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If you could wind back the clock and....


GreeneKing

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If you could go back in time musically and, knowing what you do now would bass be your choice of instrument?

I was thinking that I am probably more naturally a drummer. It's not realistic now but looking back I'm probably better suited to being behind the kit.

 

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I took up bass after damaging my arm, leaving me with no feeling in 2 fingers and limited feeling in my thumb.  I was struggling badly with the guitar after that - I could pick and strum so could do the basic stuff, but the more advanced finger picking that I'd taken years to master was no beyond me, which was very dispiriting.

So on Mrs Bassfingers advice I turned to bass, where 33% less strings means less real estate for my working digits to cover, so, with practice, I'm hoping to be a better bass player than I ca  be a guitar player these days.  It looms like it might work.

So if I knew then what I know now I'd cut out the middle man and go straight to bass.  Having said that, I'm probably the better bass player because of my knowledge of other instruments, so I guess I can't give a firm answer.

Edited by Bassfinger
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I don't think I would  change my mind.

Started out in 1966 with a 2nd hand Futurama Duo guitar (Christmas Present).

Tried a friend's Hofner bass guitar in September 1968 and loved it.

I'm now 67, still playing bass guitar and still loving it.

Chris

 

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As a kid I started out playing piano with lessons etc, but back then the music being taught didn’t grab me. Then I discovered guitar, first on an acoustic my gran bought me back from a holiday in Spain and then on to electric at age 12 or thereabouts. All through my teens I didn’t realise that what I really should have been doing was playing bass though, and it wasn’t until my late 20’s that I decided to be a bassist. Whilst I love the piano and guitar, I do wish I’d graduated to the bass at an earlier age. I also aspire to be a better pianist and guitarist too though, although for me bass will always be my number one.

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Bass from the word go (see (or rather hear) 14 seconds into Hanging Around by The Stranglers), I have a couple of guitars, more for faffing, and as I'm right-handed and left-footed, drums are...interesting.

Still bass. 🙂

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8 minutes ago, Chezz55 said:

I don't think I would  change my mind.

Started out in 1966 with a 2nd hand Futurama Duo guitar (Christmas Present).

Tried a friend's Hofner bass guitar in September 1968 and loved it.

I'm now 67, still playing bass guitar and still loving it.

Chris

 

Just wondering where in NE Essex you are Chezz. We're a similar age and I hail from NE Essex.

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29 minutes ago, grandad said:

If I could turn back the clock I wouldn't have waited until I was 50+ years old before I took to playing an instrument.

 

12 minutes ago, GreeneKing said:

Me too, although I was only just over 40.

 

I played piano (badly) and guitar (very badly) as a teenager. I sang bass in various choirs (although I've always been a baritone) and would routinely sing along with the bassline of the big hits of the day - especially All Right Now by Free.

Gave it all up when I was about 22 ... no great loss.

Picked up a bass guitar for the first time on my 49th birthday (it had been bought for my teenaged daughter but she never played it) and I've never looked back.

I grew up on Guernsey. Bass guitars were a rarity and I never even touched one until I moved to London in the mid-70s. Maybe things could have been different, then?

Well, maybe. I remember sharing a flat with a bass player and it took both of us to get his bass rig up and down the stairs. I always was a lazy s.o.b.

 

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I would love to be able to play sax. Back in the 80s everyone seemed to include a sax part 'middle eight' by Michael Brecker. Remember the then ground-breaking video Candy by Cameo using multi layering? That sax solo by Michael Brecker and the way he played the song out was nice. 

Maybe I'll have a poke around cash converters?

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Focusing only on fretless bass, that would be my point.

Even if I started on guitar when I was 16 years old (a crappy ekectric with a crappy amp paid the equivalent of 150 Euros with the little money I saved over the years), I've always been in love with that boomy lovely melodic sound I heard on records and mentioned as Fretless bass, which to me was a brand name back then. After my studies, so at the age of 22 years old, I bought my first real fretted bass with my first salary, then a few months later I had an Aria Diamond (Violin shape) defretted by Christophe LEDUC and started my journey in the fretless world messing with other instruments too.

Now, I'm 54 and discovered the ERB 8 strings fretless bass that I really love as fretless is my thing.

So, except focusing on the fretless bass only, just maybe having an official paper for my knowledge of the theory of music (but I can still do it).

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If I could wind the clock back, I'd wind it even further and take up bass sooner in life, and I'd probably have played more guitar too
Also, I would have kept playing all those 25 years where I "gave up" playing - and just kept my hand in

Then again, I'd probably only go back to last week.... with this weeks' lottery numbers ;)

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14 minutes ago, Marc S said:

If I could wind the clock back, I'd wind it even further and take up bass sooner in life, 

Likewise. In fact, I switched from guitar to bass in the early ‘80s but then someone asked me play guitar in a new project, so I went back again (of course the band only lasted a short while 😠) and was then back in the 6 six string groove. I only really committed to bass at the turn of the century. Who knows what would be different if I’d stuck with it from the get go? Also, I would have liked to had the confidence to sing more back then, as it seems I actually have a half decent singing voice these days. However, I did make the change and I do sing now, so I should be content, after all, I could’ve never have done either.

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Depending on how far back the clock could be wound, I'd either want to have gone directly for the bass in my 20s rather than mucking about on the guitar first, or if it could be 10 years earlier than that, double bass rather than violin at school (allowing me to drop the double bass in favour of electric later on, but with some useful skills).

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