My First Time Playing Bass

After watching Scott Pilgrim (one of the two times that I’ve seen it so far) I joked about picking up the bass to play because I just loved the music and the “dirty” sounding bass. I don’t know how else to describe it, so there ya go. While Chooch primarily plays bass, he also plays guitar, and was actually supportive. It was however, a joke at the time, as I’ve never played an instrument beyond the recorder (that little plastic flute thingy in elementary school). Scratch that, I taught myself to play “Memories” from sheet music. I could probably still play the beginning if a gun were held to my head, which is about what it would take to get me to do it.

Now after the awful spins and headache I had after our morning run (Couch to 5k, week 6, day 1), I knew I was going to have to cancel on the “First” I had planned for today because it was a strenuous physical activity. I was pretty stressed about it because neither of us could come up with anything free, local and not too terribly time consuming for me to substitute. I had a lot of work to do, and was behind where I wanted to be on both my paid work and school work.

Because Awesome Chooch is awesome, he volunteered to give me my first bass lesson and would learn a song from Scott Pilgrim for me to try. I spent all day working while doing laundry, and at 9 pm we headed down into the burrow for my first lesson. True to his word, he’d learned the entire song, and started me off with a very brief “Intro to Bass” explanation before teaching me the first parts. (Feel free to swap out my terminology for music terms that I don’t know.)

We worked for a little over an hour, and I loved it. It was somewhat painful because my arms and fingers aren’t long enough to play comfortably. Also, my boobs were a bit in the way and I felt pretty uncomfortable as I tried to manage all the shortages and abundances that were hindering my learning. I did learn what amounts to half of the song according to Chooch, because of all the repetition. I had hoped to be moving along well enough to record my progress tonight, but my fingers were just too sore to continue.

I’m planning on practicing a bit on my own before sitting down with him again. While he is extremely patient and encouraging, I got frustrated when I felt like it was taking me too long because I know he has to get up for work tomorrow. If I ever do get it down, I plan on recording it and maybe posting it somewhere.

The weekend is now over, and we’re snuggling up to read some more of “Ender’s Game” before resuming the grind tomorrow. I hope all of our friends and family traveling today and tomorrow arrive safely and with minimal drama.
Let no bad happen!