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Was Electric Bass Your First Instrument?

Was Electric Bass Your First Instrument

  • Yes, I Started Out With It And Nothing Else

    Votes: 80 27.5%

  • No, I Started Out With Another Instument

    Votes: 206 70.8%

  • Um, I Started Out With Bass And Another Instument At The Same Time

    Votes: 5 1.7%
  • Total voters
    291
#81
I first played recorder in 4th grade for about 9 months. I had the coolest red one. I was a mid-range student, not awesome, but not one of the kids that couldn't play at all. My first real instrument though was bass. I wanted to play drums but my friends (who were learning guitar and wanted to form a band) told me to be a bassist because it would be easier to find a drummer than a bassist. I didn't even know what bass guitar was when they told me this, though. I don't consider recorder my first because i played on it for 9 months, it was a $ 10.00 recorder that i was REQUIRED to play in music to get a good grade. I did memorize a song, though. My teacher was pleasantly surprised.
 
#83
Toy drums at age 5.
Classical Guitar at age 8 - with lessons, Music theory, etc -although I let it slip away.
I took up electric bass when I was 16.

At 16 I also started reading Down Beat and Musician, then took on most of the industry magazines, which became my education.
There was no other "modern" education - no SAE or the like.
For years, I dreamt of becoming a session bassist in LA and forming a rhythm section with Vinnie Colaiuta.
Who knows why, I always thought it was really possible.

I never became a professional session bassist, but I have only ever worked in the Music Industry.
The only money I ever earnt came from the Music Industry (yes, it's still coming.)

Last November I read these words from Walt Disney in a shop window in London: If you can dream it, you can do it.

I have started practicing again...
 
#88
When I was 13 I started starving myself at school by saving my lunch money so I could save up and buy a bass. It took six months to save the 80 dollars it took to purchase my first bass. It was a piece of crap but I loved it at the time. I wish I still had it.

So yes, bass has always been my only instrument.
 
#89
KrisH said:
Trombone in school. Then guitar to be cool. But in 9th grade a band of classmates played at a school rally (like they were Grand Funk Jr.) and I fell in love with that bass sound. So I bought a used Hagstrom. When my family moved that summer, I knew no one in my new town, so I just sat in my room and played it all summer long, and got halfways good.
Click to expand...

Pretty much the same, but it was 8th grade, a squier and i never moved, I just had no friends. Trombone was handy tho, taught me bass cleff
 
#90
In Sweden we have something called Sing & Play (Warning! STRAIGHT translation without changing words!). All kids in 5th grade got the chance to try out some instruments to see what was most appealing. I quickly established that brass instruments wasn't for me, and classical stringed instruments (cello, violin etc) was the same deal. Then I got to try guitar, drums, piano and bass, and I got hooked the first time I played bass.

So I started taking lessons, and here I am, still playing after ~9 years! I have since taken lessons in classical guitar, and I'm teaching myself electric. I'm getting a drumset when I'm a big boy in my own house as well.
 
#93
putting aside the recorder in primary school music classes ....

strummed an acoustic guitar at high school ... for a few months

attempted a banjo after I left high school .... for a few months

30 odd years later I discovered the bass and for well over a year now have amused myself greatly for many hours a week with enthusiasm growing daily
 
#94
well, a lot of people comes from other instruments to find how cool bass is, and that they like it and decide to take it as their main instrument, but what about you?, yes YOU! ;)


I started playing bass, from the very begining, I was like 14 or something and asked for it, got it for xmas!, I did play the mandatory recorder [for school] before, but never seriously and never asociated it to my bass playing, I wasn't a musician or anything before that!

so what about you? did you play guitar? drums? sax? or did you get a bass to get into music?
 

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