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When did you get into bass playing and why?

#22
1970 ... the bass player in a group I was building cabinets and road gear for was killed in a car accident ... I knew the guys and many of the tunes and with road work scheduled, they needed someone quickly ... never played bass before, but adapted enough to make it work from playing regular guitar in other groups ...
 
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#23
I got into TesseracT about two years ago. I found that I loved how groovy the bass lines were and how they sounded. I started looking into Amos and watching him play, and it just looked so awesome and fun.

I sold all of my guitar stuff and bought a bass within a few weeks.
 
#26
When I was 9, I started taking piano lessons. It was OK, and I kept it up until I was 18. Sometime around my 16th birthday, I started messing with guitar, since it was portable. Piano isn't portable. I could hide somewhere with the guitar. Piano? Nope. It stays where it is. When I got to college, there were a zillion guitarists, all of them better than me. I didn't want to play piano any more and found that there were almost no bass players. So, I switched to bass and felt like I had come home. That was that. It was sometime around 1979.
 
#29
Jazz Ad said:
1992. I used to play keyboards, then Nirvana arrived and suddenly it became impossible to fit a keyboard anywhere.
Guitar was boring and after checking a few of the stuff I listened to back then, I realized that bass was the coolest instrument of the band.
Click to expand...
It is! You are rythm yet also you can be the hook sometimes. Best of both worlds!
 
#31
I was always surrounded by music: posters, records guitars cause of my dad. At first i really didn't know what i wanted to play, but it was easier to get me an acoustic guitar rather than a drum kit :D. I was born in 94 & i guess i really took up the bass mantle because of Dee Dee Ramone. Although i was huge into kiss & new york dolls, it wasn't what got me into playing. So i guess 2000-01 was when i started to "practice", i was 7. Today i'm 21 & i'm not the most technical player but out of the bass players i know, i can hold solid ground & groove above them.
 
#32
Bass lines have always jumped out to me. I started singing bass in jr. high as soon as my voice changed. I started playing classical guitar when I was 10, took lessons for a few years, but lived a bit of a cloistered existence until I ventured out in HS. When I found out guitars came in BASS I just had to have one! We started a band in HS, a friend loaned me his bass, and I was hooked! I played in several different bands in HS, college, and professional school. My main regret was the 20+ midlife years that I laid it down when I started my family and career.

This time, I got into it because I am finally at a place in my life where I can pursue outside interests, I really missed it, and I just love losing myself in music.
 
#33
Started piano at 8, guitar at 11, bass at 15, mandolin at 20, double bass at 40.

Played rock guitar in HS and College.
Moved to the Bay Area from back east and started playing swing jazz and bluegrass on mandolin
Played mandolin profesionnally for about 15 year and then someone left a double bass at my house.
I refused to return the bass and started practicing on it.
Wound up playing many jams and in bands as a bluegrass bass player.
Next I joined a rock band after 20 years of mostly playing swing and bluegrass.
I decided intentionally to play electric bass - just to take on a totally different skill set and get funky with it.
Now I own and enjoy playing 5 string, 4 string and fretless 4 string.
It's probably the most fun I have as a musician - but I haven't gotten the hang of doing this and simultaneously being able to sing lead vocals which is my next challenge.
 
#36
Sixth grade - My middle school had an amazing band program. I wanted to play drums along with 15 other kids so they said pick something else. It hurt my ears blowing into the horn mouthpieces. I had already taken violin lessons and wasn't thrilled by the instrument. My friend, Dave Diburque, said he was playing bass (I had no idea what that was) so I said I'll play that. Best decision I ever made. My school had 8 upright basses so I got to learn on one of those. Five days a week during my 3 years of middle school I got to play in the orchestra, learned to read music and away I went.
We had a great advanced orchestra program and in 8th grade we played Dvorak's New World Symphony. Violins, violas, cellos, basses, trumpets, french horn, oboes, timpanis, the works. It was so fun.
In eighth grade I started playing in the jazz band, which oddly enough used the electric instead of an upright. 34 years later...
 
#40
when was around 14 or so a buddy of mine who was like an idiot savant of guitar said hey man we should start a band, since he was, and still is a way better guitar player than me i said sure why not, so i lugged my guitar and amp down to the local guitar shop and traded my way into a japanese squier p-bass and a old ass sun rig and the rest is history
 

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