Off Topic Am I a bass player?!

[TheBassGuy]

Well, here I am again. I thought by now I've figured it out. Unfortunately not. A few weeks ago I sold my wonderful Sterling bass. I figured out I wanted to focus on guitar more, so I bought a guitar which I really love in both looks, sound and feel (an Axis Super Sport). Next on the agenda was taking guitar lessons for the first time to get some more progression in my playing skill's. As the days went by I started to regret selling the Sterling more and more (On the day I sold it I already felt terrible). Last week (a few days before the first lesson), I thought about the whole bass or guitar question. What do I like? What do I want?

Basically I found out that before I ever played an instrument, I wanted to play bass. That was the reason in the first place to ever buy a bass (The first Stingray I bought). But why did I ever ended up with a guitar about 4 years ago?! Well, thats a long story, but it had something to do with someone giving up to quick and handing over the guitar for me to try.

To be honest, I still like playing guitar, and love to listen to guitar. But playing bass just gave me more energy and is also a lot of fun. The limitation I felt with bass was that if I was ever to take lesson's and wanted to write my own music, I would miss a lot of theory to do so. Also people close to me always suggested to learn guitar instead of bass because "with bass, there is almost nothing possible", and "bass is a dull instrument, learn guitar!" (people always talk me out of starting to learn bass).

The reason for selling my bass (I had both a bass and guitar) was that I switched to often and never really focused on 1 instrument. Considering the arguments and my choice to sell 1 instrument in order to focus completely on guitar made this to be "a step forward in progressing my playing" (so I thought). Well, I've had my first lesson and also told my teacher about the dilemma. She told me that if bass was the first instrument that ever came to mind, I should focus on it, and not guitar. This made me even more confused.

Now I have a brand new basically unplayed Super Sport (which I love), but I'm not excited and happy to finally get some progression in playing an instrument. It just doesn't feel right somehow... Is this because someone made me doubt the choice of picking up guitar lessons, or am I a bass player at hart? The thing with my playing is though, although I like bass more, I suck at rhythm (melody is my main thing). Hmm, confusion!

What are you're thoughts on my dilemma? Should a focus on bass, or guitar? (Both is not an option, I tried that for a year and it sucked for me ).

-edit-

Ofcourse a pic of my new Axis, else it would not exist

 

[Basspro]

Sounds too me like you really want to play bass so i say just go for it.I actually started out on guitar at 12, but i really knew i wanted to be a bassist.
IMO it's great if you can play both, what i learned on guitar gave me the foundation
to switch to the bass easily and i have never looked back.
I still pick up the guitar from time to time, but my soul yearns for playing the bass.
No one else can or should tell you what to play,you need to figure that out for yourself.
Frank

 

[adouglas]

Guitar players are everywhere. Bass players are in demand. Bass is cool.

Don't pay attention to those people giving you "advice." Bass is NOT a "dull instrument" and many, many things are possible. You can take it as far as you want to go.

Bass is what drives the groove.

The groove is what gets people out of their seats and dancing.

The groove is what moves your soul.

When you listen to music, do you pay more attention to the groove or to the showy, hooky parts? If you're listening to the groove, you're gravitating towards the bass.

 

[five7]

Bass is the place!

 

[MK Bass Weed]

Bass Runs The Band....

Ask Sting

Ask Paul

Ask Jaco

Ask _____Your Name Here_____

 

[kompressaur]

unless you've time constraints I dont see how they're mutually exclusive. I went back to playing guitar 6 years ago after a 10 year absence (playing just the bass all that time) and I'm glad I did. I like playing both,one helps with the other imo. Its all good...
sorry I'm probably no help at all
Komp

 

[Grand Wazoo]

Frankly a few of us are happy being both a bassist and a guitarist, learning wise there is not a lot of difference, it really is up to you what band you play in and which shoes are you more comfortable to wear. In fact, the question is not "are you a bass player or a guitar player?" what you must figure out is, which one you can actually play better that can get you through a band audition, if you can't do both than you are either one or the other.

 

[Mayers]

For me the bass is a complete instrument. You can do anything with it. Notes ar notes, what you do with them is what define your style your personality.

I am good at making a groove but I really like to solo and try stuff not written for bass ( like on piano or other instrument ) and finding a way to do it. This is how I learned tapping technic.

your only limit is the one you set

 

[Bloodfist]

Here's my take on the situation. Go ahead and learn to play the guitar. I put down the bass for a while and learned the guitar to help me better understand the bass, and it was probably the smartest thing I've ever done to help my bass playing. Learning the guitar will open you up to more ideas on the bass, and already knowing how to play bass will open you to more ideas on the guitar. Which ever you feel like playing live will be totally up to you. I decided to stay with bass simply because that's where I started, and I absolutely love playing the instrument. Now, because I know how to play the guitar, when my band is writing songs, I never have to ask what chord or key the guitarist is in, and he if he gets stuck writing something I can pick up the guitar and help out. It's just so much easier to be able to look at the guitarist fretboard and understand everything he does. It really does make a huge difference when writing. I also use the guitar to write 90% of my material, then I write a bass line to it. And for the record, I know of many guitarist who have switched to bass just to find a gig, and they normally don't sound good at all. I know of a handful of bassist like me that know how to play the guitar, and they are all top quality musicians. Next on my list is learning to play the drums. Talking caveman to my drummer isn't working to well, so if I stoop a little lower and learn to play the drums maybe I can show him what I'm talking about when it comes to his drum beats. I'll admit that it might take me a while though, he's pretty awesome, but we don't tell him that lol.

 

[oli@bass]

Absolute lovely guitar you have there...

But since you're not so excited about playing it, I think you should be playing bass. Always keep a guitar around, as others have pointed out it's handy to be able to play both especially for song writing and understanding guitar lines.

 

[tkarter]

Learn the guitar. Every guitar player can play bass.

tk

 

[five7]

Sure?

 

[five7]

tkarter is right. learn the guitar and it will open up the bass to you.

 

[DirtyHippie]

The notes and the music theory are the same, but there is no comparison to the approach. Any guitarist can play a bass, but they may not be a bass player...I play both, but I am a bass player first, and a guitar hack second.

 

[thatsbassist]

Look at it this way:
If you play the bass you will enjoy it as you said,

If you stick with guitar you will always regret not following through with bass.

Besides we need more bass players and youll always have a job =)

 

[mmbassplayer]

I agree with Jimmy... i say go ahead and focus on guitar for a little while. If nothing else this will only help your bass playing down the road should you decide you perfer the larger manly strings over the whimpy girlie strings. That being said i tried to do just this for a few years and did not work out so well for me. I like most bass players have a basic knowledge of guitar (i even own a few) and am pretty happy with that right now. JOSH

 

[strummer]

I play bass, I play guitar, I suck at both but it's a lot of fun

 

[Jimmyb]

I play bass, I play guitar, I suck at both but it's a lot of fun

Sounds like me!!

 

[strummer]

Sounds like me!!

Peas in a pod

 

[Lynottfan]

Having read your post several times, I personally would say play the guitar, you are not sure where you heart is, you have just got yourself a very nice guitar, so put it to some use, once you can feel what you really want then it will be clear to you.

I am a working musician and I went though this phase myself, I need to have my heart in it to really be able to do justice to what I wanted to play, now this is a personal thing so it may not be the same for all, but it was for me, as it turned out adding the Mirror scratch plate to my black stingray for my Lynott look caused the bug to bite, and now Bass is my way of live.

Good luck you will get there and when its right for you, you will know it.