Beginning Bass

On the amp front, just keep hassling your parents until they get you to a music store. You're going to want to make a local connection, because Musician's Friend/Walmart aren't going to have much interest in answering all the odd, dumb questions that are certain to come up as a beginner Bass player...

Looks like Peavey discontinued the Microbass, which was a very nice little practice amp, as far as being lightweight and sounding good. I'm sure you could get a used one.

Recca, most of the stuff you need to be a good bass player is self-teachable, except for left and right hand technique, which you should really have shown to you by a good player. The bad news is that there are plenty of professionals out there with lousy technique (by which I don't mean that they can't play a million notes a second, I mean they're in danger of screwing up their hands permanently); the good news is that you can learn the bassics (get it?) in an hour's lesson. Don't forget colleges with a good music department as a source of good bass teachers -- you're often better off there than at the music store.

Yeah, I mean tendon troubles, repetitive stress injury, all that jazz. "Overly flexed wrist" is simplifying the many things you can do wrong to screw yourself up, but it's not a bad mental picture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walker_Brothers

Lastly, wrist trouble can be avoided in many cases by sensible practice:
Don't spend hours at a time practicing, break up practice between technical stuff and pieces. Then take some time out.

I'd like to heard from Colin some more details of the approach he espouses. I had some problems so I backed away from a finger-per-fret approach to a more three-frets for four-fingers approach.

The goal is that to have the thumb and fingers in a natural C shape on both hands, to have the wrists RELAXED (this is more important than straight, because a straight wrist can put unnatural strain on your plucking hand), and to have your elbows close to the body and firm. THEN you have to look at finger pressure, which part of the finger contacts the string, whether the thumb on the plucking hand is anchored in one spot (it shouldn't be) . . .

As I said, this stuff is very hard to explain coherently with words on a page, but most good players could show you in about an hour or so.

Ken, I have no problem with the one-finger-per-fret approach, but I have very long fingers.

some people think they can just away with posting any old factual inaccuracy. beeble is the simple sword of truth on a board full of know-nothing numptys.

i for one certainly hope that the next Jake Pastorious or Pina Palladium doesn't get their mojo stolen by the likes of Colin.

i've been considering picking up bass again, not that i ever picked it up seriously. but i do have one under the bed that i will be taking out again...

Level 2 bass: Arpeggiate the chord; throw in sevenths and ninths. Begin to come up with different walking strategies for different situations.

Level 3: Don't necessarily limit yourself to notes in the chord the guitar's playing--devise a countermelody.