Plague

I'm a bassist, for those of you who don't know, and at my last band practice, we were messing around and I picked up our guitarist's guitar, and I completely wow'd my bandmates. They want me to play guitar from now on. My only issue with that is the fact that it's hard to find a bassist.
I mean, I would love to be on lead guitar, but the fact that I might have to give up an already somewhat rare position kinda makes me "ehh." Our keyboardist wants me to teach her the bass lines so that she can play, because that's what she wanted to do at first, but I don't know if I have the time or patients to teach her.
So, this is my issue. I don't know what to do about this :/

 

MusicMan

It's always rewarding to teach someone a new instrument, but it does require a lot of patience if you're not experienced at teaching. And you really wouldn't want to start teaching her and give up out of frustration. If you really want to play guitar and have her play bass, maybe you could give her a few links to online sites where lessons are free, like specific youtube videos that cover the fundamentals of bass. Have her study this on her own time, and gauge by her progress if she would be a dedicated and apt student. That way, you could tell before you even begin personalized teaching/instruction, if it would try your patience or be a fairly easy process. If she doesn't seem willing to do homework, don't waste your time.

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Trapaw

While I definitely agree with MM on this one, if you're strapped for time(have shows coming up, whatever), you may try showing her the basslines you've come up with and see how she takes to those. If she plays keyboards, she should have a fundamental idea of how to write music based on root notes and accompaniment. From there, she should be able to improvise and write basic basslines even if she's not stellar at it as far as speed and ideas. Then you can focus on the more technical aspects.

I don't know what kind of music you guys play, how fast or technical it is, but that's what we did with one of our bands when I moved from bass to vocals. Our drummer took over bass since we had another drummer in mind anyways. I just showed him the lines I had written, showed him how the strings correlated with the guitar, and he went from there.

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Dynamic Threads

I'm sorry, but you'd be pretty asinine to NOT teach her or at least guide her through the process. If SHE has the patience to try and learn bass then so should you have the patience to teach her. It's a matter or putting effort into your music and if you can't put any effort into your bandmate, that's pretty selfish of you.

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Plague

Well, we have everything figured out. I'm on guitar now, and I found a friend who plays guitar, and showed him our bass lines. At first it was weird for him, but within an hour, he had them down. So it's all good Expect to hear something from us (I Can't See My Eyes) pretty soon.