Should I Learn the Bass Guitar?

This article is for anyone who's interested in learning but doesn't quite understand the point in the bass guitar. It's a core instrument in most styles of music yet it's not spoken about quite as much as the guitar for example, particularly in rock music.

I'm going to be using the guitar to compare the bass to quite a lot here because the guitar's role seems to be quite well understood. It can be played as a supporting instrument or on it's own - the acoustic guitar is often a central instrument in folk and pop music while the electric guitar central to the rock and metal genres - but the bass? It's never quite taking the centre stage in the same way.

It's common for those flashy slap-bass videos to get shared around the internet but not a lot of people go out of their way to listen to slap-bass music. It seems to have an appeal as visual entertainment, more so than for the music. In popular music, the bass is more focused on controlling the song's groove - often at the expense of standing out.

I've always heard people slate the bass guitar, usually in a joking way but it still comes from a place of naivety. It's easy to see why it's comparable to the guitar - the design for both instruments is very similar, the main difference being the bass guitar has 4 strings. This is possibly the reason it seems to have a reputation for being "easy", hence the joke about bass being taken up by "bad guitar players".

These stereotypes are almost exclusively entertained by amatuer and non-musicians. Most pro musicians would laugh at the idea of music being seen competitively in this way, where an instrument's value is judged primarily on it's number of strings or parts. There is a similar popular joke about the drums.

I love the bass guitar, it was the first instrument I ever played and I'd suggest you learn the bass if you feel a stronger attachment to the rhythm section of a band.