When was your first time you fell in love with the bass?

I remember the first time I noticed the cool sound of the bass. I was a kid playing at a friend's house in 1980. We'd finished a wholesome game of setting up little plastic toy soldiers and having them die horrible deaths. We then moved onto another game involving putting fabric over the incandescent lamp bulb to darken the room until the scent of burning prompted his mom to ask what we were doing. Of course, we yelled "Nothing!", and rapidly switched to a new activity to throw off suspicion: playing 45 RPM records at loud volume.

My pal put on a new record with the intriguing title "Another One Bites the Dust" . I was intrigued by the deep-pitched instrument that started the song. I didn't know what it was, but I liked the catchy lick and the low tones. Fast forward to the 1980s: when my pals all started playing electric guitar (with the distortion knob set permanently to 10), I wanted to be involved in the fun, so I bought a Vantage electric bass and a Baron bass amplifier. The little bass amplifier had a permanent fuzzy growl, but this was the 1980s, and we loved punk and thrash, so this wasn't necessarily a bad thing, at least for us. Looking back, I pity the poor parents who had to endure our unskilled, out-of-tune, unrhythmic attempts at playing punk songs.

In the late 1980s, I started taking bass lessons with Ken Kanwisher, who gave me a thorough training on electric bass and double bass. He showed me how to craft rock and pop basslines, and taught me how to develop fluid walking basslines for jazz songs. Since he is both a bassist and a recording engineer/producer, he supplemented the coaching with practice tracks that he recorded in his studio. They had rhythm parts for the chord progressions he was teaching me, but without the bass. I then studied jazz and classical bass with John Geggie, and then classical bass with David Currie (Ottawa U) and Ed Castilano (Syracuse U).

That was my route to the bass. Of course, there's many different routes to the bass. Some people start on guitar, and then they want to explore the deeper notes that bass can cover. Some people start on a keyboard instrument, and then learn bass to add to their versatility in a band setting. Some people start on drums and then, from locking in their groove with the bass player, start to wonder what it's like to get funky on the bass.

So when was your first time? When was the first time you knew you loved the bass? Was it seeking a folk group in a coffeeshop, with an upright player plucking out a bassline? Was it hearing the thunderous rumble of a bassist's 8x10" rig at a rock group in a big concert? Was it seeing a classical concert and hearing the bass section play the theme in a low register with that earthy, growling bowed tone? I'd love to hear your story.