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When did you decide to go bass guitar only?

F

Fireglide93

Mar 20, 2016
11
4
46
#1
I started on guitar about 20 years ago but was always mediocre, and didn't want to practice like I should. Anyways I started again about 4 years ago playing rhythm guitar for my church mediocrely, but soon after tried bass for the church after they bought me a squier bronco and said could you learn this and have loved it since. Bought all my own stuff twice over since and play out here and there also. A couple of years ago I also started learning Tenor Sax. Both make me want to practice. I have a semi-hollow body Ibanez artcore AS73 and a tube amp and some effects but they mostly go unused except for a few times a year I plug them in to play around. For those who have done it, when and why did you decide to quit on other types of guitar and go bass only? I'm thinking of selling all my guitar stuff to get more bass stuff or just to put a period on the end of that 20 yr run on sentence of maybes. Why did you/why should I?
 
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#2
A couple of months ago, in the Spring.
I took my $140 guitar over to the local luthier & had big ideas about changing the pickups & stuff.

He takes it from me & rips through some Satriani, George Lynch, and Vai licks. It sounded amazing, even on his shop Behringer. Sounded like a much more expensive guitar.
I took it home & it sounded like $140 again, so I decided then.

Granted, this wasn't the first time I quit guitar, but it will be the last!
 
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#4
As my fingers are really old fretting the rhythm guitar was causing CT pain. Fretting just one note at a time on the bass guitar was not causing any CT pain. I did not want to have the operation so my rhythm guitar sits on it's stand gathering dust. I no longer play it, but, am not ready to get rid of it.

When did that happen? About two years ago.
 
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#5
I don't know that I'll ever be a one-instrument guy. Guitar was my first real instrument, then came bass. My main instrument for the last several decades has been the trumpet with all else in the wings, waiting. But due to chops issues I think I'm nearing the end of the trumpet rainbow. I'd been playing guitar quite a bit the last 7 years but two years ago I got asked to play bass in musical theater and that led to worship groups where I alternate between bass and guitar. Since then I've been working seriously on bass and I see that becoming my main instrument, but I'll never see it as my only instrument. I think i like the variety too much... possibly to the detriment of what my bass playing ultimately could be.
 
#8
In 1986, during International Guitar Month, MTV played a concert every day. One of the days, they played Iron Maiden's "Live After Death". As soon as the first song started, and Steve Harris ran out on stage, that was it for me.

BTW, if anyone knows what day it aired, I'd be grateful. Haven't been able to find it online.
 
#10
40 years ago when my two buddies and I decided to start a band. They both played guitar, and they were both better than me. So I switched to bass. But I still play guitar, and I took up mandolin about 10 years ago. Now I also play percussion— congas, cajon, djembe, etc.
 
#12
The sSumme of 1988, between my Junior and Senior years of high school. I had played low brass for several years. After gigging on bass for over a year, I decided I was done with wind instruments. I also decided I wanted to attend my senior year football games with long hair and no band uniform. :cool:

Haven't looked back.

I still whip out a valve trombone from time to time. But I don't play it live anymore.
 
#15
I was a boy and it was ~1974
and I was toying with a classical guitar and an SG in the house.

Then I remember these things happened: .
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220px-Stanleyclarkeschooldays.jpg
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Electric bass guitar was cool - really cool.

I missed lots of music that got me playing; those albums above stuck out to me as of this evening.

PS Anthony Jackson, the ContraBass pioneer and impecable musician that played on the above Al Di Meola record, is under appreciated. He's a monster player.
 
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#17
I played tuba from age 9-14... then realized bass was cooler! I saw RUSH in 1975 (I was 14)- got hooked on bass! Began learning their songs... sounded pretty good- if I do say so myself! ;)
Playing bass (only) since then!! :cool: Have never played any other instruments...
... age 12ish (1974)
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... age 19ish (1981)
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... fairly recently
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#18
When I was in 3rd grade, I had saved up all my change and went with Mom to the store. Next to it was a record store (remember those?)
I plopped down $4 in change and brought home Led Zeppelin II, all because the song Whole Lotta Love. Track 1 side one

But when we got home, my Mom fired up the antique stereo hiding in the corner. She fiddles with the knobs a bit and removed the virgin vinyl from the jacket.
"Side two" she says "is better than side one"

My little brain said "What? How can this be? Has she heard this record before?"

Then the bass comes in on Heartbreaker, and she turned the volume up some more

I learned I was a descendant of a god that day, and never lost my love for the power of a bass guitar
 
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