Forgive me for just finding this forum and haven't begun to start reading everything previous but 75% of what I play is for my home church-5Twelve City Church here in Austin, I also lead worship for the local Celebrate Recovery Ministry, and I'm so honored to be in the regular monthly rotation of churches here in Austin who do Church Under the Bridge for the area homeless every Sunday.
Here's where I get lengthy and a bit deep so if you wanna stop here, I completely understand.
Also, I believe the very first post referenced a Praise and Worship Bass Players Group (which I wish I had known about). Even though I have a PRS guitar addiction, the only reason I'm even a slightly above average guitarist now, is because I chose to play bass as my primary instrument 31 years ago when I was 13,
So I started Piano when I was 4 and after of what seemed like years of begging my parents to learn guitar, at 12 years old, they finally gave in under the following condition: I could learn guitar as long as I still played piano. Very begrudgingly, I agreed not having the slightest idea how valuable that has been my entire life as a musician. I was also extremely fortunate to have an instructor (who I owe any shred of musical ability I have retained) who taught guitar and piano .
After 2-3 years of Guitar lessons where I did find the transposition from piano to guitar extremely comfortable, I noticed that there's never any bassists. I also realize now that the structure and theory that had been branded into my brain via classical piano theory, I was extremely uncomfortable and lacked major confidence in being able to improvise and "color outside the lines'. Realizing I wasn't going to be the next Eddie Van Halen, I took up bass because the structure and staying in the pocket is the primary role of playing bass- unless you're Wooten, Marcus Miller, Jaco, or Les Claypool. I also knew I'd always have gigs as a bass player and that guitar players are a dime a dozen
Being a lefty was a heavy influence on my decision to take up bass. In fact, the first couple of bands I was in I played a right handed bass upside down and played backwards.
But again playing structured bass lines for 30 years while becoming a solid rhythm guitarist and always having piano theory no matter what instrument I picked up, turned me into the Swiss Army knife for every kind of music project imaginable.
And IDK if any of you guys had this experience but it was only within the last couple of years (thanks Covid) into my forties that it was like a light bulb just went off or I was struck by lightening, but all of the sudden all of the artists and bands that I thought all my life that their material was so complicated and unique that I'd never be able to play to their levels, all of the sudden became so easy to pick out and realize it was basically 3 chords just like every song. I find myself saying almost daily "That's all they were doing?! It's so easy!"
All of this long diatribe to say that now I'm the guitarist I always wanted to be since I was a teenager but even better My ability to play by ear and by theory thanks to my parents (who weren't musicians at all beyond my dad playing trumpet in Junior High), I'm figuring out EVH riffs and tapping runs, recognizing the common structure and riff stylings of Hendrix, Gilmour, EVH, The Edge, Andy Sommers, etc, etc, and having the confidence to at least get the structure- not the technique necessarily and replicate and adopt my guitar heroes techniques and stylings- all while my biggest idols and influences are multi-instrumentalists like McCartney, Sting, Peter Gabriel, Prince.
Again I'm sorry for such a lengthy 44 year recap of my musical journey. I will say, as a man of faith, who has no problem playing at bars until 2am on Saturdays and showing up Sunday mornings to play in the worship band, I've always recognized that what musical abilities I have are blessings and gifts from God that need to be used via outreach and ministry as a calling while still having fun playing party and drinking standards at bars, parties, weddings, etc
Again, sorry for the lengthy intro and I don't blame anyone if they don't read my post beyond the first few sentences.
I am looking forward to catching up on previous topics throughout this forum and am grateful to have fellow musicians who have similar passions.
Thanks
Chris Humphreys- Austin TX
