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I'm proudest that I taught myself how to play bass by thinking about it.
In my high school days I borrowed a guitar, I had a poor acoustic briefly, and I played a borrowed bass for a few minutes. In college I didn't have any instruments, but in my heart I had settled on bass.
So I just thought about it. I remembered how the bass was tuned in fourths, even though I didn't know what a fourth was. I pictured the fretboard in my head, and I imagined how each fingerings and techniques would result in various notes and sounds. I'd isolate bass parts while listening to bands, and I'd remember the riffs and try to figure out how they were played.
By the time I actually bought a bass, it had been a few years of thinking about it. Within a week I could play it pretty competently.
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