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Started singing in a hardcore punk band at 18, got tired of sitting on the sidelines and decided to pickup the bass myself at 20. Took it seriously after being done with college and having more free time at 22... Im 25 now and believe the better you get, the more you realize how little you know...
I started on trumpet at age 8, switched to tuba in 7th grade and played it through my first year of college. I didn't start playing bass guitar until I was 28 or so.
Lol, I played the recorder in my music class in the 4th grade. Didn't touch another instrument until 2 years ago, which was bass. I basically consider bass my first instrument since I don't remember anything about when I played recorder.
My parents started my on accordion at age 9, which was good because I started learning to read treble and bass clef. I added guitar and bass at about the same time in highschool.
I started out on Clarinet in 5th grade, and I played that all the way through 8th grade. I remember I was pretty good. I figured it wasn't cool to play that in high school, so I started playing bass in 9th grade...only to find out it wasn't cool to play that either. :-\
Trombone from 4th grade through college. My horn was stolen from storage a couple of years ago.
Piano for a couple of years when I was 10-12 or so.
Hacked around on guitar for about 20 years, then finally saw the light, decided to quit being frustrated, and picked up the bass about a year and a half ago - at age 41. Feels like home.
Piano was the first thing I ever learned. Then I forgot everything.
Then I learned recorded in school. Then tenor sax in school too.
Then I decided to re-learn piano. And now I play bass!
Started out with trumpet in third grade, gave it up by fifth, but then took up saxophone in eighth. Figured out by ninth nobody was playing saxophone anymore, picked up bass when my best friend got a guitar. Then I picked up drums, played them the last 25 years, with occasional bass playing, until recently, when I stood in for an absent bass player and kind of got sucked back into the fold. Along the way, learned just enough guitar to be dangerous.
Flutaphone/Recorder in 4th grade. Hated it, it hurt my ears, but everyone had to do it in school.
Clarinet in 4th grade but I was terrible. It had been my dad's instrument before he discovered Spike Jones.
Since he had a trombone, they decided to have me try that and spare their ears. Match made in heaven.
When I got to high school, my high school band director had a clunker bass trombone he wanted me to try. Next thing I knew, he was letting me use HIS horn!!! Cool! We quickly found out I could play any low brass you put in my hands and I also was pretty good on drums and percussion.
My senior year he needed an upright bass player for the Spring musical, Guys and Dolls, and I volunteered. Got my fingers bloody learning the thing in a short period of time on gut strings, but by the end of the year I bought a used Epi Rivoli and a Kustom combo. I was hooked.
When I was about 8, I wanted to learn guitar, but it never quite took. Then, like alot of people, I learned recorder in school when I was 9 or 10. When I was 11, UI played Violin briefly, and I liked it, but never persued it. When I started High School, I decided I really wanted to get into music, and my dad is a bass player, so it was kind of natural to pick up the bass, since I had one at home. 11 years later and I've never looked back.
I was playing slack key guitar at age 5
at about 12 I started on electric guitar
and at 22 bass was my main instrument and has been for the last 23 years