Was Bass your first choice?

[xUptheIronsx]

I started on drums in 1st grade....7 years old (1976). Dad was a jazz drummer here in town, so he taught me the basics. Percussion is still my main instrument, but I added bass in 7th grade after drumming along to Rush, Kansas, Styx, Sabbath...and hearing the bass playing as well. Also, I grew up listening to jazz, and the walking bass lines always fascinated me. My Uncle Will was a jazz bass player around town, so hearing him play also pushed me towards bass. Guitar was never interesting to me, and I did not have the patience for piano (thought I had to learn how to play in college as part of my Music Education degree).

Since high school, I played bass and drums pretty much evenly in all of the band situations I have been in. Right now I play drums in a surf-punk/ new wavey rock band, and a community wind ensemble, and I play bass in my thrash metal band, and in pit orchestras around town.

My personality totally fits that of the bass player...I am the loner; calm; methodical; don't like undue attention; a proud nerd; like to secretly control everything;

Rush has been my biggest musical influence....Neal Peart and Joe Morello were my first musical heroes...in control, very technical...I am definitely NOT the "animal" stereotype of a drummer (in fact I HATE that stereotype), so I think that helped me identify with the bass as strongly as I did. Geddy, Eugene Wright, Chuck Panozzo, and Dave Hope were my first big bass influences

 

[Billybladez66]

I played violin when in 4th grade for a year then out it down. By the time I became a sophomore I was listening to a bunch of stuff. One day after school it was "Permanent Waves " in headphones....I heard Free Will for the first time and promise I would play that before I died on bass....about a year later I'm playing it and just getting hungrier.....that was back in 1982 and I haven't checked up yet....

 

[Hahaha]

I was assigned drums by a teacher who noticed that I was always creating beats on my desk. I actually played a few gigs on drums in his band when I was in fifth and sixth grade. My sister bought a guitar and I learned how to play it, but I really wanted to be a bass player. The first instrument that I bought for myself was a bass. I have played guitar professionally as well, but I consider myself a bass player first and foremost. The first time I heard a bass I absolutely knew that was the instrument I wanted to play. I just had to go through a couple of other instruments first in order to get to it.

 

[johnson79]

I always wanted to play bass. My parents bought by brother and I a cheap acoustic guitar to share and I never cared for it. Once I got my bass I knew it was the right instrument for me.

I did just pick up an electric guitar and amp to screw around with and I enjoy it a lot more now!

 

[Michael B]

Guitar as a kid. Then lead vocals by choice. Then LS/Bass by necessity. Now just bass - voice isn't there because of asthma probably - which is fine.

 

[radioripster]

The bass was my first choice..just took a while to get to it.

For me..I was just a little kid..maybe 5-6 years old and I would hear the bass parts in a song.

They stood out to me. I'm an older guy and remember when there was still black & white tv programs..color was around, but not with everything.

Anyway..from my recollection, I remember watching a b&w TV show and there was Sonny James & The Southern Gentlemen and the band was introduced. They got to the bass player and it was "(so and so-(Milo Liggett)) on the Fender Bass". Back then it was like a generic term for an electric bass, kinda like "Kleenex" or "Coke" etc.

They started performing and I could see that guy playing and actually hearing the bass from that TV speaker with what I eventually learned as a I-IV-V pattern in a mid tempo partial shuffle thing ..er something like that. heh. It was an epiphany of sorts to this young mind.

Those four words stuck with me "on the Fender bass".

It was bigger than the guitars and made that sound that I like.

It was not to come to pass until after the piano lessons, playing my brother's drums, being a kid...etc.

Later on, I got my first Fender..a second hand '66 Precision. I remember playing it and was almost unable to not look at it while I played it.

Finally, I...ME!..was "on the Fender bass"...making that sound that I heard and was enthralled with all those years ago as a little kid.

And, still at it.

heh.

 

[TinIndian]

My first instrument was trumpet and piano when I was in 6th grade. Started playing them both within a week or so of each other.

When I decided to pick up a "guitar", bass was my 1st choice. That was three years later and the piano lessons were long over. I did however play trumpet through the rest of school other than a couple of diversion on the HS football team.

 

[Mark Wilson]

Well, I started piano at 4, and flute at 7. Then 14 I started messing with my mum's guitar. She showed me Sunshine of your love, because it was easy. Then I liked the sound of playing lines, as opposed to chords, and then learned what a bass was!

 

[Bob_Ross]

My searches kept turning up "Stoner Bass" threads.

That made me laugh!

Bass wasn't my first choice...but, after having played drums, flute, and guitar for several years, I think that bass chose me. It was the first time I played an instrument whose role/function appealed to me almost independently of the instrument itself, and it was the first instrument whose potential seemed immediately evident.