Top 1200 Playing Bass Quotes & Sayings

But people are now realising why I was playing bass with Hendrix.

Ben was more improvisational, and relied less on methodology, and basically is a guitarist who switched to bass, whereas Jeff has a more traditional approach to playing bass in a band, and has a great sense of what his band sounds like, and we lock up nicely.

You have to understand that the bass guitar is the party instrument. It only has four strings. If you see a bass player playing five strings, take your shoe off and throw it at him.

If you're going to play bass, then play bass how you play bass. You can learn technique and theory, but we want to hear what you have to offer.

I stepped back from being out front to playing bass. So we started switching: I'd play bass on one song, we'd switch on the next song; I'd play piano... we'd play mandolin.

I don't look at my instrument as having one specific role; I was raised to go as far as you can. But Raphael Saadiq hated my bass. He told me to throw it away. And playing in Snoop's band, there was a time when my bass was more annoying to everyone than helpful. They would get on my case: 'Can you make your bass sound like more of a bass?'

I wouldn't want to hear Beethoven without beautiful bass, the cellos, the tuba. It's very important. Hip-hop has thunderous bass. And so does Beethoven. If you don't have the bass, it's like being amputated. It's like you have no legs.

When you listen to a symphony orchestra, and the basses don't - there's no bass part, there's not that much depth. That's why I'm attracted to the instrument, the bass. It brings depth. It's like playing in a rainforest.

Because you know I'm All about that bass 'Bout that bass, no treble.

I was playing bass when I was a kid; I play bass now. I used to draw pictures when I was a kid, and I draw pictures now. I talked backwards and weird when I was a kid, and I talk backwards now.

Boy you got my heartbeat runnin away Beatin like a drum & it's comin your way Cant you hear that Boom badoom boom boom badoom boom bass He got that super bass Boom badoom boom boom badoom boom bass Yeah that's that super bass

When I started playing the bass, I became kind of fascinated by it and started investigating various styles of bass playing, and I was really struck with funk music, mainly American funk music - Stanley Clarke, Funkadelic and that kind of stuff. That comes out in a couple of songs like 'Barbarism Begins at Home.'

I started playing bass for the same reason everyone else does – I’m a lousy guitarist.

There's something about rhythm and bass sections generally, how the bass and drums interact, that's basically the soul of any song.

I'm a bass player and I'm a drummer - I'm a big fan of bass players.

I compose, produce, arrange - I don't just perform. I'm playing keyboards, playing bass, doing everything.

One of the advantages of playing in a club is that even with bass and drums, the atmosphere remains intimate with the audience.

I think I've been playing bass for as long as I've played guitar, and I love them both.

I set myself up to be a bass guitarist and bass players get a lot more work than people like me.

I've watched so-called 'New Order' playing in Auckland, and Tom Chapman is miming along to my bass on tape... He's got his fingers on the low, and you can hear my high bass in the background. So he's miming.

It's funny: when I started playing bass in 1984, you had guys like Paul Simonon fron the Clash, John Paul Jones, Lemmy, and Nikki Sixx was the head guy in Motley Crue, and you had all this post-punk stuff like Magazine and Killing Joke where the bass sort of lead the way. Not that I picked it to sort of be a main dude, but it intrigued me.

Maybe that's what makes my stuff different, 'cause I write it all on the bass. I can't play but a few chords on the guitar, so the bass works just fine for me.

The bass and drums are the engine, and the key to good bass playing is it's not what you play, it's what you DON'T play that counts. You leave the spaces, they're more important than anything.

I just think that playing bass, like punk rock bass with a pick, wasn't meant to be done for 25 years.

A lot of other bass players have told me I'm the only bass player who plays with a pick but sounds like he's playing with the thumb and fingers, which is a great compliment.

In 1972, I got my first electric bass and started playing the kind of instrument I play now. I found that the majority of musicians couldn't bear that. They are not used to listening to the bass because they think the bass is in the background to support them.

I can't really sing and play live, because I can't play bass efficiently and sing at the same time. If I concentrated on the vocals, I'd mess up the bass, and if I concentrated on the bass, I'd forget the lines.

I often use a return channel to get some shape out of the bass. It's a good way to split the frequencies of the bass so that the sub bass is clean and in mono and the higher end of the bass sound can be filtered off - have it on an audio channel and that's where you can use effects.

There was a time when fast playing and fretboard pyrotechnics on the bass were important to me and when I am recording a bass track, that is still very important to me.

I've been into music for a long time. I started playing drums when I was 8 and piano when I was 10, then bass and guitar when I was 18.

At the time, I didn't know that bass would not be enough for me. I'm not a bass player because bass is always a background instrument even to this very day.

The bass, no matter what kind of music you're playing, it just enhances the sound and makes everything sound more beautiful and full. When the bass stops, the bottom kind of drops out of everything.

It's very inconvenient being a sculptor. It's like playing the double-bass; one's so handicapped by one's baggage.

I think that where it came from and the initial birth of it - it did come out of a jam at Bruno's studio, you know? He was playing drums. And Jeff Bhasker, who co-produced the record with us, is on synths, and I was playing bass.

The music that I'm known for is quiet and gentle, although when I was growing up and as a teenager, I was playing the opposite - I was screaming and playing bass and those loud electric guitars.

When I heard BB King's 'Sweet Sixteen,' I knew I wanted to play bass because that was the thing that made that record: the bass player.

I love playing bass. It's mostly what I play in Divine Fits.

Instead of thinking in terms of chords, I think of voice-leading; that is, melody line and bass line, and where the bass line goes. If you do that, you'll have the right chord. [These voices] will give you some alternatives, and you can play those different alternatives to hear which one suits your ear. Keep the bass line moving so you don't stay in one spot: if you have an interesting bass line and you roll it against the melody, the chords are going to come out right.

My major influences were primarily guitar players and bands; I started playing bass by accident.

I'm starting to play all the melodies with kind of keyboard sound but playing it from the bass guitar.

It's really hard for me to sing and play bass. Unless you're singing something that's kind of in rhythm with the bass, the melodies, it's just difficult.

My dad taught me to play bass. He's a bass player; he still plays in a band in Michigan to this day. He taught me to play bass when I was about 6. I used to just go to band practice with him, and whoever didn't show up for rehearsal that day, I would take their spot.

When I heard BB Kings Sweet Sixteen, I knew I wanted to play bass because that was the thing that made that record: the bass player.

I was a bass guitarist first before I started playing double bass - and I only started playing it because my teacher said I'd get twice as much work, as there's not enough players out there.

Later in high school, I met Hillel Slovak, who was the original guitar player of the Chili Peppers, and we became really close. We had a band, and we didn't like the bass player, so I started playing bass, and I got a bass two weeks later.

Around age 11 or 12, I started playing jazz bass. From there, I went to electric bass and then guitar, which I kept up for a long time.

After playing with Rob Zombie, I was ready to go, 'OK, this is as far as I'm taking this bass-playing thing. This is the end of the road.' I was ready to kind of hang it up.

Bill Withers and Curtis Mayfield, those are the people who informed me in playing the bass.

As a rock band, you're slightly one foot in the past, playing instruments like guitar, bass and drums.

The main thing that those two albums have in common aside from my music, which of course, a sense of it, you can recognize, it is that the bass on Infinite Search was playing much, much less like a bass.

I started at 14, and only played bass. I traded in my train set for a bass, and used my dad's amp.

From the very beginning, I had a lot of female role models in music. I would go to shows, and there were always women fronting bands and playing guitar or backing up and playing drums or bass in a band. That probably contributed to my belief in myself to go out and perform for people.

I started playing bass in my friend's band for some reason. It was just something I did because, well, he asked me if I wanted to play bass and he played me this song - Nirvana's version of "Molly's Lips", the Vaselines song - and he said, "You can do this! This is not hard!" and it's like a two-note song. I learned that and then I thought I was a genius.

I started playing the bass because nobody else would play the bass, and then I got bumped up into singing because no one else really wanted to sing. So I learned how to sing and I wrote the songs, so I tended to get the most attention.

Dubstep didn't invent bass, it just zoned in on it. Bass, to varying depths, is the foundation to most dance musics.

I hate playing the bass, bro. I've been playing the bass because it's there and I don't want anyone else to play it.

Without getting real personal, we liked our bass player Ed. He was a great guy and he was a good bass player but his playing was suited for a different style of band.

I listened to many different types of instruments and music, and have always tried to look at the bass as an instrument as opposed to only a bass.

I've always been playing with other people, and that's how I learned. I got a kit of drums I couldn't play, but I also knew a guitarist and a friend of mine played bass and could teach us bass, and we just played. And I learned.

One of my all-time favourite guitarists is, in fact, a bassist - John Entwistle from The Who. He's one of my all-time favourites, the way he kind of expanded. I mean, he could have been a lead guitarist and been one of the best guitarists in the world. He wasn't even bass player; he was a bass guitarist, and he took the bass to another level.