Learning Baseline Bass Lines - Inanimate Insanity

CHAPTER TWO: frustration and captivation.

"Paintbrush, I NEED you to like- teach me how to play bass"

The afternoon was fading, and the bright lights of the midday sun had turned into warm oranges in the studio. everyone had left a bit over fifteen minutes ago, and Paintbrush had finished cleaning up and was practicing on their own for a bit, they much rather down here than in the room with Fan.

But Pepper had shown up on her own, without Salt, and Paintbrush felt like they were staring at only half of a full set, they had never seen one without the other.

But here Pepper was, standing over Paintbrush, She had asked the question and not looked Painty in the eye, She held her hands close to herself, twisting her thumbs into one another.

Paintbrush looked up at Pepper, eyebrow cocked, and their fingers just letting go of the frets they were holding.

"... Uhm, sure? I'm not judging, but why the sudden interest? You always sit out of this stuff?"

"uh, uhm, just! thought it'd be a cool thing to learn!"

"Oookay, I'm hosting another music session in a few days, Oj said he enjoyed it, and I need more time with Mic anyways, so you're free to jump in with-"

"N-NO!" Pepper shoved her hands out and shook them in as many X motions as she could. "I would want it to be with just you! I don't want anyone else to see me!"

Paintbrush was even more confused now, was it really that big a deal? did Pepper think she was gonna be THAT bad?

Paintbrush slid the orange and red-tinted bass off their shoulders, and held it to the side of themselves, "I mean... you can always come later like you are now, and I can show you some bits then till you're more confident."

"Yeah! that'd work great!" Pepper said as she picked up a guitar from one of the mounts on the wall. she happily skipped over and sat down on the seat mic previously occupied.

"So how do I start?" Pepper awkwardly propped the guitar onto her knee, the same way she had seen paintbrush do earlier.

Paintbrush looked at her weirdly, she wanted her first lesson now???

"I- I think you misunderstood me, I mean next time. also, that's just an electric guitar, not a bass, it's got six small strings." They motioned to the the upside-down acoustic guitar in Pepper's lap.

"o-oh, sorry, I'll just put-"

"No, no it's okay, if you have that much to learn we better get started sooner than later. The first four strings are the same notes, anyways, so it's not a big deal."

Paintbrush let out a small sigh and pushed their chair closer to Pepper's.

"So to start, you gotta hold the guitar so that the small string is the closest to the floor." paintbrush picked up the wooden instrument from Pepper's lap and she lifted her arms to compensate the room, they flipped it longways and placed it back downed continued.

"Kay? Cool. Next, you gotta put your left hand up on this part, it's called the neck, and these boxes are the frets, when you press these," Paintbrush plucked the thickest string, and then pressed onto a random fret with their free hand and plucked it again, creating a different note. Pepper looked intently where Paintbrush had pressed. "it'll make a bunch of different notes on one string, like that, but I'll show you more of that later."

Pepper pointed with her right hand over the parts that Paintbrush and already named "Ooookay, so I just strum the strings like that and press the boxes-"