If you're a long-time (read "aging") bass player, you might now have a son or daughter who has asked about joining the club. You get a gleam in your eye, thinking about how he or she will soon be starting a band and holding down the bottom end. A chip off the old block! You think about the great bass you'll buy and the lessons you'll provide that will teach all of the tricks you've spent years learning.

You're heading off to a valiant quest, but proceed cautiously. Unless you have a remarkable rapport with your kid, I'd suggest finding an experienced teacher...one who's not in the family! And after you see what a kid can do to a bass and amp, you'll wish you'd started off with something simple, playable, but not too expensive.

Both my son and daughter have played bass in jr. high and high school. For my son, I quickly discovered we didn't have the patience for lessons together. I'd start showing him something, ask him to play it, and then I'd play it again. Somehow, I kept finding myself alone in the room going over the same line while he was back in his room playing a computer game. Or else he'd stay in the room for the lesson, but his mind would wander and I'd lose patience.

Serving as my son's bass teacher just didn't work!

I had a friend who taught at a local music shop who probably got half the bass playing kids in our town started. They had a marvelous rapport and the lessons went quite well. After a few lessons, my son joined the junior high jazz band, and soon after took a stab at a punk/metal band with some friends. He didn't enjoy all the noise and screaming and quit that band. Then he gave up jazz band for tennis after his freshman year of high school. End of bass career.

(As an aside, watch who's in your kid's band...the second drummer he worked pulled a knife on the star football player over a video game. This year, that same drummer committed a double stabbing murder of his girlfriend and another girl. But this was three or four years after my son quit the band...phew! Likely a worst case scenario, but you never know what might happen.)

Next came my daughter. She was already playing violin and wanted to play bass for fun. We decided not to start with lessons because she was already taking French horn lessons and had taken violin lessons since kindergarten. She had the necessary musical skills and just needed to learn how to apply them to bass. I got her a good method book and talked her through the beginning parts: right hand and left hand technique, names of the strings, how to find notes. Sometimes she'll ask me a few questions, but we rarely do an actual sitdown lesson. She's now a sophomore in high school and has played in summer jazz camp and a school jazz band. So far, there hasn't been a band outside of school, but I imagine there will be one eventually.

About basses, starting a kid on a pro-grade instrument sounds ideal, but I found that neither of my kids really cared about an instrument's pedigree, as long as it felt right and sounded okay. Color of the bass was one of the most important aspects, along with the general shape. Nearly any bass is playable off the shelf with just a bit of setup. For my son, I reworked a metallic red P Bass I had. It got a black pearl pickguard, a new chrome bridge and a hot pickup…he was happy. Later, I found a him an inexpensive fretless bass and he played that in jazz band for a year (until the teacher asked him to go back to a bass with frets for the sake of intonation).

When it was my daughter's turn, she got that same red P Bass (I'd sold the fretless bass to a son of a friend), and now plays another basic fretless bass that I got a good deal on. It is light, has a slim neck, and a natural finish, and she really relates to it because of her violin experience. My daughter enjoys the fretless for jazz band, but expects to take out that red fretted bass when it's time to start a rock band.

For both kids, the basses got bumped and banged, dinged and dented. Because they were basic (but decent) instruments, it wasn't such a big deal. The P Bass has a quarter size chip off its thick finish where it hit a handrail as my son walked off stage at a concert. My daughter managed to have the strap come loose on the fretless, dropped it and dinged the soft-finished alder body (I just added a couple of bicycle innertube loops as cheap straplocks). Recently, the volume pot was mysteriously snapped off almost completely on the P Bass and the tone pot on the fretless somehow got floppy all by itself. I'd be pretty nervous about buying a high-end axe and seeing these things happen, but for these basses, it was okay. I've never dropped my bass nor have I broken a control, but that was an easy task for both kids.

Choosing a basic, solid amp follows the same logic. Get something that works for the intended use, but isn't extravagant. Think one of the basic brands, nothing boutique. Think combo. Think "minimum knobs," because they won't figure them out, or maybe not even care about tweaking the sound. I showed my daughter how to set the knobs on her bass. She just leaves them in one place and plays. Same goes for the amp. Set it up with a basic EQ and then just show which knob makes it louder and softer. Get a folding handcart so the amp's weight isn't such a concern, or add casters. There's also something to be said for keeping the gear modest. Giving a kid super deluxe gear raises the performance expectations from bandmates (and again, family fallout from wrecking something expensive…imagine an amp head sliding off a speaker cab!).

Most combo amps have a headphone jack and an input for a CD or MP3 player. That's what I suggested to a friend who recently started his junior high age son on bass. He bought the boy a decent (again, basic) instrument, but because he collected vintage tube amps, he gave him one from the collection, a 1969 all tube Bassman head with a little speaker cab. The amp had no headphone jack and was a pain to lug. I suggested a basic multi-effects pedal to serve as a headphone amp and tuner, and his son was delighted, actually forgoing the bass rig for a pair of headphones and all the cool sounds the pedal could give him. I think the bass rig has been sitting untouched in the basement for awhile now. I'm not sure if his son is still taking lessons or even still playing, but if he does, I hope they go with a combo amp shortly after he resumes.

In all, starting a kid off on bass is a bit of a gambling venture. You need realistic expectations when the two of you start off, because you're not sure if - or how long - this musical endeavor will last. Try to make it an easygoing experience, not something with the potential for guilt or pressure to practice or to be constantly careful with expensive gear. Watch how bass playing might affect the parent-kid relationship, too. With some thought and a bit of luck, it can turn out great!