This article is written by Toru Hoshino, a jazz bassist and instructor based in Japan who teaches online lessons to students worldwide. In this article, he shares a more personal story — about the time he quit a band, and almost quit bass entirely, because he couldn’t keep up.
This one’s a little more personal than usual, but anyone who’s taken music seriously hits a wall at some point, so I wanted to share my own story in case it resonates with someone.
When I was 26, I joined a rock band — I’ll call it “M-Rocks” here. The singer was genuinely successful on a major-label level, and I got the call after their previous bassist left.
That previous bassist — I’ll call him “S” — went on to back famous, universally recognized artists and even played at the Budokan. Even back in the M-Rocks days, he had a ton of charisma as a player.
I’d had a decent run in the rock scene myself at that point, so his track record didn’t faze me — I joined with a “let’s do this” attitude.
Once I actually started playing with them, though, the level was just way beyond me. I couldn’t keep up at all.
I got chewed out at every rehearsal. No matter how much I tried to adjust, I just didn’t fit the band’s sound. My technique, my tone, my arranging sense — none of it was working, and my confidence cratered.
After about a year, I came to terms with “I can’t do this band,” and ended up leaving.
And I quit bass entirely.
I genuinely could not play like S could. This was about 16 years ago now.
Time passed. Eventually, for a bunch of reasons, I came back to music, and more recently I’d been playing live shows as a support bassist for a rock band.
Then one day, at a multi-band show, it turned out we were sharing a bill with — of all people — S’s band.
The moment I saw his face backstage, my honest first instinct was to run. But instead, he opened with:
“Hey, Toru! Long time. Why’d you quit the band, anyway?”
“Here it comes,” I thought — and answered honestly:
“I just couldn’t play anywhere near your level. It broke me.”
And he said:
“Yeah, I get that. Funny enough, I went through the same thing later — got fired from a recording session with [a huge name], couldn’t cut it, and cried about it.”
That’s when it hit me: there’s always someone further up the ladder.
And it’s exactly because he’d had that kind of bruising experience himself that he could say something like that to me.
After leaving M-Rocks, I happened to get into jazz, and that’s the road that eventually led me here. But for a long time, I carried this quiet guilt — the feeling that I’d quit that band because I “couldn’t keep up.”
Talking to S again after all these years, I felt that guilt finally lift.
It’s a bit like 16 years of unresolved dominant tension finally landing on the tonic. Sixteen years on a G7, and I finally got my CΔ7. Way too long, honestly. (lol)
We ended up just talking normally after that. I told him I’m now playing jazz and upright bass, and working professionally as a bass instructor — and he was genuinely happy for me, which meant a lot.
Whether you’re a pro or not, if you take music seriously for long enough, you end up with all kinds of experiences — good ones, frustrating ones, exhausting ones. But I think that only happens because you were taking it seriously enough for it to matter in the first place.
Hard to put into words exactly, but that’s how it feels.
Like I said, hitting a wall is basically guaranteed if you take music seriously. And still —
If you’re gritting your teeth and sticking with it through that wall, you’re already a lot stronger than I was back then. Whatever’s waiting on the other side of it, I hope you get to grab hold of it.
So — a slightly more emotional story than usual today.
Hitting a wall like that is exactly the moment having someone in your corner matters most — someone who can tell you whether it’s really a skill gap or just the wrong next step.
Want Personalized Feedback on Your Playing?
This is exactly the kind of thing that’s hard to fix alone — and where having a teacher makes all the difference.
At Line on Bass, I offer an online lesson service where you send me a video of your playing, and I give you specific, detailed feedback — every single day if you want.
Students from around the world are using this to fix exactly these kinds of issues and steadily improve their jazz bass skills.