Guitar Guide Book

Bass Guitar Guide

The electric bass guitar is a solid-body instrument that looks allot like the electric guitar. In fact the notes on the bass are the same as the bottom four on the guitar E, A, D and G but tuned an octave lower. The instrument provides the bottom-end of the tones in music groups in all genres including jazz, Latin, rock and pop. The bass is normally plucked with the fingers unlike the guitar, which is usually played with a pick. In addition to plucking, bassists use their fingers for all kinds of interesting playing techniques like slapping, tapping and popping.

The first electric bass was invented in the 1930s by Audiovox. At first the bass was a huge acoustic instrument called the double bass, or stand up bass. But the new invention made the instrument more like a guitar which made it easier to tune, learn and carry around. However, it wasn’t until the 1950s that the electric bass really took off when Fender put its Precision Bass on the market. The Fender Jazz bass was the next model to become a very popular mass-market electric bass in the 1960s and they followed up with the StingRay in the 70s.

The next major innovation came in the 1970s with Alembic’s custom made expensive basses. They were made of the best woods, electronics and finishes possible. The 70s also saw the introduction of the 6 string bass with a low B string added. Then the Steinberger bass was invented in the 1980s and was the first bass without a head, and tuning pegs on the body. Also during the 80s Gibson released the Ashbory bass with rubber strings and Peizo pickups that reproduced the sound of the old style stand up double bass. Development of the electric bass in the 90s and 2000s has mainly involved adding better and better electronics like pre-amplification, equalizers and digital modeling.

The body of the bass is normally made of alder, the neck out of maple and rosewood is used typically used for the fret board. Most are solid bodies which use humbucker or single coil pickups, but there are also acoustic-electric basses on the market which use Peizo pickups. Some basses are even made without frets in order to get the more natural expressive sound of the stand up bass. The famous bass player Jaco Pastorius actually removed the frets himself from a Fender Jazz Bass in order to get unique glissando and vibrato effects.

Plucking notes on the bass with your middle and index fingers is called pizzicato. You can rest your thumb on the pick guard, low string or find a hand position of our own. Playing with a pick is technically called plectrum and is normally done in rock bands. Slapping and popping is a big part of the funk style in which you slap the low strings with your thumb and pop the higher strings by doing a quick pull and release with your index or middle finger. Tapping is when you press down on a string behind frets to make a note, but with the hand you usually pluck with, in combination with the other hand to make complex harmonies and melodies.