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When did you get into bass playing and why?

#61
Summer 2011; I'd just turned 17. One afternoon I was listening through Led Zeppelin II, singling out and analyzing each individual track like I was learning to do in my music theory class at the time... and suddenly JPJ's lines just hit me.

Everything he did simply worked. From the chugging grind on Whole Lotta Love; to the lyrical, melodic musings on What Is and What Should Never Be and Ramble On; to the tight, driving R&B jam on the Lemon Song... every note just fit. And something down inside me said, damn – I wanna do that!

And so I did :thumbsup:
 
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#63
About 1967. I was 13 and trying to teach myself guitar on a cheap acoustic. I really wanted an electric like my buddy's so my Mom bought me a guitar / amp combo for my 14th birthday. It was a bass. She didn't know the difference. As it turned out, I had kind of a natural knack for it. 48 years later and still thumpin' on 4 and 5 strings.
 
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#65
When I was 11 I found an old 45 of my mother's.

Stevie Wonder - Made To Love Her

I recorded it onto a cassette and when we went on vacation (from Kentucky to Florida) I sat in the back seat and listened to it over and over.

Play. Eject. Flip tape. FFWD. Eject. Flip tape. Play. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

For hours I listened to it. James Jamerson's groove spoke to me. It was amazing. (With one freakin' finger, guys.) I needed to be able to make that happen. My mom had played bass in her southern gospel group. She had a '72 Kay bass guitar and a '72 Ampeg combo. I never looked back. Through my metal years, Seattle grunge, R&B, jazz, progressive, rock and blues, it was always the bass clef that spoke to me.

Over the years, I've learned to play chords and fingerpick guitar a bit. I have a pile of acoustic guitars and write on them but I am not a guitar player who was never "good enough". I am, and have always been, a bassist.
 
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#66
Five years ago, at age 44. I had been playing guitar since I was 11 and teaching guitar for about 7 years at that point. A friend asked if I would consider playing bass to accompany a couple of tunes in a musical at my kids' school. I said that if I could borrow a bass, I would give it a try. As fate would have it, there was a cheap Yamaha bass on consignment at my favourite music store so I picked it up and borrowed the school's keyboard amp (it had a 15" driver and some chutzpah). I have a solid understanding of scales and arpeggios and can find the downbeat so I picked it up pretty quickly. In the end, I accompanied most of the tunes in the musical and had a blast. I started taking my "new" bass to our basement guitar jams, found out one friend was also a killer drummer and another played keys and suddenly we had a band...

I'm still primarily a guitarist, but I get more gigs as a bassist.
 
#69
I was born in a log cabin. The log cabin was inside a motel room in Ashtabula, Ohio. Inside the motel room, in addition to the log cabin, there was a '54 Fender P, two Fender Bassman heads and cabs, and a bottle of vintage Champagne. And electricity. I matured just as fast as I could. And now, man, I'm so old, I'm unbelievably mature.
 
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#70
I was 28 years old. I had a back injury (surgery) in the Military and had to give up a lot of activities. Didn't know if I would stick with it. Took lessons for 2 yrs and my 1st bass and Amp were an Electra P-Bass and a Peavy TNT 130 combo. Don't let my Avatar fool you, that stays home. lol
 
#72
I was 22 and had owned and acoustic guitar for 5 years. Best friend from kindergarten on asked me if I'd like to be a bass player in a band he and his parents' neighbor's kid was starting. I immediately accepted, and had to use friend's rig (Lyon P copy and a Peavey TKO 115). P stood for POS, as the soldering kept falling apart. Every rehearsal I'd have to open the hood and resolder connections, using my father's older than I was soldering iron (way too big) with plumbing acid cored solder. There was barely enough wire under the hood so I ended up splicing in pieces of misc wire to get the leads long enough to work with.

That bass was traded in on a Yanaha Morion B, with active EMG's. Much better bass, and by that time we'd moved on from the kid next door.

My first requirement for borrowing my buddy's rig was that I buy an electric and an amp for my buddy to play through. Still have both of those (1976 Fender Stratocaster hard tail natural and a mid 80's Peavey Stereo Chorus 400) and ended up buying the TKO 115 fter he'd done some damage (rolled forward in his truck bed and broke the bass and treble knobs off, and speaker paper was torn- replaced the pots and fixed the speaker with thread, celophane tape and some 3M sealant).

The rest is history...
 
#73
When I played air guitar, I subconsciously played bass. I can tell from old photos of me "playing my beer necked guitar".

I had a guitar for a year & got frustrated with the fact that I couldn't form chords fast enough, so picked up a bass thinking it would be a springboard for me.

Sometimes I consider giving up one or the other, guitar or bass, so I can focus more on just one. I can't seem to do it though.

The upside is, I can lay down a bass rhythm & loop it as a backing track for some guitar improv. Some day, LOL.
It is less boring than playing scales with a metronome though.
 
#74
1981 I moved to a new town, was 11 years old. Needed friends, lusted after the girls in the spray-on Jordache jeans, was a hopeless nerd. 2 bands in school needed bass, I got one and that was it. Turned 12 started gigging, 16 played with 30 year olds, started touring in 88 and have toured every year since. I learned audio engineering along the way (both studio and live) and it's may main income, but play in about 6 projects still when i'm not road-dogging it on audio (and yes I still get to tour playing.)
 
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#76
Big fat Elmer, he was the bass player in the band sitting in the stands at the high school football games my family used to go to on Friday nights when I was a lad. While everyone else was watching the field I couldn't stop watching that black 4001, I thought that, other than boobs, the bass guitar was the coolest thing on Earth and made up my mind that I was going to learn how to do what fat Elmer was doing with that Rick. That was probably around 1974 or so and I haven't felt any differently since.
 
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#78
I've only been playing about a year so far, and I wanted to learn to play an instrument since I live with a guitarist; he kept telling me to try out an instrument. I went through trying a couple but none spoke to me. So I started listening closely to the music that I liked to find out what I liked most about it! After listening to the album "be the void" by dr. Dog I knew bass was gonna be the one for me. Their bassist isn't always doing super intricate stuff, but he knows how to lay down a good groove IMO.
 
#80
I was approached by the Jazz Band instructor at my high school, I was a sophomore. He played bass acct no student wanted to, they needed a student to play at a talent show not a teacher and he heard I played guitar.

I said "No disrespect Mr. Clark but jazz just aint my thing" he said "We'll be playing Jump by Van Halen" I said "OK, I 'll do it"

I got to play a well taken care of 76 P Bass into a tall Ampeg rig. I was hooked.
 

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