What does bass is easy mean?!

[Kevjmyers]

Aot of people think instruments are easy because they can play other peoples songs, make up your own **** and express yourself, Then see how easy it is.....Bastards

Here here...

 

[Fliptrique]

COME ON!!!

easy => good



musicanship matters. instrument does not.

 

[phxlbrmpf]

Pfff, bass is hard? Have you guys ever heard this Fieldy guy? What he plays sounds pretty tough.

 

[Rav]

I have a unique perspective on this subject. I just started playing bass about a month ago. I never really had any musical performance aspirations before so I haven't built up any prejudices yet.

I decided I wanted to play an instrument and went out and got a bass. Why bass? Not because I thought it was easier or harder than anything else just because I thought I might have more aptitude for it than drums or guitar. It’s what I predominately hear when I listen to music.

I think all this "hard" "easy" conversation is a load. You can dice it up to make it look as hard or easy as you want from multiple perspectives. It only has four strings must be easy, how about drums? All you have to do is stomp on pedals and smash things with sticks. That’s only 2 things to learn must be easier than bass. See how ******** that sounds? Guitars are easier than bass because on a guitar you get to strum all of the strings at one time and play something musical in one smooth motion. On a bass you have to pick out at least 3 or 4 notes using two fingers on your right hand independently to make anything remotely musical sounding wow complicated! See that sounded moronic as well.

The point everyone is missing here is that learning an instrument takes time and effort to be good regardless of what it is. And easy and hard are relative to your own personal views of music in general. I think the only reason people even make comparisons between bass and guitar is because they look and sometimes seem similar in operation. I wonder if people who play trumpet and coronet, violin and viola have similar points of bigotry to contend with.

Just my opinion
-Rav

 

[Seraph]

I agree, a lot, hell i've read the whole thread to say the same thing and i found my opinion on the last post. i dont really care what anyone says anyways, i love my bass, not because its easy but because i can make the nicest lil sounds come out of it lol. never really had a lack of people to play with, and no ones given me crap about playing a shoebox with 4 thick strings attatched to it, so im happy

 

[MichaelScott]

People need to get over themselves -- yes, bass is easy. I don't know what's with all the self-esteem issues or instrument-envy manifesting itself in people getting their boxers in a bunch because someone pointed out the blatantly obvious, but the fact remains that just because something's easy to do, doesn't mean you can't do it really bloody well. And bass is no harder to "master" than any other instrument, so don't give me or anyone else the "Yeah, it's easy to learn, but way harder to master" crap -- and harder than what? Guitar? Piano? Sousaphone? Seriously, get over it and play your instrument.

+1

There are 3 factors to playing an instrument:

1) Musician ship- Which is ear training, tempo, sight reading, composition, etc… all stuff that translates 90% from instrument to instrument and that is mostly what people think about when they say “… tough to master”. It isn’t really tough to master- it is what it is and leaning it means you are a “good musician” and not a “good bass player”
2) Technique on the instrument in question- Most string and key instruments are extremely easy to learn. You just fret (or press on the note for a piano) and it produces a tone it is almost always clear and in tune if the instrument is set up correctly. Wind instruments are extremely difficult to learn in the first stages because it can take up to a year of constant practice and lessons before you can even get a passable tone and pitch while blowing through it. The other 10% from musician ship comes into play here. Example: “Ah man I know the chord progressions for 12 bar blues but I don’t know how to finger it on the bass.” This is easily translated when you get more familiar with the instrument.
3) Chops- you have to build the stamina to play your instrument for a decent period of time.

The basic technique for bass is pretty easy; you don’t have to worry about playing chords (like a guitar player) you don’t have to worry about tone or intonation like wind players do- I don’t mean to generalize but if you have a decent bass/amp and you aren’t trying to pluck the strings with your face you’ll get a good sound out of it. Of course there are advanced techniques like slap but every instrument has advanced techniques. And while we have players like Victor Wooten showing the world how complex and difficult the bass can sound- there are excellent musicians from every instrument (Steve Vai, Joe Satriani in guitars as examples) that are light years ahead of the crowd.

Every instrument is hard to master if you want to take it to a level beyond what everyone else is doing.

The only thing difficult about the bass compared to other instruments is the chops. It is physically demanding to play the bass- especially when we have very repetitive parts that offer no hand relief.

Why are bassists so hard to find? How many people do you know that are willing to put hours of practice into an instrument that isn’t ever put in the limelight? The bass player is the last person the average music player concentrates on. Most people identify with the lyrics or listen to the wailing guitar solo. Almost no one (but closet bass players) will ever listen to a song just for the repetitive walking bass line. It is there. It affects the music so tremendously. But no one picks it out.

I like playing bass. I like the sound coming out of my amp when it rattles my rib cage. I like thumping out a bass line in tempo and I like meshing with the drums. I like playing the support role and I don’t care that I don’t get a solo in any songs. I don’t care about the limelight, but I DO like getting phone calls from people that want me in their bands because good bass players are like hens teeth- IMO it is a different type of limelight then what the guitar players enjoy but it is more satisfying.

 

[Suckbird]

Is it just us bassist who listens and recognize the bass in music? Like some friends of mine (unmuscially) cant hear a crystal clear bassline or they dont know how a bass sound.

Since i started playing bass i dont really mind listen to any music, even if it's boriest pop music then i just concentrate on the bass lines.

I have a friend who wanted to learn play a instrument, he says it's impossible to play guitar because of the chord (OMG) so he says he might start play bass because it's easy..
but i say it depends on what lvl you wanna be on, if he wanna be like victor wooten or jaco pastorius then it's million times harder then playing some power chords..
still he cant play smoke on the water... LOL...