The bass guitar is often looked at as a background instrument, not held up on a holy pedestal like the guitar or the drums. You don’t hear a lot of kids saying they want to be a famous bass player when they grow up. I personally think the bass guitar is underrated in the public eye and I want to make a case for this great instrument and hopefully convince or even inspire someone to pick it up and give it a go.
Just to be fair and show both sides I do think there are some minor downfalls to playing bass. Firstly, bass frequency’s travel far and wide, at times this is a major positive but when it comes to neighbors and flat mates, they may start having words with you if your sound is rumbling through the neighborhood, obviously you can turn it down (which is not as fun) or wear headphones if your amplifier has that capability, but be prepared to have a few conversations about the noise. When first starting out, practicing bass on your own may not be as fulfilling as other instruments as it really shines alongside others, practicing scales and bass lines on your own may not be so exciting. A quick fix to that can be playing a drum track on your phone or computer to jam along with. You will find ways to make it more enjoyable. Now that that’s out of the way, the positives far outweigh any minor negatives, so we’ll have a good look at those positives now.
It’s a two for one deal.
The bass is essentially a rhythmic instrument and a harmonic instrument in one. You are part of the rhythm section with the drums, this on its own is super fulfilling. Locking in with the drums and playing a great bass line is what creates the whole groove of a song. You and the drummer are laying down the foundation of the song for everyone to be a part of. You may notice if you go to see a band play live the drummer and the bass player interacting a lot with eye contact, head nods etc. they’re making sure they’re on the same page, they know each of them are creating one cohesive feeling for others to play over, they make everyone else sound even better. How generous of them.
As the bass has notes, frets, and different pitches it is clearly a harmonic and melodic instrument too. You can still play beautiful melodic parts in the higher register of the instrument.
You control the mood
Where the real power of the bass comes in is that you have control over the songs feeling and harmony regardless of what the rest of the band is playing. The listener will hear the lowest pitch notes in a mix as the root notes of chords to determine where the harmony is leading. Let use an example. Say the song has 2 chords and it’s a C major to an F major. The guitar is playing the chords and you play the root notes C and F, a nice easy one chord to a four chord loop in the key of C. Because they are major chords this may give it a happy, positive or optimistic feeling.
As the bass player if you weren’t feeling particularly optimistic that day and wanted match that with your playing you could play an A over the C and a D over the F. this changes the chords to A minor 7 and D minor 7 that may give the song a sad, melancholy feeling. This is because when the guitar player is playing the C all the notes in C are the notes that are needed on top of the A to make the A minor 7 and same with the F to the D minor 7. Because you have the power of the low pitch notes, the listener hears that as the base of the chord and hears the minor 7.
This takes a little bit of theory knowledge and understanding of chords structure and function but can be used in many other examples to create different feelings in songs where you choose too. the mood of the song is literally in your hands.
Go see a live band.
I have a theory for one of the reasons the bass isn’t as popular, it’s how we often consume music these days. It’s usually through small earphones, car speakers or maybe a radio, as technology progresses these are producing a far better-quality sound, but for a long time they didn’t have the capability to give you the full experience. The bass in songs would fizzle out through small earbud speakers and become a part that you could barely hear or was just in the background. To really enhance your bass experience, go to see a live band (Hopefully they have good equipment and a bass amplifier). Hearing it in this context it’s not only an auditory experience it’s a physical one too. You feel the deep rumble of the bass in your chest, you can literally feel the rhythm and when that’s coming from a funky bass line it’s difficult not to get up and have a little boogie.
Grateful by chance
I’ve been playing in a band for a few years. When I first started out, on a long shot I just asked one of them if I could come along one time and have a jam as I was getting more into paying guitar and I was keen to get out of my room and play with other people. After a few times catching up and playing a few songs occasionally there were already one or two guitarists on the song and it needed a bass part, so I put my hand up to give it a try. A bit rusty at first admittedly (I was lucky to have a rough idea of the notes on the instrument from playing guitar), but as time went on and I played bass more and more, at times I enjoyed it more than playing guitar.
There’s something so fulfilling about the tactile aspect of it. The big chunky strings compared to guitar give a greater feeling of control, like you really have a hold of what’s creating the sound. Also, the emphasis on articulation of the instrument, how long you let notes ring out, how loud or quiet you play them, if you slide or hammer on to the next note allowed for a lot of creative expression without having to know a whole lot of fancy scales or shapes. I still go through phases of enjoying the guitar more, then the bass more but don’t think I’ll ever put the bass down and am so glad I started playing it even if it was by coincidence.
As I always seem to prescribe, just pick one up and give it a go. you never know, you might love it. I can give you all these fancy explanations as to why the bass is cool or why its fulfilling, but you’ll never know until you try. So, get out there and do it.