When playing the
bass guitar, having good callouses on the
fingers of
both hands is only
slightly less important than having an instrument to play, and is certainly
more important than an
amp or an appropriate
string guage or
stomp boxes or a
badass attitude or
musical knowledge.
Don't believe me? You try grooving on round wound steel strings for 30 minutes with virgin fingers, and just you wait and see how much skin is left on your fingers and how much is embedded in the strings.
This could be one reason why chicks dig the piano player, or at least prefer him over the bass player: a pianist's hands aren't usually a glove made of dead skin.