Did you start out playing guitar

[Urban Bassman]

[quote name='RussFM' post='848489' date='May 26 2010, 02:03 PM']Yes, but only for the first few months, and only because I had access to a guitar but not a bass. I still learnt Flea and Timmy C's bass lines on my guitar!

I think learning guitar helps make a better bass player though, if you know the chord shapes your guitarist is playing, it helps you play along with them before your ear has developed.[/quote]

+1 to that

I started on bass wayyyyyyy back when I was 15, then for work and family reasons stopped playing when I was 20. Started learning guitar in 1998 and switched back to bass in 2001, never looked back. My time spent learning to play guitar gave me a real step up when started playing bass again and it's nice to strum a few chords now and then.

[algmusic]

I played guitar before only because my best friend was playing bass when I was a nipper.. I'm glad I played both, I wasn't improving very fast on guitars, so I switched back to drums. I then played drums for a long time and occasionally bass, I got better at bass... Then I started playing alot of bass and alot of drums.. I do both professionally now. I do about 2 gigs every 3 years on guitar (last one 2weeks ago).. but it really helps with your musical awareness.. I'd say the same for the keyboard.

But i've always loved the rhythm section. I think you're see things in one or two ways and that makes you that musician..

The whole guitarist into bass player doesn't work, if you want to be good!!!

[51m0n]

Started on bass

Am utterly hopeless on guitar, could not give a monkeys about that though.

Would love to be able to do more than boom-splat on drums however...

[Earbrass]

Started on piano at <6.
Acoustic guitar at 12(??) (I had initially wanted a bass, but had been talked out of it)
Electric guitar at 14(??)
Bass at 17
Piano Accordion at 48
D/G Melodeon at 49

Never really regarded myself as much of a guitarist - it's a poor third (jointly with PA?) behind piano and bass. I have only ever played in bands (excluding schoolboy "jam-sessions") as a pianist or bassist. Mind you, my guitar playing is brilliant compared to my efforts on the D/G melodeon (an instrument, for those unfamiliar with its quirks, with quite a few notes "missing", and which plays different notes on the same keys depending on whether you're pushing or pulling the bellows!)

Edited May 27, 2010 by Earbrass

[Bilbo]

Started on some bastard child of a guitar (4 nylon strings and two steel) but the first 'proper instrument' I owned was a bass. I now have one bass (double bass on its way) and four guitars.

[TeeFunk]

My story is the old one.

In my early teens I wanted to play an instrument. Drums were out of the question in an apartment building and keyboards were boring. I'm thinking bass, probably mostly because bass guitars looked cooler than guitars. Daddy says, "boy, get yourself a guitar, that's the instrument you can make music with ( )." So I get a guitar and a couple of lessons, learn a couple of ditties.. Until one day, when I picked up a jazz bass hanging on the school wall and plugged it in. Love at first note.

Next day I traded my guitar in for a bass.

[eightball]

started out on guitar - started playing bass (8 years in on guitar) in a band to help them out, and quickly realised i preferred it. from my end, picking up a guitar and getting a usable sound out of it is fairly difficult, however sounding competent/getting good comes quite quickly.

i'd say the opposite is true of bass. folk pick up a bass and think it's nothing more than root notes and less strings (obviously not dood et al!).

a killer bassline/good player can make or break a track/band.

For example - steve harris, flea, fieldy

to use a rugby analogy - there is no point in having the best full back in the world if your pack isn't solid.

[Drudeboy]

From age 12 to 44, guitar. Then a couple of months ago a drummer mate said they needed a bassists in his 70's cheesy covers band, what the hell I said, it's only 4 strings

Now I'm hooked!!!!

[the_skezz]

Would've started off on guitar, but most of my mates were picking it up and I didn't want to be accused of jumping on the bandwagon. Then another mate stated that he was planning on learning bass (two years later and he still hasn't touched it), which seemed like an interesting avenue which I hadn't considered before. The next time I went over to my dad's house, I started playing around with his old bass, he taught me to play Hawkwind's 'Master of the Universe' and offered to help pay for a bass/practise amp of my own if I really wanted to learn to play it.

Nearly two years later and I'm still not really tempted to touch the guitar (though I sometimes fiddle about with one if it's handy) as I enjoy the bass too much. That said, I can do a bit on it, some simple power chord based stuff, a couple of Scorpions and Thin Lizzy riffs, and managed to annoy the guitarist at band practise the other week by being able to get a better sound out of it while playing 'Sunshine of Your Love' than he could (despite him not usually being egotistical about these things, he reckoned he could do better on my bass than I could on his guitar. This proved him wrong )

[fatback]

[quote name='Marvin' post='848746' date='May 26 2010, 05:53 PM']Bass and only bass.
I can play 3 chords on guitar and that's it.[/quote]


beat ya! I can't play even one

[EssentialTension]

1 First, I had a guitar and learnt a few chords.

2 Messed around on another guitar with two strings (high B and E) missing.

3 Found myself in a band as a bassist with a Hofner 185/Artist

4 Learned to play bass.

5 Learned to play guitar.

6 Carried on learning to play bass.

7 These days I hardly ever pick up a guitar (although I can still knock out some rhythm) unless I want to work out the chords to something.

[Lylodile]

No failed guitard here . Started off with cello, and then started bass almost 2 years ago.

[thepurpleblob]

I played orchestral percussion for years and years but was always a bit second rate. Had a crack at the bass in a fit of frustration and haven't looked back. I'm now a second rate bass player (at best) but I enjoy it a lot more.

I had a crack at the guitar a few years ago and just couldn't get the hang of it. My fingers just wouldn't bend into the right shapes. The only real problem is when you ask a guitarist what chord they are playing and they show you the chord shape on the guitar. I'm like, "wait 'till I write those notes down so I can work out what that is"

[deathpanda]

started off with guitar, then started listening to fusion and became obsessed with groove so naturally I switched to bass. not saying all guitarists are like this, but I wasn't really happy jamming with other guitarists, very few really cared about the rhythm and instead always concentrated on filling every empty space with mindless jamming. this is okay in some instances, such as Allan Holdsworth, players like that really care about rhythm/phrasing and melodicism (making words up now) and are a pleasure to listen to, but for the most part, playing the guitar just doesn't turn me on anymore.

if i were ever to go back to the guitar, this is the kind of stuff i would wanna be playing:

[Telebass]

Bass only. I did have a basic acoustic for a bit, and I have one again now, and a classical. They reside in their cases 364/365ths of the year, maybe more...
As soon as I saw one of my then-new-schoolmates playing bass in the 6th form band, it was a Will Smith-Independence Day moment - "I just got to get me one of these!"
41 years later...

Edited May 30, 2010 by Telebass

[Tegs]

I was singer in a band that needed a bass. Still a lead singer and bassist and love doing both. Jack of all trades, master of none......

Recently started taking it seriously though and loving it more and more

[Malc62]

I got serious about them at roughly the same time. I got a cheap electric at 14, but knew the tuning of a bass although I didn't get one until I was 17. As a teenage Stranglers fan I got into the techniques of both Hugh Cornwell and JJ Burnel at the same time; when I got my bass, someone lent me a Chic LP and I got the tchniques of Nile & Nard pretty much at the same rate of learning. I've always kept up both - I'm quite happy to be a jack-of-all-trades and master of none.

Edited May 31, 2010 by Malc62

[Sarah5string]

I had a guitar but I got bored of it very quickly and ended up playing it like a bass. Then I got a bass and never looked back.
I now have both guitar and bass but will always be a bassist.