3 Things That Inspired You To Play Bass?

[Chiliwailer]

Ok, Gents, Girlies and Space Chicks....what made you play the bass?

To get the ball rolling:

1) A love of rhythm and not being allowed a drum kit
2) My two best mates just got electric guitars
3) HERE'S HONESTY FOR YOU.....I thought it'd be easier than guitar as it's only got 4 strings!
Little did I know that as while it's a relatively easy instrument to pick up, it's as hard as any to master!

So glad I never got that drum kit.....

Edited June 15, 2013 by Chiliwailer

[Geek99]

1. The sound - when I realised what it was.
2. The fact it was bigger and less fiddly-I never could remember many chords
3. Listening to "under a blood red sky" where Adam clayton is way up in the mix and realising that's where the power is

Edited June 15, 2013 by Geek99

[neepheid]

Cream/Jack Bruce
Bass looked nicer to me than guitar.
I was idly wandering around town and just decided on impulse to buy a bass. Not joking. I had no playing aspirations, I had no friends who were players of instruments. Because of the random nature of this motivation it was an ornament for about 5 years.

To this day I have no idea why I bought that Epiphone EB-3 (other than I thought it looked nice). The EB-3 turned out to be just about everything I didn't want in a bass but I'm glad that it all came together in the end.

Edited June 15, 2013 by neepheid

[BigRedX]

1. Music - in particular that of Slade, The Sweet and T.Rex

2. The idea that being a musician and in a band would make me more interesting to girls (something that hasn't really worked for me)

3. Nothing else.

[RockfordStone]

1 - everyone else played guitar, and i wanted to be unique
2 - had just read martin kemps autobiography
3 - the bass line in "duck and run" by 3 doors down

[Horizontalste]

1. Love for music and basslines in particular

2. Fed up of Dj'ing in sweaty nightclub's

3. To drown out the sound of the wife/kid's

[xgsjx]

For me it was:

1. Basslines. I played keys for quite a few years before & the guitar 1 year before picking up the bass & my favourite bit of a song is the bassline.

2. I could fire up my drum machine, have the sequencer play the keys & I could play bass along with it.

3. It's just so satisfying to play a good groove & get folk dancing.

[Bigjas]

1 - Our band needed a bass player.

2 - I have always enjoyed listening to the bass parts in songs.

3 - Norman Watt Roy

Jas

[kevin_lindsay]

1 - Jean Jacques Burnel's bass on the track "Peaches". I heard it and thought, ooh, that's really cool.

2 - Sting with The Police. I saw him on TV and thought "bass sounds great, and he looks cool".

3- my brother pkayed 6 string (after he decided to learn on the acoustic I was bought for Christmas when I was around 12, but which I never used), so I decided to pick uo the 4 stringer instead at age 15.

At age 17, I saw The Police live on stage - New Year's Eve 1981, at Edinburgh's Ingliston Exhibition Centre. The bassist in the support band (Jools Holland just after he had left Squeeze to fo his own thing) was an unknown player who blew my mind. The player? Pino Palladino - he changed my whole perception of what a bassist could be.

[Cat Burrito]

1) I always thought the bass player was the coolest one in the bands I liked (a minority view)

2) A lot of TV / Film soundtracks from when I was growing up

3) A lot of people played guitar & were in bands needing a bass player

[CHW]

2 good mates who played guitar.
Drums were too expensive
thought it would be easier than guitar.

I was a bit of a rocker when I started out and bass has given me a love of funk, soul, pop, jazz, folk and most importantly, the groove... Thank you bass

[Coilte]

If a song came on the radio, others would be humming the melody while I always
found myself humming the bass lines. The bass guitar itself (i.e. only four strings, etc)
had nothing to do with it. I just loved the sound and how the bass "fitted in" to the
music.

My early influences regarding bassists would include Jack Bruce, Glenn Cornick
(Jethro Tull), and Peter Cetera on the early "Chicago" albums.

I think from the above, that you can guess my "vintage".

[chris_b]

Best mate had an electric guitar and I had an unplayable acoustic, which had good sounding bass strings.

The Rolling Stones. I just had to get into that world.

John McVie and Duck Dunn fixed it for me.

[fragility]

I have always been fascinated by rhythm, and I always loved the sound of the bass, but started on guitar when I was 13 because it was cheaper, and my friend started playing drums so at the time, it seemed more essential than bass.

A few years later, I taught my now husband to play guitar, and picked up an old bass around the same time, started messing about to accompany him and fell in love (with both him and the bass, haha!). Haven't looked back since

1) Just loving the bass, and thinking its the best instrument
2) Ryan Martinie. That guy still blows my mind, and the start of my obsession with Warwicks, that resulted in me being financially lacking, but the proud owner of my twin Thumbs
3) Seeing the (I now realise rather cheesy) Stu Hamm solo on the satch DVD. When I first started, I was at the stage on guitar where I was progressing a lot technically and here I was, pretty inept at bass, but still not wanting to play boring root notes. That was my first thing I aimed at being able to play

[paul h]

My mate already played guitar.

There was a short scale Satellite in my local second hand shop for £25.

Steve Harris.

[bubinga5]

sorry i only got one that started it all.


Meshell Ndegeocello.

[ezbass]

I wanted to get out and play more (too many guitarists, a great many of whom were and are better than me)

Bass is my favourite instrument to listen to (even when I exclusively played guitar)

Pino

[JapanAxe]

[list=1]
[*]Needed bass on my home recordings.
[*]Fancied a change.
[*]Couldn't stop after that!
[/list]

[steve-bbb]

[steve-bbb]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1371285466' post='2112040']
1. Music - in particular that of Slade, The Sweet and T.Rex

[/quote]

oh yes and this too - electric warrior was my first vinyl LP and i suspect like many others of a similar age the slade sweet t.rex trio was everybody favourite top three

and before any of you 'younger' metal fans out there start sniggering at the the glam pop thing go check out some of sweets b sides

[Skol303]

Honestly? Well at the time, aged 16-17, it was...

1. Being crazy about music (then heavy metal) and wanting to be like my teenage hero, Cliff Burton.

2. The belief it would get me laid.

3. Everyone else played guitar - and bass just sounded 'cooler'.

[Noah Deere]

1) My sister was a bass player when I began to learn guitar - I kept hearing her and thinking how much better the bass sounded than the guitar

2) When I was a kid my dad always used to turn the bass up as high as possible on his stereo and I loved hearing the bass lines like that

3) My sister gave up the bass a few years after I got my guitar and I got the chance to buy all of her equipment for next to nothing (still have it all and use it occasionally)

[krysh]

when I started playing bass [b]again[/b] (after my 1st year in 1982 before I changed to guitar - also here is the [b]1st[/b] thing: my mates started a band and only playing bass was left available) in 2004 the main ([b]2nd[/b]) reason was that a mate of mine who was playing bass in our project became sick and couldn't play anymore. so I took the bass for working on songs myself.
the [b]3rd [/b]reason was that I became tired of playing with bad bassplayers when I joined open mikes. also I discovered that as a bass player you could play much more often there so I really started to rehearse and got some small jobs, too.

so basically it was more a need than an inspiration.

[GuitarTart]

1. Bill Wyman looked sooo cool when I was 16

2. The bass player in my first band was rubbish so I took over and learned on the job
The bassist in my second band years later developed MS so i swapped when he gave up playing

3. I keep getting asked if would [i]mind[/i] playing bass for amateur musical productions. MIND ???

I like playing guitar and drums, but I love laying down a foundation for the rest of the band to build on.

Myk

[Rainbass]

1. I really wanted to be in a band, and my guitar playing was nowhere as good as my 2 mates. Damn those pesky chords... 2. I'd always really liked the sound of Rickenbaker basses (Chris Squire, Bruce Foxton) (though I've never owned or even played one in the 30 years since then!) 3. I'd been to see Weather Report in London and saw Jaco play live and was totally amazed by what the bass could do.