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Used to be a guitar player?

Used to be a guitar player?

  • used to be guitar

    Votes: 61 25.4%
  • started on bass

    Votes: 73 30.4%
  • started on other instrument

    Votes: 50 20.8%
  • still play multiple instruments

    Votes: 113 47.1%

  • Total voters
    240
I am a bass player. Always have been a bass player. Since starting back in 1980, I have also learned guitar, drums and piano, but I have always been a bass player. Nothing better than hitting a pocket phat groove and lockin in for 20 minutes! Damn fine place to be for me..
 
I was a drummer who dabbled a little in guitar. I had a buddy who played guitar and another who wanted to play bass so the 3 of us could jam. I owned a yard sale Hondo bass and taught myself the songs on bass so I could show my buddy how to play them. I joined a band in college as a drummer, and when they found out I could play bass, they asked me to switch. Once I started playing bass full-time I fell in love with it. Haven't even entertained the thought of going back to drums or switching to guitar.
I dabble in other instruments, like banjo, harmonica & mandolin.
 
I started with a DB when I was 8 (grade school band) and also trombone. While bass was always my main instrument, I play a bunch of different things, including guitar, but being able to play them and really being proficient are two different things ;)

Today I'd be able to take a gig playing bass or cello without any concerns .... anything else I would have to spend some shed time to be comfortable :cool:
 
I started playing my guitar 25 years ago, and got to be really, really good. I am a humble guy, looks a little bit like a nerd, and always enjoyed going to a guitar shop looking like a tweet I am and be immediately dismissed by the employees while they let the long hair guy play whatever the f%#@ he was trying deafening everybody around......"What are you looking for? A flute? Violins are in the back"... after they finally handled me that expensive Ibanez for me to try (probably thinking let's see what does this freak got), it was always funny to download the arpeggios from hell at 200BPM and see the guys now paying attention... anyway, never got the expensive Ibanez, but I would shred anyone, anytime. I can testify and have endured this egocentric guitar world as referred above.

1 and 1/2 year ago I got a good deal for a Yamaha Trb-6ii. I figured that while I would be amazed by Greg Howe or Allan Holdsworth, I would truly cry of humbleness listening to Jaco Pastorius. I started trying things out and....the rest is history, and with it all my years as guitar player.... The bass has the group by the balls, and you can turn a tune into something beautiful instead of throwing fireworks around.

I ain't coming back baby.... I discovered this late in my life... but I have always been a bassist..,.. This is me with my band, heavily going though my "Jaco period" :D, showing the process. Hope you like it.
http://youtu.be/g_4jDUzHc_A
 
I started on bass. I really had no interest in the guitar, it was all about bass from Day 1.

In my teens, that would have been the ideal scenario.

I played in band/orchestra all through school, starting with cello in elementary school, and then French horn all through middle and high school.

At 14, I fully decided that I wanted to play bass. My dad talked me out of it, and into guitar. And, that kept me content for one year....going to lessons, and pretty much only having my instructor teach me Faith No More songs.

Boredom finally set in, and I convinced my dad to get me a bass. I play now with a pick 99% of the time, but I was fingers only for all of my teens and most of my twenties:)
 
I started on keys, learned some basics, 'connected' with an old upright but never got the groove with an electronic one.
I had wanted to try drums and bass, had tried guitar and found it wasn't the thunder I wanted. Still have only very basic drum knowledge, but am willing to work on that to improve bass + drum feel.
I tried a friends bass, not bad, kinda got into it once the calluses formed. Then I got my own and have found what I needed for most of my life.

I love it!:bassist:
 
Started on guitar in 1988. Two years later got a bass strictly for recording, owned it for about 2 years and then sold it.

Cut to about 3 years ago when I was itching to get back into music after an 8 year hiatus: in the years between getting rid of that first bass and then I had really come to love and appreciate the bass' role in music. I had become a huge fan of Geddy Lee, Chris Squire and others. And so I knew I had to own another bass but this time actually try to learn the instrument (as opposed to just doubling guitar parts) and I've been playing only bass since.
 
Im 25 and I started playing guitar (seriously) when I was about 12. Im sort of a one trick pony on guitar. I feel like I'm solid with heavy rhythm guitar (deftones, the used, KoRn, that kinda thing). I ended up buying a bass just to "play around on" at home when I was about 22. It seemed like as soon as I bought a bass and started getting serious that I had TONS more musical oppurtunities AND at this stage in my playing I feel I can play most ANY type of music on bass and create a voice of my own with it. BASS FOR LIFE!!!!!
 
I've played both since the early 70's but most of my playing out over the years was as a lead guitarist. I stopped playing the guitar out once the arthritis in my right wrist got so bad I could really no longer strum or alternate pick quickly enough for me to be happy, but thankfully I can still play bass and keyboards.

I just anchor a thumb now (can't really slap for too long) and go off finger style, which is still not only possible but crazy fun :)
 
Started on sax when I was 10. Then keys. Then 12-string guitar because you couldn't find a sitar in small-town Ohio in the 1970s. But I always had contact with bass parts and played "air bass" on pool cues in student bars. I bought my first bass when I was in my early 20s, mostly because I stumbled across a used Epiphone Embassy that had exactly the same finish as my Epiphone Wiltshire electric 12-string. But very quickly, I discovered that I really enjoyed the physicality of playing bass, and that while everybody and their kid brother thinks they can play guitar, there are never enough bassists around... ;)