re: Whats the easiest way to learn an instrument?

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No chords? You just pluck away?

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You don't just pluck away at open strings all of the time.
There may be some positions to keep your fingers within scales that may resemble chords. I'm not sure.
But at bare minimum, you can get by in simple songs just by holding a string and pluck it.
Switch notes, pluck it. It would sound boring, and be boring to play for a real bass player, but it would work.

I used to sit in with a kind of open mic night band at a lil place.
Playing rhythm guitar and singing.
A couple of times the bass player wanted to play rhythm and sing, so he handed me the bass over my protesting.
I didn't realy know what I was doing, but I know just a little bit of scales, and there were other guitars and a harmonica to help drown me out.