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Why do you play bass ??

#401
When I first tried out for the school band in 5th grade, I either wanted to play drums or trumpet. I couldn't get the groove quite right with drum sticks and couldn't get a sound out of the trumpet's tiny mouthpiece. However, I managed to get a solid sound from a baritone horn's mouthpiece so I played that.

Since I was always sectioned with the lower pitched instruments, middle school was where I really started getting immersed in the bass lines of songs and when my little friends and I would fantasize about being rock stars, they all wanted to play lead guitar but I wanted to play bass.

My freshman year of high school was my final year playing baritone horn in the school band. I did not get along with the band staff and even after years I never felt like I properly vibed with playing horn. My sophomore year I bought my first bass and started taking lessons at a local music store and I've been a happy bassist ever since. I bond more with the tactile nature of bass guitar and it just "fits" me for lack of a better word.

So the moral of the story is that bass more-or-less found me.
 
#405
Originally my hands were too big for guitar, but after playing I realized it was more fun and enjoyable to keep the rhythm and the drive going. (with the right drummer of course)
 
#406
Paul McCartney
Because he was the first bassplayer in history, and still stands out front and sings. He is the reason I chose bass as I was a singer before I picked up the bass.
My three oldest and dearest friends put our first band together in 9th grade (1968) and we had two guitarists and a drummer so bass was mine. Put the band back together in 79 and played semi professionally until 91
We still get together 6-8times a year and jam as we keep a full setup at the lead player's house. We have played some one off gigs for friends over the years.
That's my story
Duke
 
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#408
I get to play nowadays in some decent sized stages where, when I dig in, the whole thing vibrates, and the band takes off. When I pull back, everyone else pulls back as well, because….they’re not shaking. Besides being a visceral experience, there is an element of control that I have to admit I like. I’m not a control freak, but I am a control enthusiast when it comes to dynamics.

I also play a couple of places with concrete stages. Still cool, but not quite the same.

If you’re old enough to remember electric football sets, I have this vision of me hitting a low note, and vibrating myself off the stage.
 
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#409
When I was 7, my best friend up the street had a huge collection of Elvis records and we would just sit and listen for hours. Don’t know why, but I thought I wanted to be a drummer. At 14, another friend wanted to start a band. I still wanted to be a drummer, but couldn’t afford a set. So he pulled the B & E strings off of one of his guitars and said “You’re too smart to be a drummer.”, (ok, I made that up ;)) “You should play bass instead.” (which is what he actually said)

He taught me one line and I was absolutely hooked. I realized in that moment that in every pop and Motown song I’d ever heard, the thing I focused on most was the bass. For me, it was a revelation, one that I’m still grateful for 50+ years later.
 
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#412
Other than the amazing, thunderous lows, it’s the freedom I feel when I play it. For other instruments such as guitar, there’s always a perceived or expected way to play, especially for certain styles of music. With bass, the player gets to decide what works best. I like to play metal. I can play with a pick or fingers. I can play clean or with overdrive. With flats or rounds. With a vintage p bass or a dingwall. Strumming chords and arpeggios, crazy scales, or simple roots. And it always works. The freedom of creativity I feel when I play is so forgiving it’s hard to play other instruments with the same mindset. Sure, you could do the same thing on guitar, but chicken picking Metallica’s Battery or slapping some Raining blood on a vintage tele guitar through a clean amp doesn’t make it ‘metal’, though it may sound cool. But it would never work within a metal band context if that makes any sense.

There’s also this mistique about bass as well. Most people who don’t play any instrument jus see it as another guitar but when you tell them it’s a bass, they’re like “What do you mean?” Gets me every time lol.
 
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#413
The groove and interaction with drums and how it is the glue that holds a song together, but mostly the moment I picked up a bass for the very first time and struck an open E string and the sound it made that I couldn't get out of my head from that very moment until I bought my very first bass guitar many decades ago.
 
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#414
Studied jazz guitar for a long time in high school and college and had like a million guitar lessons. I learned a lot, but there was a big psychological downside - for many years after I completed college I was kind of burned out on guitar, and was also self-critical to the point of not wanted to practice or play much (the result of years of having my playing critiqued in exacting detail I guess).

Picking up a bass was like a weight off my shoulders. I had never taken a bass lesson so I didn't feel any expectations hanging over me, I just started learning tunes and jamming. Bass really reinvigorated my life as a player.
 
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#415
Chip Vickio said:
There's just something about this instrument -- the bass guitar. What attracted you to it in the first place? Was it the low sound? Did someone who already played inspire you? Or was it just that a band needed a bass guitar player? It seems that musicians have affinity to a certain instruments -- so for you, why bass? For me....the sound!
Click to expand...
I had to switch because I contracted measles from my son's daycare (I was vaccinated, but sometimes it doesn't "take") - I lost most of my hearing, which was a terrifying experience. Anyway, I couldn't hear guitar, but I could hear bass, so I took the plunge and traded an octave for an additional foot to my customary scale length.

Cut ahead a few years - I've recovered most of my hearing over time and with therapy, but I find that I like bass more than guitar now: It's more dynamic, more touch-responsive, and while the barrier to entry is lower, the skill cap is much higher. I also like the timbre more; it's less "plinky" and brittle.

I can still play this:


But greatly prefer this:
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#416
It was completely circumstantial: The middle school band teacher asked me to play bass in the school jazz band. Then I got good at it. Then people wanted me to play it. For money. Love for the bass per se came later, when I got an upright, and playing both finally brought me back to appreciating the electric bass as an end unto itself.

I'm not an introvert. Treating bass as a front-line instrument isn't everybody's cup of tea, and I appreciate that. It makes some bands nervous. But when they trust me, and the audience, they're usually on my side by the end of the gig.
 
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#418
Why do I *like* playing bass? So many reasons.
It is a very powerful instrument, and I don't mean loud-powerful. I can change the entire direction and vibe of a band or ensemble with rhythms or voicings. I can even keep drummers in line when they aren't so great. In many groups there are several guitars, but only ONE bass. I don't need to compete with other guitarists, especially the amateur ones. Being on bass gives someone else a chance to play guitar in one ensemble that I'm a regular in where if I were on guitar that other guy(s) would be deprived of an opportunity to play. The bass seems to get a lot of positive attention with my audiences. Bass really stretches my musicality and practical knowledge of music theory. I truly think playing bass, now as my primary instrument is making me a better musician.

Edit: In my music "career" I've played a lot of musical theater, mostly on trumpet. But lemme tell ya... TRUMPET IS *HARD*. You can't put it down for 2 weeks and expect to come back at the same level as you left it. You've got to re-build strength and finesse every time you take any kind of time off. I haven't played trumpet since the first wave of COVID and after decades of being a trumpet player consider my trumpet to be "retired". Before COVID I got tapped to play bass (as a ringer) in a few musical productions. At the time my skill level wasn't what it is today. BUT I COULD READ! I didn't expect it, but I just love bass, got addicted to 5 stringers and my basses get the lions share of my attention these days.
 
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#419
I was handed the position because the group needed one. At first, I thought, "cool!" Then I thought "not so cool" because it was the lead guitar player who was trying to have me play all of the licks that he'd written and he had written the bass from the perspective of a lead guitar player.

Lots of "lead bass" counterpoints. It was too much, especially for my novice level. I got frustrated and blamed the instrument instead of the circumstances.

Years later, on my own, I picked it up again and started much more simply. '50s doo-wop, R&B, delta blues where there's an audible bass groove but not so meedly-meedly as a metal lead guitar player's vision of what bass should sound like in a prog-metal band (just because I might look like John Myung doesn't mean I am John Myung!). I got through several songs and got more comfortable and confident, as I'm a goal/results-oriented person. I needed those small victories of being able to play through recognizable songs.

Eventually, I grew to appreciate the sound and role of bass and especially how little things from the bass alone can dramatically shift the feel of a song. And I got back together with the guys from that previous band in a different project, except now, I'm going to play the bass as me, not as a clone of my lead guitar player.

I had more confidence in myself and how I play. And my guitar player let me be me. Although that didn't stop him from trying to sneak in a couple of lead runs in what I was playing. But this time, I was much more receptive to those ideas and we actually had fun with it instead of getting mad at each other.

I'm still a guitar player but I think of myself more as "a bass player who also happens to play guitar."

I like the instrument because of its historical underestimation, now that I understand and appreciate it much more than when I first started out. I resented it in the beginning. Not anymore.
 
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