Should I start by playing guitar or bass?
OK, so I'm going to put my birthday money toward a guitar. I'm not very musically talented, but I am taking a year off and want to learn the basics of music.
I know I would want to play the guitar much more than the piano. I never could work up the discipline to practice/play keyboard when I tried as a kid.
I'm going to try to teach myself some music theory by using Garage Band or something like it (recommend anything?)
So I want to know whether I should choose guitar or bass.
I am very new to music entirely.
Should I just stick to fucking around on software?
Personally I prefer the bass. It's more consistent musically than the guitar, common in more genres, and it's great to learn the mechanics of intervals and the role the bass has. With the guitar you have that stupid smaller interval between G and B...which does make doing chords easier, but it screws with your intuition. Basically, if you want to make music more easily and go to open mic night and screw around, the guitar is great. If you think you're ready to really dig into the meaty theory, you want to play with other musicians, and you don't mind not being able to just strum your troubles away, go for the bass.
If you can swing it, I also recommend getting one of those RadioShack keyboards that has the automatic chord thing on it and it displays what chord is being played (and more than just the basic M, m, 7, m7 chords, see if you can get one that shows augmented, sus4, and inverted chords). Mess around with it as much as you can. Listen to what happens when you use different chords. The hands-and-ears-on approach will teach you way more effectively than any book can.
I must disagree with >>2's thoughtful comment. The bass is a rhythm section instrument and almost always played as such. If you want to learn about how different Intervals interact to form chords go with a the guitar.
Although they are very similar, they are played very differently; the guitar plays a similar role as a keyboard, while the bass in practice is more similar to the drums than the guitar.
Really, I suggest that you play around with a guitar, and also play around with a bass, and see which you prefer. I have a guitar and a (short scale neck) bass.
As the time has gone by, I've found that I prefer to play with the bass.
I agree with >>2's post, and disagree with 4's post. I'm not keen on the irregular interval of the guitar, because it feels out of order to me. But I suppose it is useful for some things.
And yes, in most music the bass is used as a rhythm instrument, but it doesn't have to be. You can play on it whatever you want - you can even play chords (although of course, you cannot play chords with more than four notes, and most of chords I find myself playing only use three strings at once time) but you can definitely play a lot of different chords.
If you use it properly, the bass can be a lead instrument. Different amplifier settings and sound effects can help with that.