Who plays guitar as well?

[dkelley]

Your experiences are similar to mine, just swapping piano for guitar in terms of “seriousness”.
I found drums came to me naturally, which I can only attribute to years of piano.

cool. it's funny how many people I new playing bass in high school played some other instrument first, seriously.

 

[dkelley]

I've had many guitars (electric and acoustic) over the decades. Only ever owned one Larrivée; this one:

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OMG one of the greatest guitar makers in north american history, and that is one of his most beautiful models!

 

[EatS1stBassist]

So the title says it all. I’m curious what your experience with guitar might be? Did you start on guitar and switch over? Have you played bass from the get go and never picked up a guitar? Did playing guitar help you as a bass payer? I’d love to hear you experience with the guitar.

Me? I tinkered with the guitar, but never got very serious. I’ve really only gotten more serious about the bass over the past year or so...and I feel more at home.

I play lead guitar IN A ZZ TOP TRIBUTE. 57 years on bass! One has always benefited the other! All I think about is the bass now! Also play other instruments. Drums and keys! Big Les Paul Fan! I use very light strings 7’s. Love the tube amps for guitar!

 

[*ToNeS*]

Yep, I don't go anywhere without my 7-string Schechter these days. I picked up guitar after a few years of playing as a dedicated bass player (drums and vocals, too, because, I thought: Why not turn yourself into a band?).

I have this vivid recollection of having a stick up my ass about guitar. It was an attitude I was exposed to a lot in the gigging world and especially here on TalkBass. I realised that that was a pretty immature, even willfully stupid, attitude to take. Sure enough, learning guitar made me a better bassist - and a songwriter. Logically, learning how to record, mix and master soon followed, and all because I decided to take an interest in other instruments.

It's been great. I got to the point where I can just do everything myself, for free. Be a musician not a player, yeehaw.

 

[juggahnaught]

Started with classical guitar, ended up with a friend's electric guitar and played rhythm guitar for a bit (playing Megadeth and some other stuff), moved to bass after hearing Steve Harris play Sanctuary.

I still own my friend's electric guitar (a Jay Turser Telecaster) but I don't really use it. I think if I had to get a guitar today, I'd get a nylon-string classical again - there's something about an acoustic instrument, and that specific tone, and the string spacing on a classical that makes it work well for me.

 

[Mili]

I think 3 months ago I touched a guitar accidentally!

 

[Jeff Scott]

OMG one of the greatest guitar makers in north american history, and that is one of his most beautiful models!

Larrivée made one a small handful of those wonderful guitars. It is the LV-19 Special Vine Edition. A good friend of mine has that guitar, now, so it is still in the family, so to speak.

 

[MakoMan]

I also play guitar, but not 'as well' as bass (and I don't play bass very well). I can play the church chords on guitar and do a little bit of fingerpicking, but you could remove all the frets on my guitar above the 4th fret and it would make no difference to me.
I play guitar for two reasons. The first is I am the lead singer in my gigging band and I find it almost impossible to practice singing by myself with a bass, especially if I am learning a new song. So I learn new songs and practice singing along to my church chords and practice the bass parts without singing. Then I put it all together at band practice with the real guitarists.
The second reason is I have a second band that is just a basement band made up of a couple of friends, my wife and myself, and we are not very good lol. But when I was first learning to play music 7 years ago they were the only ones who would play with me and even though I have a very busy gigging band now I cannot abandon them because they just love to play. With these folks I play guitar, another friend who I am teaching to play bass is the bassist, the drummer is my best friend who learned to play drums with me and has never played with anyone else. His wife and mine share the singing with me. On most songs one of the girls sing lead and I do backup vocals. I kinda enjoy this because it allows me to practice singing harmony instead of lead. It can be pretty rough at times but we have a ton of fun and I know that it is helping me develop as a more well-rounded musician.

 

[zontar]

Played guitar before I played bass--and I enjoy both.

 

[Fialka]

I starter as a young kid on a flute, abandoned it quickly, but which 10 year old wants to play "flute" anyway? Then I got a guitar few years later, but never really bonded with acoustic nor with electric. I found myself listening to bass parts of the songs most of the time and trying to emulate em' on guitar with bass boosted, playing with fingers. I had to get a bass. So I play a guitar from time to time since I still really enjoy the beauty of strumming the chord and letting it scream. However in all my musical projects I am on the position of bass player.

 

[HMZ]

When I was kid my older brother played guitar so I picked it up from him. Seemed when i was a kid everyone played guitar or drums. My friends started a band so I took bass. Glad I did, I got to play with so many more people then they did. In the early 80s not a lot of guys were playing bass at my age (14-15) so I was always needed. Recently I have taken a break from bands and gigging to pick up the guitar again. I have been enjoying playing guitar for the last two years now. I kind of put the bass down for a bit but am back playing bass in a friends band. I consider myself a bass player first who also happens to play guitar. I'm a way better bass play then a guitar play.

 

[swink]

What's that thing they call guitar, is that the noisy, sharp thing held by the "ego" of the band?

Started on bass, tried a guitar ... string-spacing to narrow stayed with bass.
have one acoustic-jumbo by Guild with the right spacing just for fun.

 

[delta7fred]

But I can't play slide. Would love to though. Do you have any tips?

Sorry for the long post.

Tips that spring to mind.
Get an old guitar, the flatter the fingerboard radius the better, jack the action up a little, tune it to an open chord, get a bottleneck and experiment (and go on Youtube). At the start go somewhere where you cannot be heard if possible, learning slide can often sound painful. (I've heard it described as "at times like you are trying to skin a live cat" but I wouldn't know what that sounds like!)

Try a few different tunings, I prefer open G - D G D G B D (low to high), or move it up to A if the strings are a bit slack. Sun House uses this tuning or something very similar. The Ry Cooder songs I have tried to learn are mostly in open E I think which make them difficult to play on open G even after you have transposed them.

When playing riffs or melodies I don't think of what notes I am playing as each string is a different interval from it's neighbours, I treat it as a series of patterns (pretty much what I do on bass especially when I am singing).

If you are using an electric guitar a little overdrive and reverb or delay can improve the sound.

Muting strings is important when you are playing single notes, for chords let them ring.

A bit of vibrato works wonders at disguising the fact that you didn't quite hit a note.

Record yourself for critical evaluation. One night I was playing and singing and was unaware that my son had come home and was sat in the next room listening to me. After a while he walked in and said "your playing is fine but your singing sounds like your heart isn't in it". I recorded my next practice and he was right, I was concentrating on the playing and not putting any effort into the singing.

Once you get the hang of it you can fret behind the bottleneck to create minor, seventh and other chords (if the action is high enough).

Back story.
Slide is something that fascinated me ever since hearing the Muddy Waters LP "After The Rain" and a John Lee Hooker LP (the name of which escapes me) some time around 1969 .

I never started to try to learn slide until about 2005, the morning after a gig from hell (long story, not relevant here). I slackened the truss rod nut on my old acoustic guitar to raise the action a bit, tuned it to an open chord, found a bottleneck that I had bought years before (with every intention of learning) and off I went.

My only instruction was an article I had saved that appeared in a UK guitar magazine, it went over a few tunings and showed you how to play the signature riff from "Dust My Broom".

 

[Stempelloos]

More or less. I learned to play bass and guitar together. So the first weeks on bass were also my first weeks on guitar.

Later I moved abroad without instruments for a a bit less than a year.
A friend there lend me an old acoustic cutaway jazz guitar to play on.

Nowadays I have a Tele copy and a semi acoustic with piezo/humbucker.
I'm hardly an accomplished guitarist, but like to play it now and then.

 

[Medicine Man]

Bass is certainly my primary, and like 98% of the money I've made off music has been playing bass. But I can play my Strat good enough that it's probably my second best instrument and I think I do ok. When I've tried to get guitar auditions locally, they ask me to bring a bass instead, so there's that.

 

[Bander]

I'm playing lead guitar in a good band right now. Guitar was my first and main instrument. I did start on bass guitar with cover bands. Both are equally important, gear is equally important, and challenge is pretty close too. Perception is not: lots of folks incorrectly assume bass is easy, and therefore less important in a band. There is no good band without a good bassist.

 

[gjohnson441496]

I started on bass. Picked up guitar a few years ago and really haven't looked back. Once I discovered that I could play all the songs I love only using seven chords there was nno looking back. I can sing while playing guitar too which WAS more difficult for me to do while playing bass, but the other day I had to lay down some bass lines for a song and automatically began singing which means I need to explore singing and playing bass now.

Honestly I only logged on to TB the other day to find out what bass players think about Blackstar amps. I was considering the Unity 500 but the consensus it seems is the Fender Rumble is the better choice.

Playing guitar has made my bass playing better as I now know not to play a bunch of notes on bass. The fewer the better. Playing bass gave me a heads up on guitar because when I was playing bass I played all over the place which is as far as I'm concerned the guitarist realm. All I need is one bass and one amp but with guitar after 2+ years I have a Mesa Boogie FIllmore 25, a Fender 68 Custom Deluxe Reverb, gone through at least 100 pedals, and have traded at least 10 guitars to finally narrow it down to 1 Fender and 1 Gibson and I'm "this" close to trading the Gibson.

 

[EdwardofHuncote]

[timidly raises hand]

I do, but mostly just for Jeannie here at home... I'm a bass player, if anybody asks.

I did take my little Martin 00-17S to a fiddler's convention recently...

...but in just a few minutes, my true self came out, and picked up Dad's old '51 Kay.

 

[40Hz]

I play guitar.

Just not as well.

 

[MTN.bass72]

I did for a short period of time, but now I'm trying to sell off the gear I aquired