Love Letter to the Bass Guitar
Image by Osmont2
In my mind I have a distinct recollection of falling in love with the bass guitar. When I was a kid my parents would take me to the mall every few weeks and I would spend my time in this music store marveling at all the electric guitars. This was the early 90's, hair metal was still a thing so there was all kinds of over the top guitar designs. Not knowing anything about guitars I would walk up to the hanging guitars that I had to look up and see, put my cheek right on the body of the instrument, pluck the strings and feel the vibrations. I remember loving how the vibrations of the "four" string guitars felt. I could not have been more than eleven or twelve at the time. It became my habit when I got to the mall for a while, to go in and play the four string electric guitars that were hanging on the wall with my faced pressed up against them.
I remember asking my parents if I could start with a "four" string guitar and then once I learned that I would graduate to a six string one. I'm not 100% sure they understood what I was asking, "I would even get an amp later" I would say. Just get me a guitar I could call my own. Sadly it was just not in the budget. When I was very little I had taken some piano lessons but it just never stuck with me. At some point I stopped asking and never really thought about it for a few years. But by fourteen I was glued to my Walkman and absorbing any music I could get my hands on. It would be my bike, my Walkman and the Summer sun for days on end while I explored the city to the soundtrack of my choosing. Sometimes with my friends, sometimes solo. Being glued to music would never change the rest of my life.
Late that next year, when I was fifteen the youth pastor (Steve) of the church I grew up in made me an offer. He knew a guy that owned a music store and would give me free bass lessons in the hopes that I would get hooked and become a customer later on and he needed a bass player in the church praise band so I was in a band before I had really even picked up a bass. Steve just said he knew I loved music so much and maybe I should try playing it. I tentatively said ok. I remember almost ditching my first lesson because it all seemed so overwhelming. Sean, the owner of the local music shop patiently taught me the bass. I would go to the practice rooms in the smelly old basement and play bass for a few hours after school everyday. Sean would come down in between helping customers and give me pointers. He was very generous and let me play on any bass I wanted in the store.
I remember my first "gig" playing for the youth group at church. No doubt that I messed up quite a lot but what a rush. It was addictive to be sure. After that I starting learning my favorite songs and growing as a new musician. Eventually I bought my first bass, and old Yamaha with this crazy paint job. It was $275 dollars and I paid it off in three chunks with the money I made working as a dishwasher. To this day I still gig with that bass as my spare, even though it was been completely rebuilt multiple times and I have owned many other basses over the years.
Then I started my first band with some of my friends and played in that band from the age sixteen to twenty two. I got offers to play in other bands and took some of them. In late high school and early college I took loads of music theory classes and ending up studying with Berklee College of music. This took me on an amazing journey of learning audio engineering/production and working at Sweetwater sound, as well as writing music for videos and other artists.
I have had the good fortune of meeting so many wonderful artists and musicians, been able to be a part of creating fulfilling art, all through being a bass player. Some days I reflect on all the different bands I have had the honor of playing in over the years and what a blast it all is. How crazy that what started as one guy needing a bass player in the praise band changed the entire course of my whole life. Changed the friendships I would have had, my education and career. Playing bass has and I'm sure will continue to lead me down all kinds of interesting roads. Maybe I would have found the Bass on my own one day? Who knows.
When I am playing live, I still love feeling that same vibration that I felt in the tiny little music store as a kid. I love being the bridge between the melody and rhythm section and feeling the groove and power of it all. Playing music is a strange thing in its own right as there is always something new to master. Some technique just out of reach that you work for and eventually conquer. A more fulling journey I can not think of. Thanks to everyone who I have met on this path!