Skip if you don't want to hear a rant:
Bass is indeed a very fun instrument, and to play the basics of any instrument is easy if you practice. However, while it may just be my undying love for my principal instrument (The fretless electric bass) talking, I would rank the electric bass as one of the hardest instruments to master. First of all, as a bassist, you are in charge of the rhythm (second to the drums), the harmony (usually first, especially in Jazz music, alongside rhythm) and sometimes even the melody. Any instrument is hard to become very good at, but I think the bass is one of the hardest instruments, once you get into the upper echelons of playing, to break up into the higher levels of. For one, when you're a bassist or a guitar player, you tend to develop certain stylistic licks and such that are used a lot while playing, and can be hard to break from, whereas with an instrument like the Trombone, it's easier to just move your hands a little more randomly, and have it not come out too bad (don't get me wrong, though, the Trombone is a very hard instrument to solo on). Also, with the bass, you have the challenge of (most of the time) not having harmony to back you up. As a bass player, you tend to play chord changes and backgrounds throughout entire solo sections, to lay the groundwork for the song's solo for other instruments. When you solo, you have the added challenge of no groundwork (except drums) to solo off of, and have to do it all mentally. Lastly, the bass doesn't tend to be considered a soloing instrument, and doesn't always fit into a soloing situation that well, and many things can tend to sound boring/the same if not played very well, whereas on other instruments, it's easier to fake more of a solo if you get lost. You can argue a lot of this for other instruments as well, such as "With trumpet, it's harder because you don't have to learn lip levels on the bass," compared to, like, "On bass, it's harder because you don't have to get the same finger dexterity and precision, and left-right hand cooperation on trumpet." There's a lot of subjectivity, but I think the electric bass is one of the greatest instruments there are, and to say it's easier than other instruments just because the instrument is so dumbed down with crappy, mediocre players who are the "Fine, I'll play bass"ists of their band, is kind of insulting 🙁 Anyways, sorry for the rant. /hijack over
