The Beginning of The Bass Guitar

The bass has always played an important role in the music of yesterday and most modern music today. From the pedal board for the bass notes of an organ, the orchestra double bass, contra bassoon or tuba, bass instruments serve as a needed harmonic reference point and a bass foundation for the music. Without a bass line to provide a point of reference for the chords and harmony, much of the music we listen to would sound incomplete. With styles of popular music changing and evolving, plus the increasing demands of the working musician for portability, playability and loud volume, there was a strong need for a new type of bass instrument. The electric bass guitar was created to fulfill these needs.

Bass guitars have been around since the 1930′s though not quite in the exact same form as the Fender bass guitars that we know today, but you could say that their predecessors, the acoustic Basses, have been around for many years longer.  The electric bass guitar offered a distinct change from the sounds that people had grown accustomed to hearing from previous upright basses. Held and played horizontally like a regular guitar, the electric bass differed from it’s predecessor, the upright bass not only in it’s orientation during playing but also in it’s ease of use and portability. Electric bass players were no longer burdened with a huge lumbering akward instrument to carry and protect. From a distance, the electric bass guitar could easily be mistaken for an electric guitar as the both look very similar with the same solid body shape, however the bass usually has a longer neck. Also, unlike an acoustic guitar which is hollow, with a sound hole to allow for amplification, the sound of a Fender bass guitar is amplified by plugging it in to an amplifier and speaker. With four strings tuned in 4ths just like the four lowest strings of a regular guitar except tuned an octave lower, the bass guitar is similar to the guitar and guitarist sometimes play bass and vice versa. It is often played by plucking or thumping the strings, unlike other guitars which are strummed. The bass is in all probability one of the closest interacting instruments to the drums; it’s because of this relationship that the bass guitar is a prominent rhythm section instrument. The combination of bass and drums and their unique interaction can completely influence the feel and vibe of the music.

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