead of being a flashy puppet up front I guess

I think the point is, that some instruments just speaks to some people more than other instruments, and naturally those will become more fun to play for said person and thereby also seem more easy, simply because you feel more relaxed and comfortable with them, right from the moment you pick them up.

 

[danosix]

I spent years as a mediocre guitarist. A friend asked me to play bass in her bad and I was in love with bass from the first time I picked up my beat up Mexican P. I picked it up really fast and my band mates say I am a good bassist.
I have been wondering is the bass simple or am I just a natural bassist? I have been doing my own little study by trying to teach people a simple song. Simple whole notes that go A E C E. No one has been able the play that song right out of the gate like I did.
Next up the first song I learned on bass, U2's "With or Without You." A very simple song, right? Same result, no one has just picked up the bass and played out the gate like I did.
All this to say I guess that some of us are just meant to play bass.
What do you think?


P.S. Don't be offended.

Several things are going one here.
ONE
bass is certainly easier to begin on (especially if you have experience on it's sister (mother?) instrument, guitar) and be sufficient. This IS what keeps a lot of people on the instrument - you can go from the worst guitar player in the band to best bass player in the band simply by switching instruments (there is some irony in that statement - I'll let you look for it if yu didn't catch it... go ahead, I'll wait....).
TWO
With or without you IS the easiest bass song in history - so clearly you are giving the bass to untrained and possibly inebriated monkeys - no offense to your friends, but clearly they are NOT bass players.
THREE
yeah, maybe you DO have an affinity for the instrument - I was never a very good guitar player (switched pretty early) but am now pretty darn good (not great, I'm on TB, not tour) bass player - so this definitely can be the case.

So in answer to your question - yes some people are meant to play bass - while the jury is out on you so far (not being mean, you just started - it does sound promising) clearly your friends were not.

 

[IJBurns]

It depends on what your standard is. The standard bearers for electric bass in my mind are John Patitucci, Christian McBride, Mike Pope, Hadrien Feraud. Of course I'll never be even close to that good of a player and I couldn't conceive nor do I have a desire to play some of the music they play. That doesn't change my standards for whom I believe bear the standards.
It's all relative, man. If you set the bar high you'll probably never reach it but it'll keep you in check and you'll never not have something to work on.
Is bass easy? Only you can answer that question for yourself.
Just my .02