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Why Bass?

#45
I too started as a guitar player at age 14 (still have my Squier from 1995). Me and my cousin were taking guitar lessons from the same guy. We wanted to make a band, but we didn't know any bass players. So, we decided to buy a bass between the two of us and we would switch the bass role. It was cool, but it lasted until we each discovered girls and the awesomeness of their female body parts.

A few years later, I met a few cool guys in college that were into music and wanted to form a band. So we did, but a few rehearsals later, the bass player had to drop out of the band due to family problems. After that, I told the other band members that I still have the bass I bought with my cousin and I could play bass with the band.

It wasn't long before I found that I love playing bass more than I liked the guitar. It fits me better, the strings respond better to my big bulky fingers, they don't break after a few gigs like guitar strings do, plus all I need is a bass, an amp and a cable, that's it. I enjoy being the one that makes the ground shake.
 
#46
Forty years ago I didn't know much about music, until I moved to Austin TX to go to graduate school, and suddenly I was surrounded by guitar players...and I married a guitar player, at that! I bought a cheap Ventura flat top from a friend and took lessons from a local fingerpicker.

Then my wife young son and I moved to Medocino, where the nights were long and cold in the winter, and I began reading my wife's music theory books, and I started playing slide guitar, and then harmonica.

I started playing with a song writer/guitarist in the early '80s, now back in Texas, and recruited a bass player to make it a trio. I was the lead instrument, electric guitar, lap steel and harp, and it turned out the bass player wanted to play guitar on certain songs. So we'd trade off.

I was heavily into Dobro and pedal steel in the '90s, still occasionally swapping out on bass. Then in the early '00s I recorded an album for a local group of folkies who didn't have a bass player, so I contributed bass and Dobro to the CD.

Then the leader of that group referred me to another singer, who wanted to do a one-shot gig opening for another musician's CD release party, so I learned 16 songs in 7 days for that job, and we struck it off pretty well. That led to a multi-year bass gig with a working dance hall band, and after it broke up, I started getting regular referrals for bass playing.

Now, thirty years after I first picked up a bass, that's about all I play except for the once-in-a-while Dobro or harp job (there are so many guitar players around here, I don't even try!).

Here's my take: the lead is the siren on top of the fire truck, but the bass and drums are the motor driving it down the road.

The last three years my combo (guitar, percussion, bass and two singers) has been specializing in pop tunes from the late '20s-early '60s and it's more fun than ever. Playing guitar you often are being told "Play that lick that's on the record" but with bass you can be a lot more creative.:D

I'd like to do original music on the electric guitar (as I have in the past) but the bass will always be with me.
 
#49
Early bass influences for me, without realizing it...were:

Bow Wow Wow
Paul McCartney
John Paul Jones
Louis Johnson(Thriller)
Roger Water's knarly bass sound on 'The Wall'

Then I heard Cliff Burton...

Why bass? I can't play guitar.
 
#51
I have always had an infatuation with guitar. However everwhere I go there is already several guitar players there. Often I may even be the best guitar player there.... however I am ussually the only bass player there. IMO even my mediocre bass playing is better than no bass at all.
 
#52
I've been playing guitar and bass for quite some years before I completely made the switch to only bass.
I finally grew tired of guitar, as I noticed that I spent way too much time tinkering with effects and amp settings and other distracting details...
When I play bass, none of that happens it seems: I just rock out and play MUSIC :bassist:
 
#53
Funny sidestory: when I was in highschool, I often jammed (guitar) with a really talented friend of mine. I played "bass" on the lowest strings of my guitar, and he soloed like crazy on top of it. Good fun.
One day, he said to me: "hey, to be honest, your guitar skills aren't that good. But you would make a *great* bassist. You really have a strong groove and timing going on".

That has always stuck in my head and probably influenced me much later on to completely abandon the six strings. :-)
 
#55
I played tea-chest bass at home as a 15 year old. Then I got asked to join a jazz band. Then I had to get a Hondo II bass.

Now I look at it as: I want to make music; after trying cello and trombone in recent years I realized it just happens it is a bass guitar I know my way around best, so I might as well use that as the tool to make music with. I am not so interested in whether it "sounds like a bass". Bass players who inspire me are usually of the "I make music and it just happens to be a bass i am holding" school of thought.
 
#56
I started playing guitar in 1967. Our band had great harmonies, but the best musician in the band was our bass player, Michael Batchelder. I was inspired by him, and more and more kept hearing the bass over everything, be it in the band, radio or recordings.

So in 1969, I quit the band, bought a bass, and started a new band. I never looked back.

Mike still plays professionally in Las Vegas. I still play, both bass and guitar for fun and profit, as well as giving lessons. Mike Batchelder was my first inspiration and bass idol. Jamerson and Dunn were my next idols.
 
#58
theretheyare said:
.....I am not so interested in whether it "sounds like a bass". Bass players who inspire me are usually of the "I make music and it just happens to be a bass i am holding" school of thought.....
Click to expand...

you've just summed up how I've always felt about the bass. I've tried messing with piano, guitar, cello, flute, violin, viola, and drums, but I always come back to the bass. While playing the bassline and holding down the rythym is something I enjoy, I like to think the bass has just as much if not more potential to create great music as the guitar or other "lead" instruments. It's just a matter of trying things out and seeing how it works.
 
#59
When I was hired at my second job some of my new collegues had a hobby band at work, but no bass player. They asked me, a bit jokingly I think, if I played the bass. I didn't but thought it would be fun to try. The first bass was a loaner, a fretless P bass clone, so it was a struggle, but I quickly bought my own fretted P/J bass. And the rest is history as the saying goes.
 

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