• 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.

Thunderbird Club

#17,961
Gaolee said:
My son was in the jazz band in middle school and high school, and I noticed that bass players become bass players from two directions. The female bass players generally moved from cello. The male bass players generally progressed from guitar. That's not a hard and fast rule, but it was consistent enough to be a recognizable pattern.
Click to expand...

I am male and came to it from guitar, yes, but I also equally came to it from another awesome bass instrument - bass trombone. There's nothing more gratifying to me than a thick, nasty, snarling, obnoxious bass trombone line in a big band! So while my introduction to the mechanics of stringed instruments came from guitar, my attitude and melodic sensibility came from big band bass 'bone. :bassist:
 
  • Like
Reactions: Gaolee, RedVee, Klondike and 2 others
#17,962
Korladis said:
I went trombone -> bass -> bass viol. Learning double bass definitely helped by left hand technique a lot. Even though it's not necessary, I still use it on electric.

I play guitar a bit, too, but it's kinda boring after a while for me.
Click to expand...


I played the trombone first (very badly) as well........ Nothing but the bass for me after that.
 
  • Like
Reactions: hillerup, Gaolee, RedVee and 3 others
#17,963
In high school I played the electric organ (one of those crazy 3 tier keyboard theater style professional monster size types) but tried to not let my friends find out. It was a pretty uncool instrument to play in the 70's, right there with accordions and tubas.

It did teach me how to read music fairly well. It was a much more complex instrument than it needed to be - my right hand & left hand were doing different things at the same time as left foot played the bass line and right foot modulated the volume and did note bends all while flipping levers and pulling stops with either hand between notes and chords and knowing which of the three keyboards to use at different times for different passages in the song. To my ear (and at my age) the Fender Rhodes keyboard was much cooler and easier to play, but my parents logic was the organ could be set to sound just like a Rhodes (guess they didn't get the cool factor).

When I graduated from high school and went off to university the organ stayed behind. That was 40 years ago and I haven't touched one since. My sight reading skills all but vanished in the meantime but along the way I did pickup playing the bass (always my favorite part of the organ music anyway) and have dabbled in guitar but really suck at it (big hands with fat fingers).
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: hillerup, Klondike and Count Bassie
#17,964
I went from trombone in high school to bass after high school because I realized there was very little opportunity to use it outside of matching band. I didn't really try very hard at all and still spent most of my time in first chair. I took guitar as an elective one semester in college and that was enough to prove to me I didn't want any part of it...but I did get an A.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Klondike, Count Bassie, ctmullins and 1 other person
#17,966
GBassNorth said:
In high school I played the electric organ (one of those crazy 3 tier keyboard theater style professional monster size types) but tried to not let my friends find out. It was a pretty uncool instrument to play in the 70's, right there with accordions and tubas.

It did teach me how to read music fairly well. It was a much more complex instrument than it needed to be - my right hand & left hand were doing different things at the same time as left foot played the bass line and right foot modulated the volume and did note bends all while flipping levers and pulling stops with either hand between notes and chords and knowing which of the three keyboards to use at different times for different passages in the song. To my ear (and at my age) the Fender Rhodes keyboard was much cooler and easier to play, but my parents logic was the organ could be set to sound just like a Rhodes (guess they didn't get the cool factor).

When I graduated from high school and went off to university the organ stayed behind. That was 40 years ago and I haven't touched one since. My sight reading skills all but vanished in the meantime but along the way I did pickup playing the bass (always my favorite part of the organ music anyway) and have dabbled in guitar but really suck at it (big hands with fat fingers).
Click to expand...
My wife plays that thing now.

That's all I got! Lol.

Quite a feat though, I'll give you, and her, that. I can just about talk and play a bass line at the same time...
 
  • Like
Reactions: hillerup, Sartori and GBassNorth
#17,969
Haji said:
Red Brown of Pantera, Down, and Kill Devil Hill was an All-State tuba player.
Click to expand...

I attended a show that my good friend Reid (primarily a guitarist/songwriter) but also a tuba/sousaphone and bass player, played tuba w/a New Orleans band and he should have been payed TWICE as much as all of all the other musicians on stage (9-10?) because he never wasn't playing! I was in awe! Talk about 'the hardest working man in the entertainment industry' - kudo's to the dedicated tuba player! :thumbsup:
 
  • Like
Reactions: Klondike, BeeTL, Count Bassie and 4 others
#17,970
Klondike said:
My tuba playing led me to audition for my local youth Orchestra which I did make. Otherwise I was in my high school Symphonic Band. With strong roots in sight reading I very much value reading now. As a matter of fact that is exactly what I am doing now with my practice - sight reading.
Click to expand...

Yeah I was in various youth orchestras. I almost always play bass by ear but on the odd occasion I look at sheet music/charts I prefer proper musical notation to tabs - I *hate* those bloody things. In addition to the usual bass and treble I also read tenor and alto clefs.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Klondike, Count Bassie, Sartori and 2 others
#17,971
Count Bassie said:
I'm thinking of maybe bringing them over to my local mechanic's and leaving them on the shop floor for a few days. Then I'll clean em up with some parts washer cleaner, screw them back onto their cabs.

That upright looks a little like the side of some large, ocean-going creature... pretty cool!
Click to expand...

IMG_2525.JPG


IMG_2711.JPG
 
  • Like
Reactions: hillerup, Klondike, Count Bassie and 3 others
#17,973
kat888 said:
Yeah I was in various youth orchestras. I almost always play bass by ear but on the odd occasion I look at sheet music/charts I prefer proper musical notation to tabs - I *hate* those bloody things. In addition to the usual bass and treble I also read tenor and alto clefs.
Click to expand...
I also prefer notation. Tabs usually leave the rhythm uncertain.

When I was briefly a composition student at UCSC (I later switched to history), I grew to despite tenor and alto clefs. Having them sometimes in theory class was bad enough; when occasionally parts of the trombone music in wind ensemble would be written in them we'd all groan and curse the composer (trombone being a bass clef instrument) for not writing the part in either bass clef or treble clef (most of us found high parts easier to read in treble clef than in the composer's misguided attempt to be helpful, alto and tenor clefs).
 
  • Like
Reactions: Klondike, kat888 and GBassNorth
#17,978
Klondike said:
You know you want it!
Click to expand...

I've already had two of those and now a Gibson NR in P. Blue! I'm more interested in trying to find another NR of some sort to add if I come across one I can afford... which leaves the 60's models out... Another reissue NR in 'burst would be nice, or maybe even one of those Epiphone NR's.

A Cataldo miiiiiight not even be out of the question if I can purge a little more gear to put me ahead on the finances...
 
  • Like
Reactions: GBassNorth, Nocturnal, Dadagoboi and 1 other person

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back