From bass to guitar

[Kevin Dean]

As I play bass in my band , I've got a friend who plays bass very well & is willing to give the guitar a go in my band ,he has a great voice & ear & just thinking how long it may take him to learn the parts never having played guitar before .we are doing stuff like The Stranglers , The Cure, The Killers , Boomtown Rats, & the keyboard player said he's willing to help out on the solo stuff ? just wondering if anyone else has swapped instruments in this way ?

[Lozz196]

Well I started out on bass, then a year later picked up the guitar. It didn`t take me that long to get the rhythm going, due to already playing bass. So in this respect, he has an advantage, as a lot of guitarists I`ve worked with don`t have good time-keeping, but your mate will already have this. So long as you keep to basic rhythm stuff it shouldn`t be a problem, but playing lead and singing requires a bit of work, having done it (def out of my comfort zone).

[Rustyhornpipe]

Don't expect him to learn some of the killers stuff too quickly, Mr Brightside intro riff etc is seriously tricky. He is a very underestimated guitarist.

I agree that bass to rhythm is fairly smooth but some tricky picking across all 6 strings with changing unusual chord is difficult.

Fortunately the stuff you want to do doesn't have face melting solos in it.

Good luck with it.

Edited February 23, 2013 by Rustyhornpipe

[xilddx]

Guitarists get a very hard time on Basschat and it is very unfair. It's actually a very difficult instrument to play well and with a meaningful level of expression. Much harder than bass.

Don't underestimate how hard guitar can be to learn properly. Hopefully his experience on bass will help. 'Giving the guitar a go' sounds like underestimation But he sounds like he's a musical guy so he should be able to bypass the theoretical stuff and unlock the fretboard more quickly than a beginner.

[Roger2611]

I went almost exclusively from bass to guitar about 4 years ago, for a while it's great as your playing comes on really quickly, I have learnt some of the stuff you mentioned and with a lot of practice it is not that hard to become a competent guitarist especially rythym based, however your friend may find quite quickly that he is having to work so much harder when playing the guitar, it doesn't flow like playing the bass and the enjoyment is not the same.

We were forced to release our first bass player last year and I stood in on bass for a couple of months whilst his replacement got up to speed (I had been asked to do it full time but didn't actually realise at the time just how much I wasn't enjoying playing the guitar) I ended up quiting the band late last year as when I went back onto guitar it really brought home how much more I enjoyed playing bass, anyway to cut to the chase the current bass player anounced he was leaving a couple of weeks ago the band rang and asked if I would stand in again I said no but I will come back as your full time bassist, set up to speed and enthusiasm set to gas mak 10 again.

So yes the transition can be made and with practice fairly comfortably but behind the public face the desire to return to bass may well scratch away

[Kevin Dean]

[quote name='Rustyhornpipe' timestamp='1361648473' post='1988860']
Don't expect him to learn some of the killers stuff too quickly, Mr Brightside intro riff etc is seriously tricky. He is a very underestimated guitarist.

I agree that bass to rhythm is fairly smooth but some tricky picking across all 6 strings with changing unusual chord is difficult.

Fortunately the stuff you want to do doesn't have face melting solos in it.

Good luck with it.
[/quote]
Yes I thought that about the Killers stuff , but we have a great Keyboard player & thinking about getting him to fill in on those parts , It's just that we get on really well with him & he has a great voice /

[risingson]

The way I see it is that if he's been a bass player for a few years and played with a band then you've most likely got a good grasp on harmony and chords. All you have to do is build from the ground up and keep a good sense of space and rhythm, not completely dissimilar to his role as a bassist.

Lead guitar is a completely different instrument to bass, I don't see them as being closely related at all and it admittedly takes years of concentration and practice to learn the idiosyncrasies of bends, playing over the G and B strings (which will throw him completely at first as the strings are a major 3rd apart and seem unnatural for a bass player used to playing on strings tuned 4ths apart). Tones really matter as well. I suppose he could work at carbon-copying lead parts to begin with and see where he gets to if he wanted to play the solos.

[Cat Burrito]

I moved onto guitar from bass a few years back and stayed at it for about 3 or 4 years before returning to bass. I think when it comes to experienced musicians too much emphasis is placed on our main instrument. I've worked with lots of players who are not on their main instrument and as long as you practice it usually isn't a problem. I was never an amazing guitarist but in the end I went to a teacher and asked him to help me stop sounding like a bass player when playing guitar - and to his credit he did! It's great being back on bass but I've gigged on mandolin, guitar, dobro, upright bass, harmonica, banjo and bass guitar. I'm not a stunning musician but I will put the time in to ensure I don't embarrass myself publicly too much

[BigRedX]

I've done this twice.

The first time I joined a band as a bass player, however it became obvious after a couple of rehearsals that with the direction the band was going in there was no place for a bass guitarist, but there was room for another synth player. I ended up spending the next 5-6 years playing nothing but keyboards.

The next time was after several years of playing bass in a band both the guitarist and drummer quit. We were able to find an excellent drummer almost immediately, but after nearly a year of auditioning guitarists, I found that I had just about learnt how to play all the guitar parts and it might be worthwhile advertising for a bassist instead. We found a great bassist within a month and I became the band's guitarist for the next 5 years.

I both cases I did already have some ability on the instrument I switched to, but in the case of synths/keyboards it was extremely rudimentary before I joined the band. Switching to guitar was easier since it's what I started on and I've kept up a reasonable level of proficiency simply in order to be able to use it to write songs.

I'm interested mainly in the music and playing instruments is a means to this end. I call myself a bass player because it's the instrument I've spent the longest time playing and the one I'm most comfortable with live, but I'm glad I but in the time to learn some other instruments as well.