What was your “lightbulb moment” for realizing that all you need is bass?
I’m thinking a particular song, and I know how hard it is to narrow it down. But I think I can pinpoint the one that opened my eyes and made me notice bass tracks a lot more., to the point of being here.
“Heartbreaker” by Led Zeppelin and the kick(b)ass John Paul Jones.
Owners of the lonely hearts, Yes.
The main riff is pretty simple but it took me quite sometime to learn and transcribe that song. Not til 30+ years later I found out that I missed a few more notes when I played that on Rocksmith, lol.
That one song laid the foundation to the player I am today and approach to get down and figuring out the notes one by one.
Around the same time my mentor was obsessed with Jaco and he showed me a few songs, it just went pass me. I had no idea what I was listening too. Not till a decade later I could appreciate his music, lol.
100,000 Years by Kiss (from “Kiss Alive”) My 13 year old self was hooked.
Enter Sandman at the moment
Honestly, I don’t have “this song”… I think that my biggest influence to learn any stringed instrument was Tony Iommi, who is a guitarist and not a bass player.
But if I could pick a song that in my head is how a bass should sound I would say this exact song and this exact version:
youtube.com/watch?v=JJtQwtKFw9I
Yes, Starship Troopers, the Wuerm movement, when I realized that the counter melody was the bass.
I’m learning that too!
The part in Enter Sandman where you’re down on the E string and 1/2/3 frets then the chorus frets/notes-- practicing this song has made it easier to pick up the bit in Tom Sawyer that starts before the “What you say about his company” line.
The Stranglers Nice and Sleazy followed closely by The Jam Down in the Tube Station at Midnight
always loved bass but what got me to start playing is joe dart on ‘dean town’ by vulfpeck.
Iron Maiden, Genghis Khan or Wrathchild… can’t really choose which one.
The person who made me think ‘man playing bass looks fun’ was French House producer Fred Falke. I’ve always loved French House music; Daft Punk etc but when I heard the song ‘808 at Beach’ that Bass line is just killer. I stumbled across a video of him playing live on top of him DJing and thought. I should really learn bass because that looks awesome.
I still play that bass line as a warm up sometimes and it continues to make me smile.
I even used it to compare the sounds of my P Bass with my Kala U Bass. The U Bass sounds crazy good for its size.
Not my usual choice of music but Duran Duran’s ‘Save A Prayer’. John Taylor doesn’t get the recognition he deserves as a great bassist.
Second choice would be Foreigner’s ‘Inside Information’ and that is a bass line that I’ll either learn or die trying. I’ve only done six lessons of B2B, so I guess I’ll have to wait a little while.
Seems like a nice guy too. Doing his own Youtube thing on Duran Duran’s channel.
I can’t say that it was one song.
I always knew I wanted to play an instrument. I tried a metric ton of different ones, guitar included. At one point I realized that when I hum a song, it’s the bassline I’m humming. That was when I realized I needed to play bass.
