Who do you hear in your playing?

[Trabeen]

In other words, who do you most naturally sound like when you flip the switch and lean into the groove? I’d like to be indistinguishable from Victor Wooten or Rocco Prestia but after nearly half a century of playing it just ain’t in the cards, the question doesn’t involve who you consider to be your influences but who obviously has really taken hold with what you do when you grab the slab. At the risk of exposing my 70’s Brit bent unquestionably I hear, and have been commonly told by others, Boz Burrell and Gary Thain in myself. Just sort of sitting here with the beginning of a Saturday night whisky buzz wondering what others may say, it beats watching Swamp People.

 

[DirtDog]

Man....that’s a great question. I’ve been playing for a very long time through a wide variety of gear setups. I don’t think I’ve ever sounded like anyone. Maybe I just sound like me?

 

[buldog5151bass]

Me.

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

In other words, who do you most naturally sound like when you flip the switch and lean into the groove? I’d like to be indistinguishable from Victor Wooten or Rocco Prestia but after nearly half a century of playing it just ain’t in the cards, the question doesn’t involve who you consider to be your influences but who obviously has really taken hold with what you do when you grab the slab. At the risk of exposing my 70’s Brit bent unquestionably I hear, and have been commonly told by others, Boz Burrell and Gary Thain in myself. Just sort of sitting here with the beginning of a Saturday night whisky buzz wondering what others may say, it beats watching Swamp People.

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People say I sound like flea. I get it, but I don't really think so. I can sound almost exactly like Les Claypool (without any effects), or Tim Commerford (again, without any effects), but really...I just sound like me. Tone changes with the sound. Changes with the feel. But, its just me. I ain't met too many people that make a bass sound like I do when they play it.

 

[Drifter8230]

Despite all the speaker cabs, preamps, amps, and effects pedals, there is an individual using their hands (.....or picks) to express themselves through their instrument. I sound like me! It's impossible for me to sound like anyone else, even though it would be great if someone mistook me for Rex Brown

I think that the bass is a more "individual-istic" vehicle than electric guitar because the bass player has a more physical connection with their instrument (generally speaking)

 

[The Owl]

Some have told me I have bits of Jack Bruce and Anthony Jackson in my playing. I wish I was that good!

 

[bobyoung53]

Good question, I too have been playing for more than 50 years, I'm sure there's a lot of my heroes in me from when I was a kid, McCartney, Jamerson, lots of 60's influence, some 70's also. I have a lot of different basses but have come full circle back to basses with flatwounds on them, Fenders, Rics and Gibsons, and play through Ampegs, I still sound very similar though no matter what bass I play or what I play it through and I will say after all this time I do have my own style and my own sound which probably combines most of the stuff I've heard in my formative years and built on, probably early 60's until the late 70's, I still listen and hopefully have an open mind. I am a rootsy type of player, I can play fast and play a lot of notes if I want to but I prefer to play my bass with lots of bottom and I like to lock in with the drummer. If the drummer's going nuts so am I, if he's laying back so am I. I still love to play and play every day.

 

[Guild B301]

Others have said they sound like no one else. I think I sound a bit like everyone I’ve ever listened to. I’ve learned what to do, and what not to do. I have been influenced by bassists from the early Jazz of the 1910’s, to today’s players, and everyone in between.

 

[thabassmon]

When I younger and starting out I would sound like my influences of that time, like flea and Tim C.

I've now played for so long, in so many different styles I don't sound like any one single person when I play in my usual fashion. I can however mimic the sound of a few players if I feel like it, or to make it sound more like the recording.

I don't often do that these days as I don't play covers very often nor do I really care how the bass sounds on the record, when I play whatever cover tune, it is not the studio and i am not that player so I play in the manner that I think is musically appropriate for that particular scenario.

I like the tones of many players but it's not really the tone that's traceable with me, I'm more influenced by their rhythmic, melodic and groove aspects, tone influence may be there but not as easy to identify as I may change the tone I use within a phrase, sometimes to exaggerate dynamics of a melody.

For me that actually goes for all singers and instrumentalists, I am just as influenced by Donny Hathaway's singing as I am with Ray Brown's playing and Charlie Parker, Clifford Brown, James Brown, Jackie Wilson, Ray Charles, Hampton Hawes, Oscar Peterson, Prince, Jimi Hendrix, Christian McBride, Big Mama Thornton etc.

For me music is music, I don't care where it comes from nor what instrument is used, just as long as it had groove and soul. Could be any style, just make it great.

 

[Trabeen]

My point seems largely misunderstood, I am in no way talking about someone’s equipment or the sound that their amp ultimately creates. What I mean is, who do you hear when you play? I understand that this is for the large part a gear-oriented community, ignoring all of the myriad of machines involved who’s style and humanity do you feel most comes through in your playing? Apologies in advance if this isn’t clear, I am simply talking about people and what they do with their skills and how they present them.

 

[Samatza]

I think I hear a lot of influences in my playing because even at a very young age I was drawn to the bass.

it started with Macca and I loved that melodic sense and later it was Rocco and Mark King, Pino and lots of others.

So I stole every little bit I could and now it depends on the tune but I think I draw on all of them in my own sort of mashup of styles.

Luckily I had some great piano teachers along the way who focused on theory so I could understand what I was playing early on but style-wise I think you can hear a bit from all of them.

I still look up to all these players, they taught me a lot really for the small sum of buying a record.

 

[JMarkD]

I know very well which musicians influenced my playing. However after forty plus years of playing almost every gig imaginable, I have my own style and sound. When I tell people who my influences are they either have never heard of them or tell me I sound nothing like them.

 

[Tim Skaggs]

I don’t know if anyone else would notice, but when I play, I think any of my freestyle licks that come through are things I learned from Mel Schacher of Grand Funk (my avatar also), Dave Brown of early Santana, Dennis Dunaway of early Alice Cooper, and Roger Glover of Deep Purple.

I know when I’m sitting around noodling, I end up playing licks from all four of them, so if I’m playing a song and there’s any part of the song that’s not specific to the song, the lick I add will likely sound like a lick by one of those four.

 

[2saddleslab]

Complaints from the rest of the band.

 

[kesslari]

I hear echoes of the Rev. William Archibald Spooner in my playing.

 

[Element Zero]

Without a doubt, Dave Taylor. By far my biggest influence even if I didn’t know his name for many years. Even before I was a bass player, as a young kid, even before I knew what a bass was, I loved his playing. As of the last decade, I’ll add Norm Stockton to the short list.

They are everything I strive to be as a player.

 

[cheapbasslovin]

I have no idea. A few years back I would have said a very poor man's John Paul Jones, but my playing has gotten much less busy and I've learned to relish the open spaces and a more staccato style, so I'm not sure.

No matter who people will hear in my playing, it will be a very poor man's version of that guy.

 

[Dynomuttasaurus]

I hear a lot of Steve Harris influence in my playing. No one has ever said it exactly, but I get comments at most gigs about my "driving" style of playing. Are those real compliments or left-handed? I'm striving to add "tasteful" to the critiques.

 

[Kipp Harrington]

In other words, who do you most naturally sound like when you flip the switch and lean into the groove? I’d like to be indistinguishable from Victor Wooten or Rocco Prestia but after nearly half a century of playing it just ain’t in the cards, the question doesn’t involve who you consider to be your influences but who obviously has really taken hold with what you do when you grab the slab. At the risk of exposing my 70’s Brit bent unquestionably I hear, and have been commonly told by others, Boz Burrell and Gary Thain in myself. Just sort of sitting here with the beginning of a Saturday night whisky buzz wondering what others may say, it beats watching Swamp People.

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I'm not particularly sure... but I hope I sound like myself.

 

[JW56789]

It sound like me playing from a library in the back of my mind of everything and everyone I ever heard, and not just bassists. I'd like to think I hear this or that bassist from time to time in my playing, but unfortunately when I do, I realize they did it a LOT better than me.