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Why are you a bass player?
- Thread starter vindibona1
- Start date
I love DeLeo's bass technique and choice of notes. He is so underrated imho.
There was a sticker or something I saw... "Bass: The reason your girlfriend is dancing." Never gets old.
My dad was the bass player in his kid band in the 1960s, so I wanted to play bass also. I never asked him why he was the bass player... So I was a bass player from the start. It took a while of learned before I understood the bass role fully. As a little kid I always wanted to play drums, and I had a set for a long time just for fun. So I was fortunate to learn from the start that bass is NOT just playing guitar lines lower.
DeLeo is a machine! He’s super-melodic and straight grooves!I love DeLeo's bass technique and choice of notes. He is so underrated imho.
There was a sticker or something I saw... "Bass: The reason your girlfriend is dancing." Never gets old.
I also want that sticker!
There's something about the groove. Becoming the groove. I play some other instruments, but bass is my home. Keeping everyone in line without them knowing or realizing that I'm doing it plus making people dance just does it for me. Hope I don't sound like a control freak.
I was a guitar player first, then I started playing keyboards and finally became a more serious bass player back in the 70s. I play bass because that’s what was needed in a band I played in. For the last 20 years, I’ve concentrated on bass because I don’t have anywhere near the dexterity I used to have because of arthritis.
I can relate to that. I got bitten by the bass bug while playing a musical in February and March. I got asked to play because I can read. Even though it had a conductor, I felt like in some tunes I was "driving the train". I went on to volunteer to play bass in my regular acoustic group and I feel like I can "add salt and seasoning to the soup". Perhaps I like the presence and how I can more affect the music than when I play guitar.
i am a bass player by default (BL didn't want another tenor cat but said i could have the gig if played bass! 
).
that was 1975. i kept learning about the instrument and i kept playing. i supported myself, and my family, for a long time. i'm old and retired, now...yes i'm a bass player, but i'm a musician first. it's what i know, what i've done, and these days, for me: it is what it is.
).that was 1975. i kept learning about the instrument and i kept playing. i supported myself, and my family, for a long time. i'm old and retired, now...yes i'm a bass player, but i'm a musician first. it's what i know, what i've done, and these days, for me: it is what it is.
I was a young adolescent, and a professional guitarist at the time. I had a serious injury. I fell from a balcony porch because the railing broke away. Shattered my left wrist. It also pinched a bunch of nerves in my right arm and wrist. It actually hurt worse than the broken wrist
The doctors put my left wrist back together, and with some work and rehab I was able to play guitar again. But i was never able to hold a pick in my right hand for a whole show as my thumb would go dead, and I lost all feeling. At first is was only for a song a gig, but as the years passed, it progressively got worse. I gave up guitar, and picked up bass.
The doctors put my left wrist back together, and with some work and rehab I was able to play guitar again. But i was never able to hold a pick in my right hand for a whole show as my thumb would go dead, and I lost all feeling. At first is was only for a song a gig, but as the years passed, it progressively got worse. I gave up guitar, and picked up bass.
I played cello as a kid. The middle school music teacher asked me to play bass for the school jazz band. The school basses were all unsalvagable, so I got a second-hand Fender and a tiny amp. Through high school and college, bass was in enough demand that it just drew me in. That was decades ago.
If I was starting out now (as in, 8 years old), I'd play the violin, because it's so much more portable.
Now I'm kinda stuck with it, because it's the instrument that I'm competent enough to perform on. It would be very hard to bring myself back up to performance level on the cello, though I've been learning to play jazz on the cello at home and it's a lot of fun. But I love music, and bass is the way that I can connect with music and with musicians and the audience.
If I was starting out now (as in, 8 years old), I'd play the violin, because it's so much more portable.
Now I'm kinda stuck with it, because it's the instrument that I'm competent enough to perform on. It would be very hard to bring myself back up to performance level on the cello, though I've been learning to play jazz on the cello at home and it's a lot of fun. But I love music, and bass is the way that I can connect with music and with musicians and the audience.
I absolutely LOVE music. I drive all over for my job, and I have a mental vault of songs I’ve heard over and over again on XM and my old stash of CD’s. I tried guitar 6 years ago, but my long, skinny fingers felt cramped and jumbled together on the fretboard. Then a year ago, a bassist friend started teaching me. I love the feel of playing fingerstyle and the space on the fretboard for my digits to move around. And I realized that after years of absorbing music behind the wheel, what I lock onto most is the bassline. I started with Geezer/Sabbath and the growly, wonky sound of him assaulting his flats near the neck, and once I learned how to do it, it was like being high...empowerment.
Now I’m obsessed. I just found a teacher in Nashville, and I find myself in my music room at 2 AM on weeknights until I nail a riff. I’m about to
turn 40 and I’m finally making music. The bass is my vehicle.
Now I’m obsessed. I just found a teacher in Nashville, and I find myself in my music room at 2 AM on weeknights until I nail a riff. I’m about to
turn 40 and I’m finally making music. The bass is my vehicle.
Because it spoke to me like no other instrument once I picked one up. It said "you WILL play me the rest of your life!" It instantly made sense.
For me it was either bass or die. I don't spend much time on talkdeath.com so you can see which choice I made.
Because when I first heard Chris Squire's Rickenbacker on Roundabout, I thought that there's no cooler sound than that, so bass it was.
I started out on bass when I was 14 and picked guitar up a year or so later.
Even back then there was a lack of bassists and one who could sing was even more rare. I could sing and I wanted to join a band so I talked my pop into buying me a used bass and taught myself to play. Six months later I was in a band.....voila'.
I've been in quite a few bands over the years playing both guitar and bass but I have and always will see myself as a bassist first and a guitarist second. I just enjoy playing bass more.
Even back then there was a lack of bassists and one who could sing was even more rare. I could sing and I wanted to join a band so I talked my pop into buying me a used bass and taught myself to play. Six months later I was in a band.....voila'.
I've been in quite a few bands over the years playing both guitar and bass but I have and always will see myself as a bassist first and a guitarist second. I just enjoy playing bass more.
I just always liked it. My friend also said girls loved bass players, so that was enough to convince me. That was in 8th grade.
I stuck with it because the only other things I was good at were eating and video games. I went with the more productive of choices.
