Bass is probably the hardest instrument to master, and it's also very technically rich, slap, tap, pluck, pick etc... I’ve played bass for about 5 years, about 2 years ago I bought a guitar and found it remarkably easier, the only problem I encountered was developing speed with the pick (for shredding).
As far as the shredding, bass shredding is probably the most challenging thing that I’ve come across in my whole life. I’m talking finger shredding, three fingers, clean. With a pick the speed comes from the movement of your palm or your forearm, but in bass the speed comes from the muscles in everyone of your fingers, and that takes a lot of time to build up. Especially the third finger in your right hand, it took me a while to be actually able to use it like I use my first 2. But in the other hand it's quite difficult as well, since the bass frets are larger and the strings are ticker, and that makes pressing the frets down hard, now add shredding speed to that and it's a recipe for challenge.
But it's all about the genre as people say, of course rock or pop's bass is easy to play, since most of the time it consists in root notes or very simple lines. But for example bass in bands like stratovarius, or that kind of power or speed metal, very few bassists are be able to pull (correctly, accurately and precisely) those bass lines, mostly because of the speed.
Maybe guitar is an instrument that is meant to lead and because of that people think higher of it. But technically and physically (because of the way it's build) speaking, bass is harder to master as a whole.
BTW - Maxwell murder rulez, even using a pick that's some nice speed.
Reply With Quote
