"I'll never be able to play like that."

[arthurhenry]

I have never expressed this view upon seeing any bass player play because I fully believe that with the right amount of dedication, persistence and hard work, anyone can play anything that anyone else can play. I hear and read the phrase a lot though. If this is a realistic acknowledgement of lack of time, pressures of everyday life, etc. I understand. However, if it's due to a perceived lack of talent, or the idea that it would be impossible for one to reach a particular standard, I say that's rubbish.

[flyfisher]

I can go along with that.

[BassBus]

I say play to a level you are happy with.

If you feel you could do better, practice.

If you don't mind being a crap player but you enjoy it, what's the problem.

No body should beat themselves up over their playing.

[Dandelion]

I do.

I used to play guitar. I played for a few years. Then my drummer mate purchased a guitar on a whim.

After just a few weeks he way outclassed me.

I have never played guitar since.

[Angel V]

[quote name='Dandelion' timestamp='1379626299' post='2215119']
I do.

I used to play guitar. I played for a few years. Then my drummer mate purchased a guitar on a whim.

After just a few weeks he way outclassed me.

I have never played guitar since.
[/quote]

You should have got a drum kit, practiced day & night and showed him!

Edited September 19, 2013 by Angel V

[Dandelion]

Good point Angel V..Perhaps I should have.

[Lowender]

If it were a matter of who put the most hours in than all old people would be better than all young people and that just isn't so.

The greatest athletes aren't the ones who practiced the most. They all practice a lot. But some are better than others.

Sure, anyone can become capable with enough practice. But then there's also creativity. Some guys with very little technique can be more creative than somebody who can tap and slap 64th notes.

That's my long winded way of saying. "I disagree."

[Lozz196]

With practice I`m sure we can all hit all the right notes/lines. But would we all have the same "feel" in those notes/lines we play. I`ve heard many a guitarist nail all the right notes to the solo in Sweet Child o` Mine by Guns N Roses, yet none of them were remotely near to the feeling that Slash has in his playing. At some point natural ability wins through.

[tedmanzie]

[quote name='arthurhenry' timestamp='1379621863' post='2215049']
[...]I fully believe that with the right amount of dedication, persistence and hard work, anyone can play anything that anyone else can play.[/quote]

This is not true

[edit - I should have said > I do not believe this to be true]

Edited September 20, 2013 by tedmanzie

[flyfisher]

How can you be so sure what the OP believes?

[BobVbass]

[quote name='BassBus' timestamp='1379625555' post='2215103']
I say play to a level you are happy with.

If you feel you could do better, practice.

If you don't mind being a crap player but you enjoy it, what's the problem.

No body should beat themselves up over their playing.
[/quote]

Absolutley - anyone can get better with dedication and practice but if you're happy doing what you're doing then keep doing what you're doing and enjoy it

[SpaceChick]

I frequently beat myself up over my playing.... My slap is weak.... My fast runs are struggling....I can hear dead notes as they should sound but I can't translate that in my playing..... I get cross and frustrated with myself!!

I practice as much as I can with a full time job and home commitments, but if I'm honest with myself, I tend to focus on getting the lines right for the band stuff rather than dedicating time to improving me technique generically, so it's hardly surprising that I'm frustrated with my progress.

However, when people listen to my band recordings, they think we sound professional and tight and that my playing is pretty much spot on.

If I won the lottery tonight, could give up work and could spend all my waking hours bass playing, maybe in 10 years or so I could give Mark King or Pino Palladino or run for their money. However, I reckon I'll settle for being a competent bassist. As long as I can hold my own in whatever band I play in and enjoy it and I don't stuff it up then that's OK for me, as my guitarist isn't Eric Clapton, my keys isn't Elton John and my drummer isn't Ginger Baker! But bring us together and we make good sounding music... And surely that's what really matters!

[steve-bbb]

[quote name='arthurhenry' timestamp='1379621863' post='2215049']
I have never expressed this view upon seeing any bass player play because I fully believe that with the right amount of dedication, persistence and hard work, anyone can play anything that anyone else can play. I hear and read the phrase a lot though. If this is a realistic acknowledgement of lack of time, pressures of everyday life, etc. I understand. However, if it's due to a perceived lack of talent, or the idea that it would be impossible for one to reach a particular standard, I say that's rubbish.
[/quote]

reproducing a phrase mechanically is the easy part - getting the feel and expression is the real trick - if you can do both then you've pretty much totally nailed it

but if you don't manage to nail both aspects then which to aim for...

sloppy awkward looking technique but sounds great or great looking ergonomic efficient technique but with all the expression of a bad 1980s sequencer ?

[chris_b]

If you take away the differences then we should all be the same.

As you can't take away all the differences, we will never all be the same.

If you're trying to restart the "is there such a thing as talent" (of course there is) argument then you're on your own.

[Grangur]

I'm 54 yet I have been playing bass properly for only 3 years. I'm guilty of saying that evil phrase when I've seen videos of a 14 year old kid who's only been playing a year and knocks the socks off me with his apparent skills on a cover version.

I guess I should be more cynical about those 'talents'. After all, he can slap and hit the strings, but does he know the names of the notes he's playing or is it only playing to a tab listing?

Give that kid a drum beat: can he feel the groove and lay down a bass line using his knowledge of scales and modes?

Oh, he can? Damn it! I give up .

Edited September 20, 2013 by Grangur

[Damonjames]

First and foremost "never" is a bloody long time. To the op I side with you, anything can be achieved with enough time and hard work.
To the post about being outclassed on guitar by your drummer, learn from it and don let someone else ruin you love of playing bass. Playing an instrument is no different to any other skill, unfortunately there are some people who are naturally inclined towards it. Usually these talents are picked up early in life and nurtured by our parents/mentors and we continue to improve.
Like most things we do in life, it's an inside (mental) game. What motivates us matters more than anything else. People who can pick up a guitar and play it easily straight away enjoy it and therefore more likely to spend time doing it. If you struggle to pick it up, you are probably going to have to work damn hard and improvement will be slow, therefore more likely to dwell on it and be one discouraged.
Personally I really struggle on bass at times, because I have small hands. But I LOVE playing and want to be an awesome player (currently couldn't be any further from that by the way) so I dedicate time every day to playing and making small improvements. I'm a long way from where I want to be, but at the same time I am a long way from where I started!

[Damonjames]

+1 to the sounding like someone else point. We all have our own voice on an instrument and it is as unique as our voice or fingerprint. Better off to be the best "you" you can be

[Conan]

[quote name='SpaceChick' timestamp='1379664018' post='2215304']
I practice as much as I can with a full time job and home commitments, but if I'm honest with myself, I tend to focus on getting the lines right for the band stuff rather than dedicating time to improving me technique generically, so it's hardly surprising that I'm frustrated with my progress.

If I won the lottery tonight, could give up work and could spend all my waking hours bass playing, maybe in 10 years or so I could give Mark King or Pino Palladino or run for their money. However, I reckon I'll settle for being a competent bassist. . And surely that's what really matters![/quote]

Brilliant post! That's how I feel about it too. When I was in my late teens I had a lot more time on my hands and literally spent 4-5 hours a day playing bass. My fingers blistered and then the blisters burst and bled. I'm no masochist, I just carried on playing because that's what I wanted to do!

I admit that I got to be pretty good. I ripped off lines by Geddy Lee. Mark King, Stanley Clarke, Steve Harris, David Margen... and could play them all pretty convincingly. In every band I played in, people commented upon my skill (which was nice).

Now, with a full-time demanding job, a second wife and three kids - I have different priorities. I still play in bands, but I tend to adopt the "good enough is good enough" approach. I could (and should) spend more time practising, but to what end? I probably enjoy my playing more now, even though technically I am a far worse player than I was 30 years ago!

Do I care? Yes and no. I would like to be a better player, but I just can't justify the time and effort needed to make that happen. I'm OK with that, but it does sometimes frustrate me.

Such is life I guess!

[flyfisher]

[quote name='Conan' timestamp='1379668697' post='2215403']
Do I care? Yes and no. I would like to be a better player, but I just can't justify the time and effort needed to make that happen. I'm OK with that, but it does sometimes frustrate me.

Such is life I guess!
[/quote]

That's my take on it. I know I'll never be as good as I could be (though who knows how good that would actually be?) because I don't spend all my waking hours living, breathing and playing bass. Same reason why I can't play much piano, even though I pretend I'd like to.

I say 'pretend' because although I feel as if I'd like to play keys, the basic fact of the matter is that I've never made any really concerted effort to learn, so I only have myself to blame. It's like people saying 'I wish I could fly a plane' - well yes, but it isn't just going to happen is it, so if they don't put in the effort then they'll never manage it. In other words, these are just idle dreams, where people think something would be nice but not actually worthwhile enough (to them) to put in the required effort and persevere until they've developed the particular skill in question.

I'm competent enough to play bass in a couple of gigging bands but I'm not a great player and never will be because I don't work hard enough at it. It's possible, I suppose, that I [u]never could be[/u] a great player, but I'll never know for sure because I'm not passionate enough to spend all my waking hours practicing.

I guess we all have our own personal effort-reward equilibrium, which doesn't stop us thinking it would be nice to be a bit better than we are but it does stop us putting that extra bit of effort to achieve it. We basically trade off all the various pros and cons (demands on our time for other commitments and interests etc) and find our own comfort level.

So, as mentioned a few times above, the really important thing is to be comfortable about our playing. it's another example of the 'work-life balance' thing.

[discreet]

[quote name='arthurhenry' timestamp='1379621863' post='2215049']
...I fully believe that with the right amount of dedication, persistence and hard work, anyone can play anything that anyone else can play.
[/quote]

I fully believe that, too. But it's coming up with the original idea in the first place which is the trick.

[xilddx]

[quote name='arthurhenry' timestamp='1379621863' post='2215049']
I have never expressed this view upon seeing any bass player play because I fully believe that with the right amount of dedication, persistence and hard work, anyone can play anything that anyone else can play. I hear and read the phrase a lot though. If this is a realistic acknowledgement of lack of time, pressures of everyday life, etc. I understand. However, if it's due to a perceived lack of talent, or the idea that it would be impossible for one to reach a particular standard, I say that's rubbish.
[/quote]

Yes but really, you are only talking about operating the machine, the musical decisions and what makes the musician an individual are what's important. Of course you can learn to play everything Pino did, but to really be like Pino, you have a journey of self-discovery to make so you can be YOU and not Pino. It's fairly straightforward to learn play like someone else, to learn to play like yourself is the really hard part.

[steve-bbb]

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1379672809' post='2215491']
, you have a journey of self-discovery to make so you can be YOU and not Pino
[/quote]

yes definitely this

otherwise you run the risk of sounding like a 12 year old japanese youtube schoolgirl drumming along to la villa strangiato

[Dad3353]

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1379672809' post='2215491']... It's fairly straightforward to learn play like someone else, to learn to play like yourself is the really hard part.
[/quote]

This ^ is the truth. Playing, technically, what anyone else does, whoever they are, is certainly possible, given time and assiduity, but playing what someone else has not yet played is not at all the same. The creation is the hard part, as can be seen by the enormous quantity of wonderful bass lines that beginners can play. 'The Wall'..? Difficult to play..? No. Difficult to come up with in the first place..? Yes (imho, of course...). Speed, technicity, virtuose: vanity, for the most part. Talent..? Inventing the 'killer' line, as simple as pie to play. That's difficult.
(...or, at least, I've not managed it yet..! )

[flyfisher]

I agree with all of that, but I read the OP as being about the playing of music not the composing of it. Two very, very different things.

[4000]

[quote name='arthurhenry' timestamp='1379621863' post='2215049']
I fully believe that with the right amount of dedication, persistence and hard work, anyone can play anything that anyone else can play.
[/quote]

I don't agree. There are all sorts of physical issues that come into it, never mind the mental ones. All people are not created equal. A friend of mine can play certain things on the guitar that I can't simply because he has enormous and incredibly strong hands.

FWIW I think it's a great place to start; I always thought it was self-defeating to say "I can't do that" before you've even tried, but in the same way that it's unlikely that I could beat Usain Bolt over 100 metres whatever training I did, or beat Floyd Mayweather in a boxing match, some things will always be more difficult for some to play than others.