Why Did You Start Playing Bass?
Quick answer? I don't know but there is always a demand for bass players.
Although, I'm sure my reasons for choosing to play bass are pretty typical, what does make someone start playing bass?
I did not grow up thinking, "I'm gonna play bass" nor did my parents send me to stand-up bass
or cello lessons. I grew up listening to my older sister's top 40 and Motown/Stax records.
That coupled with seeing the Rolling Stones, Beatles then Hendrix fired me up to learn guitar.
And learn I did while subjecting my mother to countless hours of discordant sounds.
Got into a band. 4 guys ages 12-13 years old with no more than one years total playing experience between us.
I seriously, though naively, thought we were freaking awesome and should be signed immediately.
That group disbanded and I searched for another band to join. It seems every band I checked out had guitar
players that were light years ahead of me in skills or they just needed a bass player. *Light bulb on* Bass, that's the ticket!
I improvised seeing how I had little to no money and only a beat up Sears Silvertone guitar.
I went to the guitar store and asked if I could put bass strings on my Silvertone guitar. After the clerk got off the floor
and finished laughing, he said no. But, he was kind enough to sale me the fattest gauge guitar strings he had.
I showed up to a my next band audition with an instrument that was way ahead of it's time; the (faux)6-string bass.
I had convinced them, after much protest, that it was indeed just as deep sounding as any regular bass and
easier to play(all right, so it was only half true) but I got the gig.
I eventually saved up $47.00 and bought a brand new Bass. In the late '60's Radio Shack sold guitars and basses.
That is what they sold for new $47.00, not $470.00. And yes, they were God-awful pieces of crap but I had no idea.
A few years later I got a Framus F hole bass then went completely legit with a pre-CBS P-bass.
I am currently in a Motown/Stax cover band playing bass using a G&L ASAT.
I still play guitar, acoustic/electric, in a small combo doing pop and jazz standards which is fun also.
Playing bass is just something that I seemed destined to do but nothing I ever planned on doing.
Although, I'm sure my reasons for choosing to play bass are pretty typical, what does make someone start playing bass?
I did not grow up thinking, "I'm gonna play bass" nor did my parents send me to stand-up bass
or cello lessons. I grew up listening to my older sister's top 40 and Motown/Stax records.
That coupled with seeing the Rolling Stones, Beatles then Hendrix fired me up to learn guitar.
And learn I did while subjecting my mother to countless hours of discordant sounds.
Got into a band. 4 guys ages 12-13 years old with no more than one years total playing experience between us.
I seriously, though naively, thought we were freaking awesome and should be signed immediately.
That group disbanded and I searched for another band to join. It seems every band I checked out had guitar
players that were light years ahead of me in skills or they just needed a bass player. *Light bulb on* Bass, that's the ticket!
I improvised seeing how I had little to no money and only a beat up Sears Silvertone guitar.
I went to the guitar store and asked if I could put bass strings on my Silvertone guitar. After the clerk got off the floor
and finished laughing, he said no. But, he was kind enough to sale me the fattest gauge guitar strings he had.
I showed up to a my next band audition with an instrument that was way ahead of it's time; the (faux)6-string bass.
I had convinced them, after much protest, that it was indeed just as deep sounding as any regular bass and
easier to play(all right, so it was only half true) but I got the gig.
I eventually saved up $47.00 and bought a brand new Bass. In the late '60's Radio Shack sold guitars and basses.
That is what they sold for new $47.00, not $470.00. And yes, they were God-awful pieces of crap but I had no idea.
A few years later I got a Framus F hole bass then went completely legit with a pre-CBS P-bass.
I am currently in a Motown/Stax cover band playing bass using a G&L ASAT.
I still play guitar, acoustic/electric, in a small combo doing pop and jazz standards which is fun also.
Playing bass is just something that I seemed destined to do but nothing I ever planned on doing.
Responses to This Article
-
Permalink Reply by kevin swain on -
I started out playing guitar, but then I heard The Who's "Live at Leeds". I heard the bass solo on My Generation and knew I wanted to make that sound. So that was that. Started with a Hofner Verithin semi-acoustic, I have owned Fenders and RIckenbackers and various custom instruments, but always come back to my metalneck Kramer 350B,whichI have had since 1977
-
Vox/GuitarPermalink Reply by Colin Gillman on -
I bought a cheap bass to make my home demos sound better. Then I joined my first band. I ended up on the bass by default - I owned one. The first time I plugged it into a backline I was hooked. Then I learned to lock onto the drummer. Oh yeah - that's what they are there for! But I knew I had to stop. I wanted to be a guitarist more than a bassist. Maybe one day I'll learn to play it much better than my one string Sid Vicious stylings.
-
Permalink Reply by Ad on -
Hello all.
I beleive I'm quite rare. I started as a bass player. I knew I wanted to be in a band and the decider for me back in 1977 was the intro on the Stranglers single 'Hanging Around' where the bass comes in last and dominates the whole song sounding like Thors rusty hammer did it for me.
I've been ripping off that sound for years :)
I can play a little guitar but I started on bass and never wanted to play anything else in a band.
Fender Precisions all the way for me. Can't be doing with actives and anything with more than 4 strings. I rarely use more than 3 anyway!
-
Permalink Reply by Bomber Graham on -
I started off learning to play the cello in 1976 aged 11, (the choices for learning an instrument at school in those days was either brass, percussion or strings,) and always ended up playing it like an oversized bass! Once punk rock started to make its mark, i convincd my parents to buy me a bass and amp, mainly because all my mates wanted to be jimmy page, and i always want to be different from the norm! Now, 33yrs later, i have two Ibanez basses (an old RDGR Roadgear, and a new BTB) which hook up through two Ashdown bass cabs (about 700 watts combined). There have been so many bands, so many songs and so many laughs that i could probably write a book, but i'm not going to.
-
Permalink Reply by Bob Adams on
-
I was playing guitar very badly in my own band way back in ' 72, working on Hendrix, Tony Joe White,John Mayall etc, you get the picture. Never did any gigs, but one session we swapped instruments for a laugh, and I picked up the bass. Instantly I knew this was my instrument, it felt right! Coupla months later, the guy whose bass it was gave me a call about a band he was joining as a drummer, and asked if I wanted to play bass as he knew how Ifelt. I never looked back and I've been a bassist ever since, my love of those big low notes has never faded. 37 years later and still gigging I'm very happy to say. Feel very lucky 'cause a lot of people out there would love to get into a band, but it ain't easy to get gigging when you're over 50. I reckon the guys who buy Harleys are of the same mind too. A red hot blues player I know calls 'em LADDS- Laywers Accountants Doctors Dentists and Solicitors who were too busy in their teens and early twenties to live the dream. I was a biker as well as a bassist, Triumphs and BSAs rock! This why I'm a poor truckie and not a professional man Ha! Ha! Keep on tryin' and Rock Strong!
-
BassPermalink Reply by Mark McKendrick on -
Yep.... I'm with Ad. It was always about the bass for me. But you know, even when we were kids, with the soul records that me sister Jane and cousin Barb were bringing into the house.... I don't know why, I always locked on to the bass. Seemed to be the same with everything from the Beatles records to the John Mayall records and everything else. It just went from there. Obviously that was in the sixties, but it's been the bass ever since. I didn't get me first six string guitar until about twelve years ago. I still don't feel like the frustrated guitarist. Although it's been great for working stuff out, and I've even done a couple of college gigs playing guitar, it'll always be the bass with me.
-
Permalink Reply by Olly Hibble on -
Many years ago I was a budding guitarist with dreams of johnny Ramones low strung six string menace, sex, drugs and rock n roll. But events conspired against me and a better guitarist was in the band, we were 13! So I dutyifulkly picked up the drummers older brothers battered fender copy and began thumping out basslines. Since this time I have been addicted to the bass, drawing influence from Lemmy, Jack Bruce, Jaco Pastorius, Geddy Lee, Pino Paladino et al, also have been a student, albeit from afar, of session players especially Guy Pratt and worship dutyifully at the alter of the mighty Phil Lesh (Having been twicwe to SF to see Phil and Friends.
There is no reason for my picking up the bass other than i was desparate to be in a band and realised that my six string prowess was not as I thought it was!
Since this time I have played, jammed and sold my way through many bands and have come to comfortably rest within a local three piece called fallen angels. We paly a loose and improvised sound based on the classic rock and psychedelia of the seventies and eighties.
-
BassPermalink Reply by Matt Russell on -
I started playing quite late, although I was taught classical guitar by a grumpy old greek when I was 10 (I learned NOTHING!!) and there was always an old acoustic laying around at Mum & Dads (the family story goes that Uncle John won it in a card game when on National Service in Aden but it was never explained why Uncle John didn't have it)
I was 18 or 19 before I started playing guitar with any kind of serious intent. The friend I smoked the most dope with, named Blubs, was selling his Avon acoustic to buy an electric so i gave him £20 for it. I struggled with the blighter, never being totally comfortable with the hippy acoustic thing but happy to play along with Blub's electric through a haze of Red Leb. I found that I couldn't play either open B or F (I still can't) so........
A friend called Nigel (a rather brave mod who hung around with us rough tough speed snorting, acid dropping, dope smoking biker types and who remained in the crowd even after having left his prize possession (an old fishtail parka) under the table in the pub found that somebody (not I) had scribbled Motorhead in indellible felt pen on the back) was selling a Kay precision copy for £5, it had 3 strings and a soft case, I had my 'moment of clarity' and bought it.
Why bass? I guess it goes back to when I bought Live at Leeds and played it religiously on my mono wooden box only to find out years later when Mum & Dad bought a 'stereo' that only one channel of my box record player had ever been wired up!! I'd just been listening to John Entwhistle!! The bands I'd really liked over the previous few years all have prominent bass players in, The Who, The Stranglers (In The Shadows made my jaw drop!!), Motorhead (natch!!) and even Gillan (in hindsight an understandably much maligned band but who had the figure of John McCoy playing bass who made a fair old racket) so in hindsight there was a rather deep thread that held all those bands together.
I never went down the Geddy Lee, Jaco, Mark King, Mingus road. I feel that a bass players job is to hold the whole thing together and be able to fill that void when singers stop singing and guitarists go into solos (you all know the void I mean) and these days I reckon I do a pretty good job. I'm always told that I'm too loud by every band I've ever been in but I've always thought that I should stand about 6 feet in front of my bass amp and if I could feel the open E on the backs of my legs, then it was about right.
I've always been happiest playing in bands with just one guitarist (one ego is usually enough) I've never felt like a frustrated lead guitarist, i've never learned any scales (just picked them up through happy coincidence).
I'm thoroughly happy thrashing through stuff in my current band, The Outbursts, come on down and see us sometime
Currently playing a Japanese Fender Mustang through a Sansamp Bass-DI into a Trace Elliot GP7 300w into 2x15's. It works for me (although I am looking at the new Orange Bass Terrors with a lustful glint in my eye!!)
Cheers
Matt the Bass
The Outbursts
-
Bass/VoxPermalink Reply by Barry Simmons on -
I suppose I was destined to play bass. My granddad was a double bass player, as well as a pianist, drummer, conductor and instrument repairer. My dad played double and electric bass, my elder brother played bass. What else could i do! Bass guitars were littered around the house when I was growing up. Only problem, I was left handed and they were all right handed. So I learnt right handed, to this day the only thing I do right handed! I suppose McCartney was my first hero. I bought a hofner violin bass for £20, had to pick it up from a guy outside elephant & castle tube. Loved that bass. I stripped the varnish off and coated it with a clear lacquer, gave it a really distinctive sound. I listened to my elder brothers records, John Mayall, Graham Bond, Cream, Hendrix etc, I started getting into many bass players. Jack Bruce, Entwhistle, Andy Fraser, Louis Cennamo, John Paul Jones.
The first thing I learnt to play was 'Keep On Running' by Spencer Davis Group. Many years later I worked for CBS Records. The head of A&R was a certain Muff Winwood who played that bass line. I got to know him well but never mentioned it to him.
I've been playing bass on and off for 42 years now. Currently have precision, jazz, Michael Kelly, accoustic, curt corbow and a mongrel that I put together in the 70's fender body, neck unknown, pick up and bridge made by my dad.
What make playing bass great? It's that low end solid feel when your finger pulls on a big boy string and the sound vibrates through your feet. None of that jingly jangly guitar nonsense.
-
Permalink Reply by Tim Corbett on -
I was in my prime, well early 50’s, and doing the vocals and Blues Harp in a band. My middle son, bless him, announced that he wanted to play Bass (never played anything up to this point), I was delighted. Anyway I bought him a Burns Bison Bass and a 50w bass combo. He bought the books and the audio tapes, remember them?, and practiced for at least 3 hours! Total. He then announced that his fingers were getting blistered and he couldn’t see how anyone would enjoy playing something that hurt – WHAT!. The Bass and the amplifier then took up residence in his wardrobe where it lived for the next six months. As Christmas came around I wondered what the kids might get ‘dear old Dad’ I needn’t have worried - you guessed it – I got the Bass and amp back, very nicely wrapped I might add.
Being atightcareful with money old git, according to ‘her in doors’, I wasn’t about to sell the Bass and amp at a loss so decided I’d learn to play it. I discovered that I could, with a lot of practice, play it and BONUS could still sing. So I have my Son to thank for me taking up Bass – I love that boy and really enjoy being able to play.
-
Permalink Reply by Paul Santilli on -
when I first thought about playing something, I reckoned my fingers were too fat for 6 strings, so it was 4 for me. But the rhythm is in my blood, and I like the feel of the bass sound. So I am a bass player and could not think to play anything else (apart from finger drumming the table and annoying people)
-
Permalink Reply by Chris Cleland on
-
When I was at school in the '70's, learning to play the recorder and to read music was compulsory. Out of that I played saxophone, then clarinet for a while and did one concert with the school orchestra before giving it up to allow me to focus on competitive swimming! (a slight change in direction there then!) I only mention this because these early try-outs with musical instruments probably gave me the confidence to take up bass later on, but other than that, I'm sorry to say that I couldn't read music now to save my life!
Before I got into listening to rock/pop music seriously in my mid-teens, I can honestly say I'd no real concept of what a bass guitar was or what it sounded like. The turning point was hearing bass guitar (and hearing it described as such) on Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells album. From that moment on I loved the sound of bass and would tend to focus on what the bass was doing in any music I was listening to - I still do. To me, the bass is the power behind music that drives it along.
I've never played guitar. My cousin did and a main memory of that was that he often seemed to be breaking strings. I immediately wrote that off as far too much hassle!
It was only when at 19 I went away to Polytechnic that I met up with 3 guys all of whom played guitar. At this point I got seriously into rock music and pretty soon bought my first bass - a short-scale, plywood-bodied unbranded, approximation of a Fender Precision. The pickup was broken, so being handy with electrics I re-wound it by hand and had the thing in working order.
My first proper bass came in 1983 - a great time to be a newbie bassist, as bass suddenly came to the fore in a lot of contemporary music - none more so than in the hands of Mark King in Level 42.
ROCK-TIL-YOU-DROP is a free online community, searchable registry & collaborative info. resource for older musicians, bands & industry
Groups/Pages
NEW MEMBERS PLEASE NOTE:
New members, please join the appropriate regional GROUP (above), or start a new regional group if you are outside the UK & Ireland. Also join any other GROUP/PAGES that might help you connect with others.
If you have joined as an individual, and you are also in a band, you can either:
a) start a PAGE for it like this
b) sign up again using your band's email address, and create new member's page for your band, like this. See USER TIPS for more details.
Top Content
Badge
Please donate to the annual running cost of this site
Tutorial Videos/User Tips
How to use the Venues and Studios (Info/Feedback) pages
Created by Toby Burton Dec 27, 2011 at 10:07pm. Last updated by Toby Burton Feb 4.
The Music Player On Your Profile Page
Created by Toby Burton May 5, 2011 at 7:42pm. Last updated by Toby Burton May 5, 2011.
How to create a page for your band on this site
Created by Toby Burton Nov 6, 2010 at 10:42am. Last updated by Toby Burton Jan 29.
Using the 'Groups' on this site
Created by Toby Burton Aug 8, 2010 at 5:07pm. Last updated by Toby Burton Jan 29.
Personal Pages
Created by Toby Burton Oct 30, 2009 at 9:42pm. Last updated by Toby Burton Jan 29.
© 2012 Created by Toby Burton.
Powered by
