started playing upright in fifth grade, got my first electric as a second hand washburn taurus my dad got from my school district. didn't play it too much got an oscar schmidt pbass copy fro my 13th birthday and that's when I really got involved in the bass.
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What year did you start playing bass?
- Thread starter blacktocomm
- Start date
1978-ish? I was 13. I got a bass, and a 12 string guitar. It would appear I've been a guitar player as long as I've been a bass player, but I've never once told anyone, "I'm a guitar player."
That would be about '65. Except in the '80s, been playing ever since. Just enough guitar to amuse myself...
Lifetime member Mediocre Bass Players Club!
Lifetime member Mediocre Bass Players Club!
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1971. I was 8 and switched from cello to bass. First electric bass was 1974 when I heard The Yes Album. As if I wasn’t already wired by that, the next week my sister came home from college and gave me a Black Sabbath Paranoid album someone gave to her. I haven’t been the same since.
I started playing bass in 1965 at 15 yrs old. Trying to put a band together and we had too many guitars. So I opted to learn bass
2020, I was 41. I picked it up because I had been learning banjo for the previous, I don't know how many years, and I had memorized how to play certain tunes, but I didn't really understand what I was doing. For some reason I felt like bass was a "foundational" instrument, and learning that would help me understand what the hell was going on with the banjo better. It's kind of a convoluted way to get from A to B, but I really enjoy bass, and things do make more sense now.
September 1976 on my 11th birthday. I was mowing the from lawn and I saw her on the back seat of my mothers car as I walked by with the mower.
My mother watched me from the window, and came out and got her out and handed her to me.
The first two notes I played were E and G and I continued to play A, C, and ended up learning "Led Zepplin's Four Sticks" by ear/memory right there on the lawn. I've been an odd time nerd ever since.
The bass was a beautiful Daphne Blue Fender Musicmaster she got from a local pawn shop. I destroyed the finish and stripped her down and painted her with black Tremclad spray paint, routed out the body and put a set of DiMarzio Super Distortion P Bass pickups, a Gibson Ripper bridge, and a black metal pickguard, with money I got the following Christmas.
I've still got her, but the bridge mount snapped one day while she was just sitting there on a stand. Now she lives in a case under the bed. Maybe it's time to dig her up and put on a new bridge.
My mother watched me from the window, and came out and got her out and handed her to me.
The first two notes I played were E and G and I continued to play A, C, and ended up learning "Led Zepplin's Four Sticks" by ear/memory right there on the lawn. I've been an odd time nerd ever since.
The bass was a beautiful Daphne Blue Fender Musicmaster she got from a local pawn shop. I destroyed the finish and stripped her down and painted her with black Tremclad spray paint, routed out the body and put a set of DiMarzio Super Distortion P Bass pickups, a Gibson Ripper bridge, and a black metal pickguard, with money I got the following Christmas.
I've still got her, but the bridge mount snapped one day while she was just sitting there on a stand. Now she lives in a case under the bed. Maybe it's time to dig her up and put on a new bridge.
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I was a guitarist before I was a bassist. Picked up the bass in 2006 when my son picked up the trumpet for school band so we could jam together. Wasn't until 2013 that I really started playing consistently. I'm in my 60's now and am one of the bassists for our church playing Christian rock.
I’m not sure if I really want to share that info because you guys may want me to retire.
Oh well it was the fall of 1964. I had a brand new Kent “Cherry Burst” bass and used Fender Bassman amp with 4-10s. Little did I know the speakers were shot when I bought it.
I didn’t really know how bad that bass played until I bought a new Gibson EBO a three months later.
Hopefully I’ll still be around to celebrate 60 years of playing bass in 2024. Wish me luck!
