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Why do you play bass ??
- Thread starter loie1987
- Start date
I wanted to be a drummer but my friends in high school had a band with no bass player. Didn't know anything about it other than it had 4 big strings. I bought a bass and I was in!
I started as a guitar player. And then, one magic and blessed day, I discovered that I was always humming the bass line of a song, and not the guitar chords or solos.
This. Plus i know it sounds like a bumper sticker (it probably is) but... you listen to a guitar or keyboard but you FEEL the bass!
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When starting my first band at age 17 I was going to play guitar and we were looking for a bass player, but then we found a drummer instead - so we shifted our drummer to guitar and me to bass. No looking back since then. I was always in choir as well and have a bass voice so I've gotten really good and picking out the root/fundamental.
Typical story, my buddies wanted to start a band and needed a bass player.
i didn't know what a bass was back then.
30 years later I know.
It's a very powerful instrument and just fun to lock in with a good drummer.
i didn't know what a bass was back then.
30 years later I know.
It's a very powerful instrument and just fun to lock in with a good drummer.
Long story. I started studying classical guitar at 9. By the time I was of high school garage band ageI couldn't make the switch from a 2" wide neck to a skinny electric neck. One of the music teachers recruited me to play URB in the school jazz band and I was hooked. I still play acoustic guitar but I recently built a Telecaster with a wide Warmoth neck so I'm trying to assimilate the idioms and nuance of electric guitar. I'm a better guitarist than some of the guitarists I've played bass with but I wouldn't trade the bass slot for anything.
I started out playing drums in 1st grade, and they are still my main instrument. All of that time, I had been playing along to The Jackson 5, Gladys Knight, Styx, Kansas, Dave Brubeck among others. Along with learning the drum parts, I was always fascinated with the bass parts and how they worked with the drums to create the groove I was trying to copy. My uncle Will played double bass in various jazz groups around town, and would come over and "jam" with me sometimes. The walking bass lines totally fascinated me as I played along with them. The whole time I was also getting into Rush, and started to notice the bass lines as well as the drumming. Finally, Another One Bites the Dust came out, and that was it. I wanted to learn bass too. My mom "talked me out of it", and bought me a guitar instead. I started to learn guitar, but was always focusing on the bass lines of songs instead, and was learning them on the guitar instead of guitar parts. High school comes around, and my friends all form a band, but my best friend Jer wanted to play drums. They needed someone to play bass, and I jumped on it as an excuse to "come back home". The rest is history as they say.
Because we needed a bass and drums more than a third guitar and unlike a bass I can't play drums right handed.
I started on acoustic when I was eleven, playing fingerstyle. When highschool started I chose not to do a music course (I do regret that as I could be so much better now). At 17 I gained an interest in playing music again, and tried drumming, but despite enjoying it's rhythmic qualities, I found I missed playing notes. So I combined the two and took up bass. It took a few years to really take that seriously unfortunatly, and I've only been doing lessons since September. But it's a natural fit for me. And I have always gravitated towards rhythm and groove in music. Bass for life.
Only instrument I've tried that speaks to me. Guitar is okay, I'm not co-ordinated or patient enough for drums. I'd like to learn fiddle or banjo but laziness.
When the aliens first abducted me, I didn't know what their intentions were. They did their various probing and surgical procedures, making me three inches shorter, and thirty four and a half pounds heavier. I figured they were trying to make me a linebacker. Then, they started in with the hair. I had always prided myself on my neatly clipped, clean appearance, but they did some kind of alien mumbo-jumbo, and suddenly I had follicles that would grow immediately back to the insane length they had assigned me whenever cut.
They handed me a Fender Jazz, made me a lunch of ham sandwiches, ginger beer and deep-fried mushrooms in some sort of bitter onion sauce, taught me "God of Thunder" by KISS, and sent me on my way. I still get a ringing in my ears whenever anyone adjusts a radio dial.
They handed me a Fender Jazz, made me a lunch of ham sandwiches, ginger beer and deep-fried mushrooms in some sort of bitter onion sauce, taught me "God of Thunder" by KISS, and sent me on my way. I still get a ringing in my ears whenever anyone adjusts a radio dial.
Because a a good looking bass just looks prettier than any guitar. It just does. Take a pretty guitar. Ooh shiny. Now remove the strings, put a bass neck on it and four strings and some bass pickups. Automatically prettier. It's like dark hair on girls.
freakin' hilarious! Same story here, but replace God OF Thunder with Freewill by Rush...and they implanted (or augmented) the nerd gene as well
I sucked at violin. I sucked at trumpet. And the need for sonic domination is no joke. When the bass stops, everything stops. As Gary Tallent once said, "Nobody knows what I do until I stop doing it."
