Ever wondered why people play bass? Or unsure what are the good and bad points of playing the bass are, if so then find out in this lesson.

People may often wonder, why play bass? Why not play another instrument like the guitar? More than likely out of every instrument everyone wants to play the guitar, which is the preferred choice, but the fact is that there are too many guitarist compared to bassists, drummers and singers as it’s much easier to find a guitarist than a bassist, drummer or singer for a band. More people that play the guitar struggles more to join bands than people do that plays the bass, drums or sings.

Some people may learn bass for the simple fact that it’s easier to join bands, as bands lack bass players or drummers over anything. People also start learning the bass as it will guarantee them a place in a band, or even a guitarist may quit the guitar to learn bass as he/she is guaranteed a place in the band.

As the bass isn’t the most popular of instruments it’s easier to do more things that aren’t popular for a bass to do in songs, e.g. everyone has heard tapping on guitar but not many people hear tapping on bass especially in songs, even bass solos aren’t that popular in bands. This leaves a lot to be played around with when playing bass.

There are genres of music out there were bass players have a lot going on e.g. funk where slap bass is very popular, or punk or ska where the bass player plays more difficult parts than the guitarist does, even in metal the bass player can follow the guitar so in effect the bass player could have an harder part as the bass is a bigger scaled instrument. It all depends what type of music you wish to play really. Some people may like the simplicity of some bass lines which genres of music offer, e.g. pop/punk, most bass players follow the root note which keeps the song flowing and also feeling happy.

Some people even learn bass because they think because the bass has four strings that it’s easier to play. This isn’t true as a bass is a bigger scaled instrument compared to the guitar and the strings are much thicker so more finger pressure is required to push down the stings at each fret and also a bigger finger fret span is required. Riffs that are quite simple on a guitar may be harder to play on the bass because of this. It all depends what the guitarist is playing and what the bassist is playing. If the bass is playing the root note or simple bass lines then yes the bass can be easier to learn then guitar as you are only fretting one note at any given time rather than several which a guitar player can do, which are called chords. It is possible to do simple 2 note chords on a bass though.

Some people may learn the bass because they like the deep sound the bass gets, which is not possible for a guitar to get. Also there are many famous baselines out there which make the bass worth learning as you can play along to them and only get the right sound by playing them on a bass.

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