Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
When did you become a bass player?
- Thread starter BarfanyShart
- Start date
In 1980 I heard the song Battle Scar from the Max Webster album Universal Juveniles. For those of you not familiar with Max Webster, they were a really talented Canadian rock band in the 70's and early 80's. They used to tour with Rush all the time, and Battle Scar was a "duet" of sorts with all the musicians of both bands playing. I was not into Rush at the time, but when I heard Geddy playing on that song, I was hooked. I couldn't afford to buy a bass at the time, but after 5 years of "air bass" to Rush songs, I finally saved up enough to buy one. That was 1985, and I've been playing ever since.
1972. I was 16 years old, and I heard Christopher Russell Edward Squire grinding away on his Ric in "Yours Is No Disgrace."
My parents had me tested. They said I’m “normal”. I play bass anyway.
Seriously though, when I was a kid (4ish) I got a kids guitar for my birthday or Christmas or something and no one would teach me how to play it. Later (6ish) my mom brought me home a balalaika and no one would teach me how to play it. Meanwhile, I would get up early on the weekends and softly play the piano and teach myself how to read music. A couple of years later I was told I would play saxophone even though I kept asking to learn the guitar. Forty years later, I decided (recognized) I wanted to learn the bass. Five years later it’s still my obsession. All those years in between, I was tuning into the bass and never realized it.
We had a bunch of drummers to chose from (including myself) and not a single bassist. Best switch I could have made, honestly.
When I started playing bass.
Ooooh yeah see what I did there?
Woooo eeee clever poster extraordinaire right here! 
I got a million of 'em. 
All comin at ya at the speed of....posting. 
November of 2007. 12 years later, and I'm still playing. Learned a helluva lot on this journey of mine, and there's still much more to learn in the future.
I was starting a project with a friend and we both played guitar. It was going to be death metal and I thought two guitars would be fine. Up til then I had never really noticed bass lines in songs. The other guy insisted there had to be a bass, and surprise surprise, it was not going to be him. We did the project for a year or so, me treating the bass like a big guitar and sucking horribly at it and not realizing it. But I stuck with it. Bass became my #1 pastime. I started noticing the bottom end on all kinds of music and enjoying styles I had previously ignored. I started fingerpicking. Learning theory. 15 years later, and I've played live with five bands, currently in a prog rock outfit with some really talented guys. I still don't make a living but I play what I want, I'm still learning, and it's a lot of fun!
I learned to play every bass run to every Ventures tune off their first album by spinning the vinyl over and over to figure out the 1-4-5 patterns in all kinds of keys. Hohner 6 string bass and Beltone amplifier.
When I was about 5 years old I used to watch Grand Ole Opry with my parents and bang on things so they bought me a little drum set which I beat literally to death (the drum kit). A few years later my mom wanted me to learn "Hawaiian Guitar" but she couldn't find any steel guitar teachers so I was enrolled in group guitar classes at the local walk-in theater. Remember when theaters all had stages? This was around 1964. We were taught to read music by playing the melodies of all the popular music of the day
From there I started taking lessons at home with a guy how specialized in Big Band music. This guy taught chords and bass runs. His specialty was forming little bands with his students. Since I must have been a good student I would be tasked with Chords, leads and or bass parts depending on the different mix students he had rounded up.
Eventually my girl friends big brother started inviting me to play with his friends and I would find myself on drums or bass. I was 14 and he was in his 20's. At the same time I was getting together with some neighborhood kids where we had three guitars and a drummer. Meanwhile the GF's big brother talked my mom into buying the bass that I used when I played with him and his friends. this was 1969 or 1970, it was the Tele Bass that I still have. My friends and I started played schools and parties from there. And the rest, as they say, is history!
From there I started taking lessons at home with a guy how specialized in Big Band music. This guy taught chords and bass runs. His specialty was forming little bands with his students. Since I must have been a good student I would be tasked with Chords, leads and or bass parts depending on the different mix students he had rounded up.
Eventually my girl friends big brother started inviting me to play with his friends and I would find myself on drums or bass. I was 14 and he was in his 20's. At the same time I was getting together with some neighborhood kids where we had three guitars and a drummer. Meanwhile the GF's big brother talked my mom into buying the bass that I used when I played with him and his friends. this was 1969 or 1970, it was the Tele Bass that I still have. My friends and I started played schools and parties from there. And the rest, as they say, is history!
okcrum
in your chest
The first time I watched Barney Miller.
Though I didn't actually get a bass until a few years later.
Though I didn't actually get a bass until a few years later.
Wanting to express myself while staying true to the contrarian streak I had already established at the dawn of my teenage years, I decided to pick up bass and start a metal band in June 1993. My family had a cheap, unstrung, classical guitar that had seen more use taking down the bats that lived in our attic than making music, and my mother thought I should try to start on that, but when we brought it into the music store to see if anybody would teach me, they deemed the thing unplayable. We decided then and there to get me a bass like I really wanted, and I came home with a decent black-and-gold P/J and the same Crate practice amp everybody had to start at that time. As I had originally approached the store as a guitar student and had hit it off with the guitar teacher, we agreed to pair me up with him anyway. I think that had I instead started with the young jazz guy teaching bass at the time, who took off just a few weeks later, it might not have stuck. Instead, I learned both instruments side-by-side with somebody who would prove an influence in more than music, some of whose lessons have really only started settling in a quarter century later. That worked out well.
c. 1995
2019
c. 1995 2019
