• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

The Inevitable Question: Why The Bass?

#121
A friend was taking classical guitar lessons, and we were both into rock, so his dad bought him an electric guitar and amp. "You should play bass." My friend said.
A family friend gave me a 12 string acoustic guitar, and (randomly) a bass amp.
Not so random...he offered to sell me a Kay EB-3 copy for 25 pounds sterling.
Mum was ever generous and gave me the money (a lot of money for our family in the 1970s).
Playing guitar and bass ever since, but somehow I always think of myself as a bass player.
 
#126
Started as a singer... Then picked up guitar to fill space.

However my second day at college as a singer my tutor told me to play bass as I was pretty much fingering with my right hand on my leg... But i dismissed him as the only bassists I knew at the time was guigsy from oasis and a few other brit pop acts...

Needless to say I ended up broadening my horizons while in education... And well I found John Entwistle, macca and Roger Waters... And the rest as they say is history... Almost 30 years later
 
#127
For me, the classic story of guitar player being relegated to bass because nobody else wanted to do it. I played in a power trio in high school. We had two kids who were really, really good at drums and guitar. I mean, really good. We couldn't find an adequate fourth to play bass so I thought, "sure I'll fill in for a while." I just wanted to play music and playing with them was a great opportunity. The school's music teacher saw me playing and drafted me for bass in the school jazz band. That was a truly terrifying experience and almost scared me away from the bass. Plus, the only thing I could get access to (Brazil in the late 70s) was a Hohner (not Hofner) violin bass with flatwounds and really high action. But I persevered....

The interesting thing is that as I started learning how to play bass (not just the lower four strings of the guitar) I realized that when I listened to music I was always gravitating to and singing the bass lines. That's what I naturally went for even before picking up the bass. I was already a good rhythm guitar player--an underrated art--and was more interested in Pete Townshend's work than trying to learn Jimmy Page's.

Fast forward...I stopped playing bass or guitar for that matter for a loooong time. Drinking problems, sobriety, married, divorced, remarried, had two kids, divorced...gained and lost jobs in heartbreaking fashion. It was a tumultuous time but as the kids got older I had more time for myself and joined another group. All guitar players with no bass players (except the sound guy). Even though I might have been the best or second best guitar player there, I picked up the bass again since they needed one and I was curious.

Bang! I rediscovered my love for the bass and have been playing it exclusively in groups for the last 10 years.

I can't live now without that wonderful thump and the air moving that hits you in the gut.

I am happy.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: dsteinschneider and Grinderman
#128
In most genres of music, bass is an obvious main instrument, easy to pick out in the mix, with a primary role in the overall sound. It's really only some forms of guitar-centric rock where it gets buried, and it's role is cryptic beneath thick guitars and drums.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Grinderman
#130
Music is a "weakest link" activity - I've been in a lot of bands, and often the bass player was the least musical person in the group, holding us back. I decided that a good musician that played bass could end up playing music with a lot of really good bands, so I decided to become that musician. So far, it's worked pretty well.

Plus it shakes things, which nobody else gets to do.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Grinderman
#131
Six strings don't make an instrument, they make macramé.

And skinny little strings annoy my fingers. I'd just as soon run them over a set of steak knives.

DB has more appeal to my overdeveloped sense of the absurd, but BG has a "loud" knob on it.

But most decisively, Precision is the coolest name for an instrument in, like, ever.
 
#132
Jeremy Crockett said:
Sometime later, again not because I had any idea of what I was doing, I told my parents that I wanted a bass guitar. But it never happened.
Click to expand...
Growing up, my interests ran for about three years before fading. When I asked my mom to get me a bass guitar, fortunately for me, she was willing to spend $100 for something she figured would last about three years.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jeremy Crockett and Grinderman
#133
rantbot said:
Six strings don't make an instrument, they make macramé.

And skinny little strings annoy my fingers. I'd just as soon run them over a set of steak knives.

DB has more appeal to my overdeveloped sense of the absurd, but BG has a "loud" knob on it.

But most decisively, Precision is the coolest name for an instrument in, like, ever.
Click to expand...

Okay, well that made me laugh.
 
#134
BlueTalon said:
Growing up, my interests ran for about three years before fading. When I asked my mom to get me a bass guitar, fortunately for me, she was willing to spend $100 for something she figured would last about three years.
Click to expand...

I worked a horrible hot, sweaty and buggy stinking summer agricultural job with horrible crack-of-dawn-hours and a 35 minute school bus commute between sophomore and junior years in high school to earn the money to buy my first bass guitar. When I went off to college my father forbade me from taking my bass and amp with me freshman year. More than 35 years later, if he asked about it or brought it up, I'd offer him a beer then tell him frankly that he took a close minded, short-sighted, unwise position in doing that. All that after they--my folks--bought my little brother a piano and paid for lessons that he kept up half-assedly for no more than 2 years. My folks didn't get it.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: BlueTalon
#135
I played piano when I was a kid, then later on for a little. You probably couldn't call me any better than a beginner, but I did like making music.
At some point I spent a few months away from my piano, and read really missing it so I played my friends bass at a small party. I think I learned seven nation army and bought a cheap ibanez later that week. Bass came to me so much easier and was so much more fun than piano that I've barely touched the piano since. No regrets!
 
#136
Grinderman said:
I worked a horrible hot, sweaty and buggy stinking summer agricultural job with horrible crack-of-dawn-hours and a 35 minute school bus commute between sophomore and junior years in high school to earn the money to buy my first bass guitar. When I went off to college my father forbade me from taking my bass and amp with me freshman year. More than 35 years later, if he asked about it or brought it up, I'd offer him a beer then tell him frankly that he took a close minded, short-sighted, unwise position in doing that. All that after they--my folks--bought my little brother a piano and paid for lessons that he kept up half-assedly for no more than 2 years. My folks didn't get it.
Click to expand...
That first $100 bass my mom got for me was an ES335-style Epiphone. It was good to learn on. What I considered to be my first real bass was a Rickenbacker 4001, which I paid for with a summer of commercial fishing on a small boat. No bus commute involved, but it was otherwise a lifestyle I didn't enjoy. Worth it for the Ric, though.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Grinderman and 5StringBlues
#137
BlueTalon said:
That first $100 bass my mom got for me was an ES335-style Epiphone. It was good to learn on. What I considered to be my first real bass was a Rickenbacker 4001, which I paid for with a summer of commercial fishing on a small boat. No bus commute involved, but it was otherwise a lifestyle I didn't enjoy. Worth it for the Ric, though.
Click to expand...


Like this?



I love mine.

030-jpg.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jeremy Crockett, Grinderman and BlueTalon
#139
5StringBlues said:
Like this?
View attachment 4621274
Click to expand...
That's the one. Same color even. The pickups on mine had chrome covers (and consequently no visible pole pieces), but otherwise that's it. I wish I still had it. (I ended up getting a red Epiphone ES339 guitar a few years ago purely for sentimental reasons.)
 
  • Like
Reactions: 5StringBlues
#140
BlueTalon said:
That first $100 bass my mom got for me was an ES335-style Epiphone. It was good to learn on. What I considered to be my first real bass was a Rickenbacker 4001, which I paid for with a summer of commercial fishing on a small boat. No bus commute involved, but it was otherwise a lifestyle I didn't enjoy. Worth it for the Ric, though.
Click to expand...

I think I could have liked an Epi like that, TBH.

Mine was a Washburn Vulture II with stainless roundwounds. I think it was a bit unwieldy for me to learn on but maybe it made me stretch out and toughened me up a bit.

It's been all Fenders since then. I did try a friend's Rickenbacker 4001 way back though. The neck felt easier to me, especially compared to that Washburn... which almost certainly had a bad setup the whole time.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BlueTalon

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back