A few months into my bass journey, and I’ve bought a Stratocaster electric guitar to sit alongside my bass. No I’m not converting, but playing bass has made me rediscover my love of music in general and I just wanna play some heavily distorted power chords over the top of some Metal.
I feel like I betrayed Josh. 
There’s a les Paul clone and a drum kit within 20 ft.
sigh*
Guess I’ll hafta play bass about it, on account I’m worse at those than a bass!
I think a lot of us have done that. I recently bought a Schecter Omen Extreme 6 for much the same reason. Not metal specific, though. I also have an e-drum kit and Akai MPK Mini IV keyboard/MIDI controller (as well as the upright piano that I grew up with). Oh! and an Otomotone (mainly for the kid to annoy us)! My wife has a cello and ukulele as well. I’ve thought about getting a trumpet again as I played one in school and my mom gave it to a neighbor kid after I moved out. It’s probably been 30 years since I’ve played one.
My daughter takes guitar lessons at guitar center. While she is doing her lesson I hang out in the bass room and play basses I’ll never invest the money in. Every now and then I’ll pick up a guitar and any time I do I’m reminded that I’ll never be a guitar player. It feels like fretting on the edge of a knife blade.
Same. I’ve heard guitars referred to as cheese slicers, and I get it. I like having one to noodle on but I can’t imagine it ever being my main instrument.
Just as is the case with bass or any other activity that requires physical technique, if attempting to play a guitar results in pain, you’re doing it wrong.
Guitar strings don’t require a ton of pressure to sound notes clearly. Similarly, fretting guitar chords doesn’t require gorilla-level hand muscles.
Beginners often experience discomfort and form fingertip callouses not because either is required to play a guitar (steel or nylon strings). They do these things because they tense up and overexert their fretting hand/fingers well beyond what is necessary to sound notes clearly.
But, as with bass and any other musical instrument, it takes time and accurate information for a beginner to master proper technique and economy of motion.
The fact is that (barring arthritis) longtime guitarists experience no discomfort or thick callouses from playing. This is because they’ve learned the minimal touch required to play.
There’s no great secret to this: it just takes practice.
I may have picked up a poorly set up guitar. Fretting just hard enough to get the string to the fret and I felt it in my fingers for hours afterwards. I’m no guitarist so I don’t know what it should feel like, but the action did feel way to high and the tension was pretty extreme.
My daughter told me I was being a baby, so that remains a possibility also. Either way I’ll stick to my nice fat strings.
Join the club. At least you went with something cool like guitar.
~glances knowingly in accordion~
Weird Al made the accordion cool. You’re good.
Of course! He’s why I started playing back in elementary school. 
Dude. Come on. How can you say this is NOT cool?
Check out the steely glare of the hardcore accordionist as he prepares to lay down the funkiest, most driving, um… accordion line… you’ve… eh… ever. heard.
Ok, you might be right.
I have slipped into the guitar morass a little myself I confess and have a couple.
I find myself gravitating to Marty Swartz for lesson material and got a lifetime membership to his site (fairly cheap).
There are other options out there also.
It is slippery slope this music thing, I learned how to play Amazing Grace on piano last night, and I have never tried to play piano before.
My house is a bit of a musical instrument hot pot.
I got a banjo because I wanted to play Dueling Banjos, about 20 years ago, and noodled on that for a long time.
I have made cigar box guitars and banjos.
When my son started playing sax at school I got back into trumpet.
I have a didgeridoo I can make noise on, and I used to play bagpipes and a bit of fiddle.
Soooooo, embrace the noise and explore the sounds.
I have a guitar as well (actually two since I just bought a new one a few months ago). Once you learn bass, guitar should be easy to pick up.
…
I play didgeridoo as well. 
Haha, I just tried the darkside too. Went with a Harley Benton SC-500 white. Thought learning guitar chords might badger me into learning more music theory.
Spent 2 weeks in frustration not able to figure out why it didn’t sound right. Was trying to figure out why the buffy theme pick scrape wasn’t working either and playing with the amp I eventually noticed that the light next to the gain button wasn’t on…that was odd…I pressed said button and the issue was resolved.
I feel like an absolute dumbass
The upside was that for 2 weeks switching to my bass was a salve for my soul because it actually sounded like I wanted it to.
I feel the same way. Of course, I’m a G&L fanboy, so I would probably get an ASAT or maybe a Legacy
Yeah. I have a whole heap of electric and acoustic guitars which I’ve played for many years. The last 2 years I’ve only been playing bass but just recently I bought Dominic Millers book on solo finger style Beatles songs for acoustic….. can do both 
I think that doing Josh’s course has made me a better musician so there’s no betrayal because we are all there to make music.
Just a thought that we should all be boycotting Fender instruments until they stop the ridiculous legal action against other guitar makers.
I think that if you have something worth protecting, you should protect it. If that means taking action against other manufacturers, then you should take action.
What really weakens Fender’s position is that people have been making Stratocaster clones for… YEARS without action from Fender. That could be taken as legal acceptance of the practice; you can’t un-ring a bell or put the genie back in the bottle. That they let it happen could be taken as implied permission.
So yeah, kinda shitty for Fender to throw a legal fit NOW.
~shrug~
Please note that I am not a lawyer. I did deal with lawyers a lot, though, when I was running my own company and had to deal with IP issues. What’s stated above is my understanding of what my lawyers told me at the time.
