Bass Guitar. why does noone want to play?

Discussion in 'Art & Culture' started by Captain_Crunch, Jul 2, 2002.

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  1. Guyute

    Guyute Senior Member Registered Senior Member

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    916
    Music is evolving everyday. Bass is being used more, and more frequentally. Unless you can predict the future dont be so quick in your assumptions..........(never say never)anything is possible.
    Sorry if i am sounding rude.

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    Guyute, Jul 3, 2003
    #41

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  3. AWC

    AWC Registered Member

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    JOHANNsebastianbach
    It was very ignorant to say that guitarists can easily learn bass parts but it is much harder for bassists to learn guitar parts. Of course, if a part is easy enough, then anyone can learn easily learn it, but the same is true for guitar. Bass and guitar are less similar than you may think, and guitarists are by no means more talented than bassists.

    Also, there was no reason to respond to guyute's comment so harshly. It is not necessarily a ridiculous comment. Besides, it's his opinion and you should accept it. I don't personally think that the bass will be the most popular instrument, but many people are choosing bass or drums over guitar because so many people play guitar.

    You seem to have a bad attitude. Just chill.
     
    AWC, Jul 3, 2003
    #42

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  5. Skulls

    Skulls Registered Member

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    I play bass!

    I have recently started playing Bass Guitar and have learned two songs so far. I still need help with tuning the thing and i need to get more song tabs to continue playing. So Bass playing is not a dying art cause i know many other ppl who play bass.
     
    Skulls, Jul 3, 2003
    #43

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  7. mars2112

    mars2112 trailrunner Registered Senior Member

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    greatest bassist? GEDDY LEE of course!
     
    mars2112, Jul 3, 2003
    #44
  8. AWC

    AWC Registered Member

    Messages:
    6
    Great Bassists

    I agree that Geddy Lee is awesome, but I do not think he is the greatest. In my opinion, Jaco Pastorius is the greatest bassist.

    Some other great bassists are Stu Hamm, Victor Wooten, and Marcus Miller. Check them out.
     
    AWC, Jul 4, 2003
    #45
  9. Wrong Robot

    Wrong Robot Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    116
    Jaco certainly was brilliant, I just picked up the album Portrait of Jaco:the Early years, daaaamn that cat must have been born to play, such a true musician in every sense of the word.

    Yeah I'm a bassist, It's what I do.

    Here is a clip of me playing "chromatic fantasy" by J.S. bach, Jaco was the first bassist to play this piece on electric.

    www.xaqtly.com/Fantasy.mp3

    My home on the internet
    www.talkbass.com

    Great bassists?

    Donald Duck dunn, James Jamerson, Alphonso johnson, Jaco Pastorius, Marcus Miller, Victor Wooten, Stu hamm, Michael Manring, Colin greenwood, Paul Mcartney, Randy Tico, Steve Lawson, Stanley Clarke, Marshall Hawkins, Ray Brown, Paul Chambers....ah the list goes on and on and on and on and on....too many to name

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    Last edited: Jul 6, 2003
    Wrong Robot, Jul 4, 2003
    #46
  10. Wrong Robot

    Wrong Robot Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    116

    you can get a fine drum kit for 400-500 dollars, that's not THAT expensive, then if you are serious about it, you upgrade it every oppurtunity you have, new cymbals, heads, stands, drums pedals...etc.

    my friend did this, he got a cheap pearl kit(like the cheapest one) and then spent the next 5 months upgrading it as he needed, now he has a totally awesome kit, built from that pearl.

    I was a drummer before I became a bassist, I had a 300 dollar drum kit, and I could still practice and learn just fine.
     
    Wrong Robot, Jul 4, 2003
    #47
  11. Wrong Robot

    Wrong Robot Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    116
    I disagree, I think that in the right hands, the bass is a formidable solo instrument, the harmonic and tonal possiblities are near endless. To hear some truly mind bending solo bass music check out:
    Michael Manring @
    www.manthing.com

    if you join his newsletter and get access to "the stash" check out the song "music for armchair funambulists" it will surely make your jaw feel a lot heavier, and likely hit the ground.

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    that's not even to mention extended range basses, 7 string and more, there is certainly a huge huge huge world of possiblities.

    I personally am striving to be a solo bassist, so I take this matter fairly seriously, I mean don't get me wrong, I want to play in a band, but I also want to be able to explore all the instrument has to offer on the side, and believe it, there is a lot this beast can do.
     
    Wrong Robot, Jul 4, 2003
    #48
  12. AWC

    AWC Registered Member

    Messages:
    6
    Response to Wrong Robot's Greatest Bassists Post

    It is nice to see someone else on this message board who has heard to some great jazz bassists.

    You say that Jaco must have been born to play bass. I agree that fate must have brought him there. He started out as a drummer, but took up bass when he broke his wrist.
     
    AWC, Jul 5, 2003
    #49
  13. josrey

    josrey Registered Member

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    1
    Bass

    I PLAY BASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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    josrey, Jul 26, 2009
    #50
  14. PieAreSquared

    PieAreSquared Woo is resistant to reason Registered Senior Member

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    2,144
    PieAreSquared, Jul 26, 2009
    #51
  15. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    Hmm... I don't know how I missed this thread when it started, but I've been a bass guitarist for about 35 years.

    I've always been into music, picking out melodies to pop songs on a glockenspiel when I was eight and singing in school choruses, choirs and plays. Then in the 7th grade I was in the flutophone band--I suppose that should be Flutophone with a trademark symbol, a plastic recorder. The summer after my sophomore year in high school I talked my parents into buying me a cheap steel-string acoustic guitar. Rock and roll was just becoming popular but there were still plenty of old-fashioned pop songs that were easier to play, and I liked country music then (the 1950s, its heyday) and those songs were even easier. I was a guitar-pickin' folksinger for about twenty years; never really very good but our role model was Bob Dylan so you didn't have to be very good as long as you had good songs, and there were lots of good songs.

    Bear in mind that in the 1950s nobody aspired to be a bassist. With low-fidelity recordings you could barely hear it, so nobody was trying to invent interesting bass lines. It wasn't until rock started to take off that people were even playing bass guitars, rather than the bass viol.

    But John Entwistle came along, IMO the first virtuoso bassist who played with a big-name band, making us all conscious of the potential of the bass guitar when home and car stereos sounded like concert halls. I'd always had an ear for music theory and structure, so I found bass lines fascinating, especially as they became more substantial. If the British Invasion was rock and roll's adolescence, Progressive Rock was it's adulthood; rock songs became so rich and complex that even the bass parts were sometimes overwhelming. Dave Pegg of Fairport Convention and later Jethro Tull, Chris Squire of Yes, and Jon Camp of Renaissance were inspirations, but the man who planted the idea in my head that I might have been born to be a bassist is John Wetton, who played with Roxy Music and the supergroup UK as well as many other bands. His long solo that ends Bryan Ferry's "Love Me Madly Again" practically steals the show.

    By this time I had a serious guitar, a Martin dreadnought twelve-string, an axe you don't really have to be very good to get good sounds out of. But one day in a music store I spotted a Mosrite bass guitar with the Ventures signature logo on it, the iconoclastic instrumental rock band who played one of my favorite songs in high school, "Walk Don't Run," and is often given at least partial credit for inventing Surf Music even though they were from Seattle where nobody surfs. As if under its own power the axe was suddenly in my hands and I discovered that I was, indeed, born to play it.

    I still have it, my one and only bass. And I've totally lost my guitar calluses, at least to the point that I can't take the killing pressure of a twelve-string.

    The people who are complaining about bassists only vamping 4/4 beats must not have been around in the 1970s when a lot of songs were not in 4/4. Rush liked to play in time signatures that you couldn't possibly tap your foot too. And remember Devo's "Jocko Homo" in 7/4? I play Alice in Chains' "Man in the Box," not an easy bass part to master. Also Velvet Revolver's "Slither," Stone Temple Pilots' "Plush" and the Eagles' "Hotel California," all difficult songs.

    But mostly I've played in original-music bands. Some of the songs are simple and easy, but some are as hard as Stone Temple Pilots. I don't do a lot of 4/4 vamping. And with original songs I get to write my own bass lines and add to the group's creativity.
     
    Fraggle Rocker, Jul 31, 2009
    #52
  16. visceral_instinct

    visceral_instinct Monkey see, monkey denigrate Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,913
    I play the bass.

    I enjoy the feeling of pulling at thick, tense metal strings.

    I also love listening to bass for its own sake. I love bass solos in songs.
     
    visceral_instinct, Jul 31, 2009
    #53
  17. parmalee

    parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,270
    Ah, but you neglect to mention the late Hugh Hopper with Soft Machine, John Greaves (Henry Cow), Uli Trepte (Guru Guru), and Peter Giles on the second King Crimson album...

    I often assume the role of faux bassist with the bass keys on my Farfisa organ channeled through a separate output. With a scale of only one octave, I typically use the "simplicity is the mother of invention" approach.
     
    parmalee, Aug 1, 2009
    #54
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