Bass Guitar

Play bass is going to be a hobby of soon! Well, I still have to learn, but lessons are coming soon-ish also and I'm pretty psyched! Any bass players out there who'd love to tell me how awesome and epic playing bass is and give me any advice? (:

I'd also just love having this conversation with someone...

Person: "So, you play any instruments?"
Me: "Yeah, I do actually."
Person: "Oh yeah? What?"
Me: " I BE SLAPPIN' DA BASS, MON."

... silly 'I Love You, Man' reference.... (:

I play bass! :D

I play! cant know (fucking parents)

Playing bass is amazing! I've been playing for 5 months and I honestly love it! I prefer finger bass though to any other :3

Been going for around two years now
I get professional lessons with a tutor in school, but it’s the real serious stuff (scales, arpeggios and a whole lot of improvisation lessons). I actually can’t play bass properly with a plectrum, even though that’s what most people seem to use. It’s way too fiddly and I end up plucking the wrong strings, so finger bass is definitely the best to learn. My slap bass is sadly a failure, so I can’t make many good jokes

The best tip I can think of is just to shut yourself in your room when you’re at a decent enough stage of playing, then put your music on shuffle and try to find the basslines. I’ve never been taught to do that, but I do it a lot and it really helps you make your own songs. I’d say you should really go for it, since I basically just threw myself in and tried to become as good a player as possible, and it’s the most fun I’ve had in a long time

Another tip for anyone wanting to become a bass player - I recently started learning the guitar too. Not as a serious instrument, but it helps harden the skin on your fingers more than a bass guitar does (I’ve been getting blisters over blisters for two years and they haven’t been going away) so playing is a whole lot easier.

I started playing bass for about a year and a half now. I haven't gotten pretty far, if I say so myself, but I have seen a lot of improvement over the interval of time.

I guess my one tip would be to keep at practicing because you may get frustrated a lot, like me.
But if you strive to succeed, then eventually you'll be very well at playing it :)

Also, it's good to try and strengthen your fingers because the strings are a lot thicker than regular guitars and it may take more effort to hold them down at the neck.

Ive been playing bass for five months and it is my life. But honestly, finger bass is the easiest to start with and learn. Slap bass is some serious shit. That requires A LOT of skill and A LOT of practice. Ive tried and I fail. So I just stick with the BVB instead of the RHCP. (If you havent heard Red Hot Chili Peppers' bass then DO IT. It will blow your mind.)

I love my Kramer Focus 420s. Shes a beauty with amazing sound. Yep, bass is definitely the best instrument. Hands down.

I've been playing bass for round about two-ish years. Bass is probably the most insanely amazing instrument out there! Professional lessons are the way to go - my teacher is really versatile in what he teaches so I know everything from scales (they suck, but you need them), to theory and how to play slap, tapping and all other fabulous unknown things.

Most people have said this, but start with fingering!! I started with that, and it makes slap and popping all that much easier! Practice is a bitch, and also your best friend. Also, do as much musically as you can! It doesn't matter whether it be bass related or not! For me, I play in a concert jazz band, my own band, school auditioned vocal class, an auditioned choir, another choir and I hop around on the circuit in town.

One last tip - don't buy a bass because it's cheap or looks pretty. Test it out. If it sounds good and is cheap or pretty, great! I have a yamaha rbx, which is good for beginners but you need to really know it to make a good sound -_- but it was only 500, so I'm not complaining!

Either way, I've rattled on for long enough! Have fun playing bass, my friend!

I've got a bass, but I haven't learned a whole lot with it yet. My friend (who is a damn beast at bass and other instruments) helped teach me some basics and some relatively easy basslines. The coolest thing I can do is the bassline for Fall Out Boy's "Dance, Dance". I've tried learning others, but for some reason I have trouble retaining them. I probably definitely need to practice more.

I play bass too!
I play guitar and piano through lessons at school and since my school has an amazing music program (bass', guitars, two pianos, two drum sets, about 30 djembes and 30 keyboard. Full-fledged music studio, stage, two designated music classrooms and a practice room... Amazing teachers. You get the gist...) I was able to have a go at playing bass as well as drums.
Since I first had a go at bass, about 4 months ago, I've learned quite a few things. I can only really do fingering and I finally got my technique right but I can play quite a few songs. I can play some All Time Low songs, Muse songs and just random bits of songs by random bands, haha. The first song I learned though was 'Zombie' by The Cranberries and then 'Seven Nation Army' by The White Stripes.

I was actually teaching myself bass. I think it was Brain Stew that I could play and Dance, Dance that I was learning. I also had the beginning of Crazy Train down. Of course I gave up on that too....

(I know I responded to this already, but I didn't really say anything, lol)

I've been playing bass for about 12 years now. I have two basses, but my Musicman HH Stingray 4 in Pacific Burst (with matching headstock) is by far my favorite. I can play a lot of things, but I spend most of my time practicing songs by my own band and writing new things. Though I have learned a few things lately, including "The Legacy" by BVB (it's got a bass solo so I had to, lol), "You Gotta Die For Your Government" by Anti Flag, and "This Stray Heart" by Green Day. I had tried the AF song YEARS ago and had a terrible time mastering it, so the fact that I've now got it basically perfect and picked it up rather quickly this time around made me happy. Also, some of the newer songs of my band's that we had yet to play live I was still struggling through the last time we had practiced (which has been wayyyy too long), but now those are super easy too (that probably sounds ridiculous since I wrote it, but sometimes I like to write things that are more challenging to force myself to get better, especially if it's something I know I have some time to practice before playing it live. I don't go super over the top, but I might have to put a few extra days of individual practice on such a baseline before mastering it, whereas most of the songs it's just a matter of memorizing it).

You can check out my band here: Facebook.com/shatterthecurse ... it hasn't been updated much in years, but it gives you the general idea, just doesn't have any of the new songs I was talking about up or anything.

Finally, some fellow bassists!
I've been playing for a bit, and I'll tell you this; playing slap or with a pick is slightly easier than your fingers.

Synyster Vengance:

Finally, some fellow bassists!
I've been playing for a bit, and I'll tell you this; playing slap or with a pick is slightly easier than your fingers.

I'm pretty crap at slap and playing with my fingers. I learned to play with a pick and most days I wish I had learned with my fingers or slap style so that it wouldn't be so difficult to transition to nowadays. It seems like it'd be easier to just go back and play with a pick; if you've played guitar before, especially.

@ faster.
I started with my fingers, but I've got really awkward hands so I started playing slap and using a pick.

Synyster Vengance:

@ faster.
I started with my fingers, but I've got really awkward hands so I started playing slap and using a pick.

That's cool that you can play so many different ways. It definitely gives you a wider range of possibilities when it comes to writing different styles or using different techniques. Slap definitely gives a completely different sound than using a pick or your fingers the "normal" way (if that's what you wanna call it, lol), and I really really like the sound of it. and It looks cool when people play that way, for some reason, lol. I wish I could! I'll have to practice up and maybe I'll master it someday. Though I have been using a pick for 12 years, there's always room to learn new things :D

@ faster.
KoRn has a song with really good slap in it. It's around the middle of the song, but it's a good part if you want to learn slap.

Synyster Vengance:

@ faster.
KoRn has a song with really good slap in it. It's around the middle of the song, but it's a good part if you want to learn slap.

Do you know the name of it? I did learn "Undisclosed Desires" by Muse, that's the one song i can (or could, at least... I haven't played it in a while and would have to look up the second half of the tab, lol) slap, but it'd be nice to have another easy one to try to get the hang of it.

@ faster.
It's on their 'Follow the Leader' album, I think it's the title track. I'll check later and make sure.