Of all things bass related, what are you most embarrassed about?

[Paul S]

On 19/08/2019 at 00:31, paul_c2 said:

Hmmm.....2nd most embarrassing would be endlessly playing root and fifth for hundreds and hundreds of bars, while others are playing something really difficult, fast, awkward, melodic etc etc

 

That's all I have ever done 😄

I wish I could naturally move around in a way that looks cool.  Instead I look like someone just plugged me into the mains, my head starts jerking around oddly and I pull faces.  I also hum the bassline as I play it so need to keep well away from any mics until the moment cames for me to utter something into it.

[Guest oZZma]

I have always played by ear and never had to interact with another melodic instrument (I have only played with a drummer). So...

- I have to "calculate" the notes position on the fretboard. I can't remember them readily.

- Let alone scales. 

I learned "something" about this stuff at the beginning, but I forgot it.

 

[Woodinblack]

That bit when you are playing a repetitive bassline that is the same almost all the way through the song, like billie jean or something, and then suddenly 3 minutes into the song after hundreds of repetitions, your fingers suddenly completely forget what they are supposed to be doing.

[Guest oZZma]

23 hours ago, ped said:

When someone asks me to ‘play something’

This one makes me feel annoyed rather than embarassed. 

[mangotango]

When coming back to bass after a long time off, and realizing that although I'd confidently told the band leader, to get things moving, "I'll play bass for you until you find someone", it rapidly became apparent that my bass knowledge was three and a half decades out of date...that there are all these new hotshot players out there now,  of whom I'd never heard...and that I really wasn't very good anymore.

Plus all I had was a Squier Bronco Bass that went out of tune up the neck and I had no amp that was anywhere near loud/good enough to rehearse, let alone gig at any point.

In other words, I had talked a good game up to that point, but walking it was going to be something else. (Walking Bass pun 100% intended).

In the end, I borrowed some decent gear and in the couple of weeks I had available, worked my fingers off just to be merely bad enough to stumble through the first rehearsal with my hair on fire. But by comparison with the others, who were ready to go...I knew that I needed to pull up my socks pretty rapidly.

 

Oh yes, and I too have done the "no lead in the bass" thing before today.  But only once.

[Sibob]

"Do you want to jam"?

No, no I don't.
Do I want to write and/or record some music with you? Sure, possibly. But to pointlessly 'jam' for hours? 🤮

Si

[Woodinblack]

10 minutes ago, Sibob said:

"Do you want to jam"?

No, no I don't.
Do I want to write and/or record some music with you? Sure, possibly. But to pointlessly 'jam' for hours? 🤮

As in, "Do you want to play the same three notes for 2 hours while we play a series of uninspired pentatonic runs that we have copied from a hendrix song?"

[Unknown_User]

• I'm pretty bad at learning songs by ear
• I'm not great at plucking with my fingers so use a plectrum
• I can't play slap bass at all (and have very minimal desire to learn)
• I'm not great at improvising
• My musical knowledge is pretty thin in that I can't read staves and there's probably gaping fundamental gaps in my knowledge of theory

On the plus side, apart from slap bass I'm markedly better now at the rest of them than I was a year ago.

 

[Rich]

On 19/08/2019 at 00:31, paul_c2 said:

But the most embarrassing is making my audience endure a bass solo.

Yup, same here. I'm strictly engine-room. I'll leave the soloing to the folks who properly know how to do it. 

Also, I wish I found it easier to run about a bit on stage. Not necessarily throwing massive shapes or doing a Wilco, but more than I currently do, which isn't much.

Edited August 20, 2019 by Rich