Fathi 1

Parisa Fathi
Phone: 407.867.5309
Email: p.fathi@knights.ucf.edu
Word Count: 3,129
Groove Is in the Heart
The bass player is always the butt of a joke, probably because ass is in the
name. Theres a joke that asks, What do you call a person who hangs out with
musicians? A bass player. Whats the difference between a bass guitar and an onion?
Nobody cries when a bass is chopped. My favorite bass joke is when someone says they
cant name any bassists. There are magazines dedicated to the instrument and its players
that say otherwise. Are they forgetting Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers who can slap and
pop your face into shape with his grooves? Or John the Ox Entwistle from The Who
who intertwined chord roots and riffs with ease? How about the one and only Geddy Lee
from Rush who has been inspiring bass players, like Les Claypool from Primus, a
prodigy in his own right, for over thirty years? Who played for The Beatles again? Oh,
thats right. Paul McCartney.
Theres a stigma that surrounds bassists and bass players alike that deems them
uncool. It has somehow gotten into the minds of musicians that bass playing is easy. Selfproclaimed multi-instrumentalist and lead singer of Panic! at the Disco, Brendon Urie in
an interview with Alternative Press magazine shrugs and says Anybody can play bass.
He continues, Bass is a good place to start. Its pretty simple. The movie School of
Rock perpetuates this notion when Jack Blacks character gives the cello player a bass,
tells her to play a G and keep it rocking all day long, as if this note is the be-all, end-all
note of bass lines. The other students get critiqued on technical form, chord formation,

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and patterns played on different parts of their instruments. He even pulls out sheet music
for the keyboard player. Katie gets a G. End of lesson.
Sure, I can rattle off the names of people who play bass, but theres a difference
between bassists and bass players. A bassist is someone who dedicates his or her life to
mastering the instrument from creating improvised walking bass lines that dominate jazz
to power chords that are the basis of heavy metal. A bass player on the other hand is
someone who holds a bass and looks cute. Think of any pop punk band, and theres your
bass player. Mark Hoppus, Mike Dirnt, and Pete Wentz are cool guys, but Blink 182,
Green Day, and Fall Out Boy are stops on the way to Victor Wooten, bassist territory.
Bass players can have pizzazz and personality, like their cooler, guitar counterparts. For
example, Gene Simmons doesnt simply look like a hell-fire-spitting demon he is a
hell-fire-spitting demon.
Because when the essential Smoke on Water guitar riff is compared to the bass
line that plays concurrently, its a false equivalent. Of course hopping around the neck of
the guitar playing chords is cooler, let alone more complex, than the driving bass line that
simply carries the intro to the verse. Why sit on the bench when you can be in the game?
In the eyes of rock, the bass is second string to guitar. If you can play guitar, play. If you
cant play guitar, you play bass.
But its not simple. I learned that the hard way when in ninth grade, I was forced
into my high schools jazz band. I say forced because my high school band director
didnt give me a choice in the matter. This one time at band camp, he pulled me to the
side, told me I was playing bass in jazz band, and that was it. I came to terms with ending
my bass-playing adventure at the end of eighth grade because I knew the caliber the high

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schoolers played at. These kids were auditioning for university music programs ranging
from Stetson and Florida State University to Berklee College of Music. I, on the other
hand, could barely read sheet music, and I was okay with that. I was the token girl in the
rhythm section. I played the six-measure solo in Perdido, and called it a night. On
schedule pick-up day, the decision was finalized; I was the new recruit in the high school
jazz band.
I knew it was a mistake the first week of school. The band teacher asked if I
recognized any of the song titles in their repertoire. I said I knew how to play A Night in
Tunisia; my middle school band played that song for our spring concert and I had the
intro memorized. His eyes lit up, the students thumbed in their folders for the song, and I
adjusted the bass I wielded. He snapped his fingers to count off and two very different
songs began. It turns out that I played the water downed, middle school version that
builds up from a drum and bass combo while they played a high-stakes version that
everyone jumps in on from the beginning. Unsure what to do, I stopped playing.
The band director then expected me to improvise walking bass lines at a
moments notice. Instead, I played stumbling bass lines. I could only play pieces with the
bass part preconceived and even then I couldnt do that; I was too unfamiliar with the
bass clef. Soon, he recruited three extra bass players to find someone who could just jam.
In the course of a month, it was whittled down to me the technical player and the groove
master the band director desired. He joked one day that if he could combine my sheet
music-understanding skills and the other guys inherent ability, he would have the perfect
bass player. I took that joke more personally than he probably intended.

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There were several discussions between the band director and me about my status
in jazz band. He claimed I was an integral role in jazz band, but I disagreed. The other
students were legit band kids, able to speed through scales and hit Super Cs. I decided
to take matters into my own hands, and with the help of the guidance counselor, I secretly
transferred into another class. It took him a few days to notice I wasnt present in second
period, but showed up for third. I was back in jazz band by the next week. The other
students knew what had happened.
In jazz band, I had perpetual stage fright. I was the only freshman in the group of
mostly seniors. They had history with each other. They took private lessons. They
planned to dedicate their lives to their instruments. I never felt I deserved to play my
schools bass, a Fender Jazz. A professional bass for professional bassists. This bass costs
about $1,500. Mine cost about $105. My home bass was a shitty bass that anyone can
pick up at a Walmart. My parents bought me that bass because they never believed I
would stick to one instrument for long. I had been playing the French horn for two years
then, the longest of any instrument adventure. I played the violin for one year, the guitar
for a few months, the flute for a second. I hated the bass they bought and never practiced,
embarrassed by its pedigree.
Because I didnt practice, I never got better.
Because I never got better, I never felt comfortable in class.
Because I never felt comfortable in class, I had no friends in jazz band.
Because I had no friends in jazz band, there was no incentive to stay in jazz band.
I didnt feel welcomed by the students. The patience of the drummer was wearing thin.
Our guitar player probably wanted to strangle me. The other bass player was better than

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me, but he made the time there more bearable, cracking jokes and trying to get to know
me. I wasnt cool like the trumpet players who would have highest note competitions or
the saxophones arguing about the best alto saxophonist of the decade. I couldnt tell you a
single thing about jazz, its history, and its players.
I felt like a poseur.
I fulfilled the stigma of being a female in music. People, and by people I really
mean men, dont take you seriously. They think you play to snag guys. They think youre
there to look cute and to hold the instrument. They think youre vapid and not serious
about your instrument. When they cannot step up to the plate, people tout that they knew
it all along. She cant play, theyll say. Shes fake. Sometimes they say it behind your
back. Sometimes they say it to your face.
The fakest I felt was during the high school-middle school double feature concert.
I waited thirty minutes to play one song and retreated behind the curtain, watching the
others play. It must have confused the audience to see a female, brown, curly-haired
person swapped for a male, brown, curly-haired person, which is assuming they noticed
me in the first place. All I did that night was hold the bass and look cute, a feeling I never
intended to have.
A month later, when the school year ended, I quit the bass.
I always felt like I sucked at the bass, replaying negative comments and the
scornful looks of my high school jazz band mates.
I believed I was a poseur.
Identity was all I had and all I wanted. It was something to achieve, not a way of
being. The joy of fitting a mold, a label, a mark. I didnt want to be the perfect bass

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player or best friends with the jazz band kids. I just wanted to be cool, and I was
desperate to escape the poseur label I seemed to find myself in Again.
My first run-in with poseurdom was when I was 12. At the time, cool meant
looking like a Hot Topic catalogue and listening to bands that would grace Warped Tour
stages: My Chemical Romance, Cobra Starship, Chiodos Malls stocked up on apparel
inspired or created by members of such bands, thus creating the mall punk subculture:
skinny jeans, band shirts, black-and-white Chuck Taylors, and spiked hair that also
covered one eye. If I were nostalgic, I would refer to this as the good ol days.
The sense of dishevelment that came with being mall punk was one that I couldnt
master. I wore homemade jewelry fashioned out of gumball machine toys, black shirts
featuring obnoxious cartoon characters, and black, thick-rimmed glasses. This look
would garner me stares from parents and teachers alike because they obviously didnt get
it, and neither did I. I adorned a green khaki jacket with safety pins, wore it to school
once, and was too afraid to wear it again. Nothing in my mall punk aesthetic prepared me
for the stares and comments from my peers, let alone the threat of violating dress code.
Unlike real punks, mall punks followed established authoritative rule and cried when a
teacher raised their voice. Or was that just me?
Once, I wore a Queen shirt because I liked Queen and dad rock was all the rage.
At lunch this kid called me over to his table of friends to confront me. He asked me to
name five Queen songs as if I had to prove myself worthy to wear the shirt or admit
fakeness. I declined. Who did he think he was? The queen of Queen? He spent the next
couple of weeks yelling at me, demanding those song titles. I avoided any area I
suspected where he would be. I caved one day, giving him five songs. Apparently this kid

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didnt think We Will Rock You and We Are the Champions counted as two songs
and therefore found a new way to bother me; the nuisance continued until I told a
resource officer about my problem. He never bothered me again, but his insinuation that I
was a poseur did.
I avoided certain areas of the school where the legit mall punk kids hung out.
They were standoffish with their Misfits shirts, NOFX patches, and baggy and crosschained Tripp pants. Any whiff of a poseur would set them off. I didnt need another
queen of Queen in the way of my ascent to coolness. One of these kids was campaigning
for student body president when I walked by with a Green Day shirt, causing him to yell,
Green Day sucks! at me, the battle cry of that school year. Yeah, I might be a poseur,
but at least I have better campaigning skills than you. I swore off wearing band shirts that
day forward.
Then there was Leah. Leah was real punk. She was an eighth grader who painted
pictures of Che Guevara, shopped at thrift stores, and was in the process of recording a
CD. She thought I was funny even though I sweated through my $20 Kiss Me Im Punk
Green Day shirt every time I saw her. Leah was effortlessly cool. She reluctantly played
the clarinet in our schools band, but was a certified member of the jazz band. She played
bass guitar vis--vis her primary axe being the guitar. Her graduation from middle school
was imminent even though she talked about dropping out of high school in the coming
years. Our band needed a bass player and I needed a way to be cool like her. The deal
was sealed when Leah offered me bass lessons as her future replacement. I was sure that I
would become cool by social osmosis.

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The bass was my ticket to cool, the counterpart to my primary axe, the French
horn. On my beginning band instrument wish list, I wrote flute, clarinet, trumpet, and
drums. No semblance of pleasantry came out of the air-required instruments, and we had
seven kids in my class sign up for drums. I valiantly gave up my drum prospects to
become that rocking and rolling French horn player. I then spent the next six years of my
life hating that moose mating call, star of the Ricola commercial. My mother made
both of these comments the first two times I attempted to practice at home; always the
intention to practice, but never the motivation. Nobody cool plays the French horn.
It was my ticket to cooldom until it became more than just an identity creator.
It was my first middle school jazz band performance was nerve-racking. It was
my debut as a bass player. I dont remember what or where we played, but I remember
how it felt. The five thick strings, as opposed to the traditional four, my fingertips
plucked. I felt the vibrations from the pickups in my belt buckle. Each note on the page
deciphered and translated into a fret. I heard the oohs, ahhs, and thats so cools. It was the
first time I felt a personal relationship with music.
When I played, I had the carefree attitude that drew me toward the instrument and
the people who played it in the first place. It was an experience I had never felt before. I
didnt care that my parents wanted me to play common, solo-driven instruments like the
flute or clarinet. I didnt care that there were a hundred people watching me perform.
Outside of playing, I cared too much about the opinion of some pock-marked
seventeen-year-old who thinks I suck or a blond-haired eighth grade bully who thinks my
favorite band is crap and wont let me forget it. I let negativity affect me and eventually
dismay me from even trying.

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I still dote on those two, bass-playing years. I loved and still love the instrument,
resorting to air bass instead of air guitar. Since my freshman year of high school, I
thought about reuniting with the bass. My band teacher told me that kids who quit an
instrument tend to stay as a former player. For a few years, he was right. My Walmart
bass stood in the front of my closet. Its 22 frets and rusting strings taunted me every time
I pulled out a pair of shoes. Youre a quitter, it seemed to say. I would arrange my clothes
to hide it, knowing it was right.
Then one night, it hit me. I was listening to Say It Aint So by Weezer, alone in
my room when it happened. For the first time in many years, I felt it. I felt the bass. It
was strange because its a song I know by heart. Why was I hit with emotions? Why was
I on the verge of tears? And why that song? Its not a complex bass line by any means,
but there I was on the floor, crying. It was as if the bass gods shone a spotlight and
beckoned me to play again.
The next day, I scoured Craigslist for a bass and an amp.
The next week, I had a 20th Anniversary Squier P-style bass and a Peavey 158
Max amplifier in my possession.
When I think of my earliest music memory, I think of Church Street Station, back
when it was a family-friendly, tourist-beckoning entry to Orlando and not the dance club
and bar scene of today. There was a concert for some reason, probably because spring
had sprung and why the hell not? My dad dragged my audio-sensitive mother and me as
close to the crowd barrier as he could to get a clear view of the band, hoping to share his
love for outdoor spectacles with me. And it worked.

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Lights in pinks, purples, and yellows doused the stage while the funk band
churned out song after song. Each member was a master of their instrument, the band
stretching from stage left to stage right. The combination of focus and enjoyment of the
performers was almost tangible. What was tangible was the music. What my mother
referred to as thumpiness filled my chest cavity and my heartbeat was their metronome.
That was the first time I listened to music with my body. I would later understand
that the bass guitar and the bass drum often work together to create a one-two punch of
sound. With funk having a strong emphasis on rhythmic grooves of the two instruments,
this was my first exposure to the bass.
Eighteen years later, when I plugged in my Squier bass into my Peavey amp, I
imagined the electric current running from the amp, through the cord, and into the input
jack. I imagined the current spreading through the bass, waking up the pickups, buzzing
with newfound energy. I played a B-flat, the first note I learned on the bass. The sound
reverberated off the walls of my room and seeped into the floor.
I didnt feel insecure or like a poseur. I didnt feel cool either.
I felt like me.