End of my Rope

[Geek99]

On 14/05/2021 at 20:40, Passinwind said:

The ones I've known and played with all made their peace with it many years ago and mostly seem to keep their mouths shut and have a great time. As a long time professional sound mixer I've certainly had to come to grips with lousy mixes in bands I've worked in, but we all have issues. 😎

 

Note also that some others will accommodate you a little, and so you need not be perfect - my timing is imperfect and I tend to push the beat a little 

 

I had a bass teacher and he’d play guitar along. We did “stand by me”; I thought he was stretching his own timing to fit me (the learner) and became progressively more self-conscious and eventually stalled. He asked why I’d stopped when I was actually doing well 

[Killed_by_Death]

35 minutes ago, Dood said:

it sounds like you need some 1-2-1 with a patient understanding teacher who knows their stuff.

The most renowned instructor in the area is guitar-specific, but I took some lessons with him & he didn't even notice that I was tone-deaf. IIRC I called it quits after about 6 weeks, it seemed like I was just wasting money. It's me however, because other guys in the area would come back from lessons beaming so brightly that they'd be posting about it on FB & exclaiming their lessons are going so well.

Bass instructors are almost non-existent around here, unless you want to play washtub bass in a Bluegrass band, LOL!

Anyway, after years of going it alone I realized I simply cannot keep up with the tempo most of the time. I had this same problem with being slow when I was learning Martial Arts as a child.

I'd get my behind handed to me in every match, because I just don't have the reflexes. You'd think it wouldn't matter with bass, if you know the arrangement, but even still, too slow!

When I had the epiphany again it was an old Black Sabbath song, I thought if I can't play basic Heavy Metal, what good am I?

In between all that was the physical limitations, tennis-elbow & back pain. I finally got The Most Comfortable instrument I ever owned & that's when I finally realized I'm just not cut out for playing bass.

There were no more excuses for not spending time playing, & the more time I spent trying, the more frustrated I became.

 

35 minutes ago, Dood said:

I hope that you are reunited with the joy of playing music.

That's the thing, I don't believe I ever enjoyed playing like you folks do. I read about people playing for hours in a day & I'm a wee bit gobsmacked.

I played for 3 hours one time, after overcoming tennis-elbow. Twenty minutes was my 'enjoying it' limit most of the time, but it can stretch for 45 minutes when we do kara-okay.