I grew up in a musical home (long line of piano teachers and concert pianists) but I never sat still long enough to learn the piano, though I do know my way around one.
Fast forward to my teens and I bought a bass all my friends played guitar. I then decided in my final year of High School that Asian History was a waste of time so I took up music. Had to learn 4 years of theory in 12 months! (Easier that learning to pay the piano.) I needed to pick out the melody line of (IIRC) five songs on two instruments for my exams so I picked piano ('cause I could, at least do that) and guitar because I though it would help me learn the Bass better. That was the beginning of the end of my bass journey as in my final year of my telecommunications apprenticeship I was transferred to Darwin. This was a couple of years after cyclone Tracy, so I figured that there would be no bands to play bass in. I sold everything except my guitar. Fast forward 30 years and, in the meantime I only played a friends bass once. I moved "south" again and purchased another 4 str Bass and detuned it to BEAD as I liked the extra low note (I hadn't heard of 5str bass then) Ended up using it to play bass for friends who were on traveling ministry in South Aust. It then gathered dust for a few more years whilst I played skinny string for a while. That bass actually got written off in a flood back in 2011. I then purchased my first 5str and haven't looked back. It now gets way more time than any of my skinny stringers and am currently the primary bass player for our church though we do have a couple more coming on and our WL and Lead guitarist do play from time to time just to give me a break, not that I really need (TBH or want) one. I do see the value of that, however, as I do spend a lot of time interstate so we really do need some more bass players.
