How does playing bass help you in your main job?

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I’m leaving this question open-ended as the title suggests.

This is for those of us who have recently started playing the bass or have been playing for a while but don’t do it professionally. Essentially, it’s for anyone who isn’t a musician by trade.

I’m curious to know how playing the bass has influenced or continues to influence your main profession, whatever that may be, or what impact you hope it will have.

I’ll type my complete answer once I have one properly formulated, but in essence I discovered my job at work is pretty much the role of the bassist in a band, except it involves diplomatic and communication skills .

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Good question @filipponegroni ,
Don’t know of playing bass helped in my daily job but it has certainly changed it
I work at a large company as a mechanic and instructor for mechanics.
There has always been a sort of race or competition going on to be seen as the better employee in the hope to get a promotion.
This is of course happening everywhere in a working enviroment.
Since playing bass I decided to drop out of that “race”
Of course I still do my job to the best of my ability but I’m not going to do a lot more extra to please the management.
Thank you very much, I don’t want that promotion, it’s a lot of extra work for a little more money.
I much rather put that energy in being a better bass player
My ambitions have shifted from a professional level to a personal one :grin:

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After several years of stress due to work… that resulted with me having 2/3 trips to the emergency and permanent medication, I was told I needed to find a way to relax to avoid having to spend some days at the hospital again.

New stressful weeks came(most of the team on vacations and me doing the job of 3/4 + being interim leader)… I grabbed a very old bass I have (20y old Behringer) and tried playing it. It was dead-dead. Electronics, strings, etc. Repair would cost close to 300€… for 400€ I could get a new bass.

Since then… been playing it daily… and playing it after work helps me relax and not be completely stressed the next day. Also… listening to different types of music and focusing on bass / drums helped me sharpen my attention. :slight_smile:

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I started playing bass and got fired. But correlation is not causality, is it?

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Did you play the bass during meetings? @Whying_Dutchman :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Hahaha, well, in fact I really did noodle on the bass during looooooooooooooong & boring video calls. But nobody could hear that and I switched off the camera (or did I? If not, maybe it was cause of the undies :-))

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mhh maybe…

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I’d be interested to hear from people who work with their hands. That’s a part of my job and I feel like my hands have gotten better. Stronger, better dexterity etc., I also have rheumatoid arthritis, and I feel like this has gotten better as well. More flexibility for sure.

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It makes no difference to my actual work, but playing bass gives me something to look forward too for when I’m done for the day. I’m lucky enough now to be in a job that allows me to work from home occasionally, and nothing beats logging out of work, and picking up my bass :slight_smile:

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Darn it.
I had a great answer for this.

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It’s made my middle finger stronger

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as a professional art & design educator, as well as an artist, i would argue that a core component of my job is to be “actively curious.”

bass is good thing to be actively curious about.

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My bass lives in the same room as my work from home setup. So on my WFH days, there has been more than one occasion where I just pick up the bass in the middle of a work day. No logging out, just walk to the other side of the desk and pick up the instrument for a few minutes.

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It gave me a way to pass the boredom by stalking this forum all day long lol.

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Your CEO was a guitarist.

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From what I heared, I think he rather enjoyed playing his flute :slight_smile:

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Same kind of onanism…

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Now I’m curious…

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Playing music in general is my relaxation. I mainly play guitar, then bass and finger drumming.

The only real connection to my computer based job is that I sometimes share something I’ve recorded with my team.

Although given I do some programming and data work, maybe the need to recognise patterns, sequences and relationships has some crossover in the :brain:.

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I’m “in between” jobs right now but after working in a really toxic place for 7 years…
Music is now my healer. Sometimes it even feels like a job. The biggest thing I’ve learned is to just let go of, looking backwards, harsh personal critiques, rumination, perfectionism, stiffness, nerves, negativity, laziness.

I also have really bad ADHD (probably why I post here so much, sorry) but playing Bass requires nothing but my focus. I think its been training my brain to think differently.

All of these things are great when holding my bass but in real life when I’m in a situation I just think, “What would I do if I were playing bass right now”. Then I pull my pants up and keep going (ok that came out weird but I’m leaving it).

I’m so thankful to Josh and this community. It sounds cheesy but if I didn’t have this positive hobby and people in my life I’d be going through some personal hell right now.

Things aren’t perfect but things are really good in spite of it all. Thanks again Bass Buddies!

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