Why Bass? (What's your origin story?)

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It pretty much came down to the fact that it’s played one note at the time and it’s a root note on mostly 4/4 time how hard can it be, I said to myself. You play a little hook, in my case it was the intro of “Owners of the lonely heart” I started learning to play and by the time I get to the chorus it was too late I was already hooked, lol.

I spent the rest of the last few decades paying for my poor decisions, ha ha.

In all seriousness, it’s can be as simple or as ass kicking as you want it to be and just because you can shred on the guitar and the solos you think you can shred on bass? Think again.

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42

I was watching The Warning on Youtube again and saw a post someone listed about Alejandra. He said the reason she went to a five string bass, was that she had been tuning hers down to match Dani’s voice. She got tired of hearing the strings slapping the fretboard so moved up to the five string. I listen to a lot of rock, classic and metal. I seriously am not impressed with any bassist except Alejandra of the Warning and Geddy Lee from Rush. No one else really makes a bass sing like they do.

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43

I think it’s Sting’s fault, because he played upright bass in “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” or maybe Billy Sheehan, for being melodic. Possibly Bakithi Kumalo when he did that thing in “You Can Call Me Al.” Perhaps Les Claypool and “Kashmir.”

I played violin, and then I didn’t. I would get together with friends who played instruments and sang along with whatever they were playing, but missed playing an instrument myself. I tried playing guitar but ugh.

Someone had suggested bass in my 20s, but I didn’t consider it until my 40s. Then I saw this video on YouTube about bass money notes, which was funny and made me laugh, but also reminded me that bass wasn’t that far from violin, and maybe some skills would transfer over?

In conclusion, I was primed to play bass for decades, but @JoshFossgreen kinda closed the deal.

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44

Long story, so I’ll paraphrase. After a public humiliation by a music teacher at the age of 8, i hated music. Wouldn’t touch an instrument for anyone. Really didn’t even listen to music until my late 20’s

I was always a traveling worker, living in hotels. Lots of alone time. So i just became a workaholic and chased money.

My 50th birthday was mid-pandemic. I was lucky, i got to work all of it. Electricians were considered essential personnel- but the lockdown still really affected me.

My whole adult life I’ve been talking care of a family, never really did anything just for me-so i asked myself if i did something totally selfish, just for me-what would it be.

I had been watching @JoshFossgreen on YouTube because he’s dead funny. So Three days later had an Unbranded p bass from Amazon, a cheap 10w practice amp and bassbuzz.

Ive never looked back. And my only regret is i didn’t do it decades ago.

Being here with all of you has been a really great experience for me. I can play that thing now-not well, but i can play.
And i do-at least an hour a day every day.

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45

Loved this. I’m really glad you did this great thing for yourself, my friend.

Life is a winding path, and we don’t get to have a reverse gear on our journey. So be very glad you picked up a bass along the way, regardless of when in your life it was. Now it’ll be your faithful traveling companion, bringing joy wherever you go.

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46

It’s like they have to take a required class in this or something.

I did luck out and loved my grade school music teacher though, she was great and hooked me in to music. So the later experiences were easier to weather :rofl:

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47

Thank you @MikeC . I’m off the road now. 20 years of being a hotel dweller was enough. So ive got my family here, and my girl. But my basses have a prominent display factor, and if i got more than 15 minutes free I’m easy to find. Just follow the thumping noises😜

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48

I think maybe when i talked about this a couple years ago you were one of the many here who was very kindly supportive about it, @Howard.

There are so many great people here, and a bunch of really interesting stories.

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49

So many moons ago, I was married to a guitar god named Quintin. He decided to buy me a bass for my birthday in 2010. Shortly after, I got home, hearing TOOL’s Schism playing, but only the bass line. What the heck? Behold, the guitar god picked up my bass (for the first time) and played it like a pro (natural talent). I was livid. Bass was supposed to be my thing. So, I decided not to pick up the bass.

Car accident happened. Gods depart. Broke both of my hands. Dexterity 40%.

Fast forward 12 years.

My friend walks into my office and tells me how she started playing the acoustic guitar and that it might be good rehab for my hand. Well, now that you mention it, I still own this bass guitar from way back when. Mmmmm. My friend should have been a motivational speaker because the next thing I knew, my bass was pimped and a-ready for some playing… upside down and left-hand (remember ther 40% dexterity).

So, here I am today. Slowly but surely, I am working my way through the lessons (upside down is a B****). Happy as can be… always thinking of Schism when I start a session.

Homage to the gods. :metal:

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50

That’s great, @Odious! Keep up the hard work. It’s worth it. :clap::clap:

I taught myself guitar when I was 14. Then I lost my fingertips on my fretting hand due to an accident when I was 16. I immediately launched into re-teaching myself to play guitar, then bass followed. Since then, I’ve learned to play piano, sax and flute. Literally anything is possible with hard work and time.

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51

Glad you picked up that bass, @Odious . i had an industrial accident 25 years ago where the index and middle fingertips on my right hand were crushed.

While i didn’t lose them, they healed misshapen and there is literally no feeling. I get the lack of dexterity, i can’t pick up coins with that hand-which is great… Y’know Just on account I’m right-handed.

This was one more reason i didn’t ever try to play. Because you can’t fail if you don’t participate, right? I mean, if I’m not going to be able to do it, why try?

Why? Because bass is just f56÷in groovy.
That’s really all the answer i needed.

Your story is pretty doggone inspiring, keep making that noise!

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52

Like most here, I started off with another instrument - the piano.

I realized quickly that this was more of my father’s dream to play it rather than my own. I enjoyed it but it wasn’t an instrument that reflected the world around me musically.

My dad told me a story (often) that when I was in my mother’s womb, he’d put speakers up to her stomach while playing Santana.

You might think I would have ended up a guitar player, which I initially was. But I always felt like the guitar faught me. I was drawn to the rhythmic aspect mostly, although everyone expected me to be able to solo.

Like many of us here, whenever I heard music, it was the bass I heard the most and felt the most. That’s what I was able to hum during the day, and definitely what I found most interesting.

I grew up listening to a lot of what I came to learn was Prog Rock/Metal. My family is from Chile and there was a band called Los Jaivas (means The Crabs), and I loved their music. Still do. And the bass was always very clearly upfront. It was this mix of fusion, rock, latin rhythms etc.

I always wanted to be in a band and finally got the chance about 10 years ago. It was a punk band that played mostly covers and because I still had a guitar, that’s what I played.

But I constantly watched and listened to the bass player with envy. We even spoke about gear and tone from the bass perspective.

Life happened, and I had to sell all my gear.

I then moved across the country and once settled I decided to prioritize what my ‘thing’ would be. I knew it’d have to be music and bass had to be it.

It’s been a wild thing playing what you were meant to. I can play for hours and not realize it. I listen to bands and music that I maybe I wouldn’t normally but do so because the bass line is interesting or different. Things feel intuitive now. And I swear, every time I pick it up, it feels like I can do a little more, a little better.

My goals now are to understand music theory and by extension my instrument so that I can come up with my own stuff and also be able to jam when called on.

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53

I sat here for a minute to think of an answer without trying to sound too cliche. So I’ll just ramble on instead like an open book, as I tend to do. When I was a wee girl around 4 I think, my grandmother put me in dance to “learn grace” as I tripped over everything. Didn’t work. But, it did do something. It taught me music, my first love.

I stayed in dance for 12 years, but I still tripped over everything when I wasn’t dancing. The bass lines were my soul in dance. They were my pulse, my moves, my counts and my rhythm. They were movement, and they were life.

I always loved loved the rockers, big fan of the girls and the balls they had to break into the rock n roll clubs. Those are and continue to be my hero’s.

So when I found myself home on medical leave and driving myself crazy with nothing to do I thought, I’m going to do it. I’m just sitting here, I’m doing it.

And in my searches of bassists and how hard this may be and am I too old and are my hands too small and all of the self-limiting doubts we tell ourselves, I stumbled across Suzi Quatro. How in the hell am I 51 years old and I’ve never ever heard of Suzi Quatro?! I bought my bass the same day. And here I am!

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54

:flushed:

She rocks, didn’t she?!

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55

Hmm, guess this topic eluded me, somehow.

Well, I started out when I was about 15-16. An old high school friend was playing guitar and wanted to form a band. He suggested that I should try the bass “as it’s so much easier than guitar”, as he put it.

I was completely self taught, since young dumb me had the idea that classical training would never lead you to do something new. Of course I also completely disregarded that I was extremely average in playing and creativity, but such are the follies of youth…

So my training was playing covers of like “Proud Mary” “Bad moon rising” (to this day I still cannot listen to that song) and “House of…”. The band I had fell apart after a few years, since none of us had a drive to do something more.

After that band, I got into another group with some friends, we even managed to play a gig! I was so nervous, but apart from one mistake, I did fairly well. That lasted about a year. The band leader dissolved the band, reformed without me as the drummer wanted to take up bass, and I was deemed of having “very little chance of making it big”.

By then I was a full-blown metalhead with as close to a drinking problem as I could’ve gotten, and I tried getting a metal band together as I did not want to play anything none metal related. I had two basses. Both entry level, one started to suffer from horrible fret buzz due to a warped neck. The other one broke during a rehearsal and at around 20 years old, I gave up my musical dreams.

After that I got married in an extremely toxic relationship that consisted of getting high just to get by, in life. I still wanted to play music, so mid 30’s I bought Rocksmith and a guitar, since I thought I was a horrible bass player, so maybe it was just not the right instrument. That adventure lasted about a month.

Just before my 40’d birthday, I got divorced. Moved from Denmark, to meet a girl in Luxembourg. Fast forward 7 years.

Youtube algorithms can be a weird thing. There started to pop up bass lessons, from various tutors. I watched many but especially one guy struck me as extremely likeable and more important; could seemingly inspire me to think that just maybe, I could actually learn to play the bass, properly.

My wife (we got married last year) has always had the right mix of being realistic and supportive, and so after a few weeks of contemplating, I asked her what she thought of the idea of maybe advancing my birthday a few weeks, and picking up a cheap bass? First thing she said was “sure, but take lessons”. I then explained about Josh and while she was not convinced about the less than personal approach of an online tutor, she said “try it”.

Now, I’m almost done with the course. It’s taken a few months longer, due to a fire in our house, that left me sidelined for about 3 months where bass was only picked up sporadically. But I’m here, and I feel so very motivated and happy with my progress. Will I ever get back into band? No clue, is it on my mind? Sure. But time will tell.

I’ve always been regretful for ruining parts of my life with the wrong people and addictions, (totally clean since I met my new partner) and always punished myself for giving up playing, but now I have the outlook that I’m just happy that I am playing.

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56

We are the sum of our experiences, they make us who we are, and congratulations on getting clean!

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57

Thanks mate, and I am trying to use my past mistakes as positive as I can.

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58

When I listen to music, I always vibe with the bass, so I thought: Yolo. Let’s learn how to play the bass. :metal:
But one week after starting the BassBuzz lessons I already started thinking about joining a band. :joy: I would really love to be on stage and jam with others. That would make me extremely happy.
Perhaps one day… :hearts:

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59

My love of music

I have a long history of listening, dancing to and generally partying to music
My grandfather gave me my first turntable (a red Philips portable suitcase record player, yeah!) when I was six, and gave me loads of used 45’s singles every month (he was in the jukebox business - think: “Wurlitzer”). He was a great guy!
So by the age of 12 I had thousands and thousands of singles, got into soul, then disco and funk, in the 80s punk and new wave, industrial, EBM, new beat, then acid, goa, jungle, and finally all flavours of techno and house music. Now the electronic scene became unbearable boring, but that’s another topic…
I always liked bass, since I was a child and especially when I got my first Yamaha NS1000M monitors and a proper amp (must have been 12/13 then), but I went more and more into electronic sounds (my revelation came with “Are friends electric” by Gary Numan). And less and less in stuff with somebody singing.

“Playing” instruments

In terms of instruments, I must have been tortured by playing the d#mn flute as a child, as this was a thing in Dutch schools back then.
Fortunately, my mind has successfully repressed that memory! Flutes are terrorism against children!!!

Next came the idea of my grandmother: “the boy should play an organ”. So I got a Hohner “Bambi” Organ. I hated it! The sound was whimsical, it looked sh#tty. I TRULY AND UTTERLY hated it. Of course the next idea was: “The boy should play some Christmas songs by December!”. I did what every boy would do: disassemble the organ to see how it works, and that was that. I had killed Bambi!

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Then came the saxophone. I was on a one year hitch hiking trip and ended up in Budapest one day. Saw a saxophone in an old shop, bought it, squatted at a house with some Hungarian punks that had a band. Made some noises for their new tape, hitchhiked home and sold the damn thing. Never got a decent tone out of it – but it was good enough for punk :blush:
But I like the thought that there is a tape, somewhere in this world, where I “play” the saxophone…

Fast forward, I was deep in the underground electro scene and thought: hey, I can do that. So I purchased a synthesizer and a 309 (303 and 909 clone). Played around with it, failed (except for one track that my dopie friends played for hours after parties. You know why…).
Sold it to a crazy guy that ended up in the loonie bin shortly after. I hope this was a case of correlation, not causality.

So my playtime on musical instruments must have been about 10 days, all in all. To keep things simple, I always say: “Never played an instrument before, except the triangle…”.
I wish I had!

Finally, discovered the bass. Again, this was one of my spontaneous purchases. Saw an article about a special offer, liked the design of the ESP Ltd B-4E NS, purchased it and … did not know what to do when it arrived. I failed with trying to find out how the bass works by myself, got bored by “Bass for Dummies”, hated most of those loud and obnoxious videos by bass “teachers” on YouTube, until I stumbled over @JoshFossgreen .
He has almost this great legendary kind of humor that us Dutch possess and his didactical approach made sense to me.
So I got into B2B, with work/covid related interruptions, discovered Rocksmith and then ToneLib and never looked back.
Josh gave me the tools to play, Rocksmith/ToneLib gives me the songs to play along. I truly enjoy playing and I wish I could go back in time to tell my grandmother to get me a bass instead of the organ!

My life has changed for the better since I play bass…

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60

Yes….hard.

And, not so hard…

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