Bass guitar
Encyclopedia
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the finger
s or thumb
(by fingering, slapping
, popping, tapping, or thumping), or by using a pick
.
The bass guitar is similar in appearance and construction to an electric guitar
, but with a longer neck
and scale
length, and four, five, six, or eight strings
. The four-string bass—by far the most common—is usually tuned the same as the double bass
, which corresponds to pitches one octave
lower than the four lower strings of a guitar (E, A, D, and G). The bass guitar is a transposing instrument
, as it is notated in bass clef an octave higher than it sounds (as is the double bass) to avoid excessive ledger line
s. Like the electric guitar, the bass guitar is plugged into an amplifier and speaker
for live performances.
Since the 1950s, the bass guitar has largely replaced the double bass in popular music
as the bass instrument in the rhythm section
. While the types of bassline
s performed by the bassist vary widely from one style of music to another, the bassist fulfills a similar role in most types of music: anchoring the harmonic framework and laying down the beat. The bass guitar is used in many styles of music including rock
, metal
, pop
, punk rock
, country
, reggae
, blues
, and jazz
. It is used as a soloing instrument in jazz, fusion
, Latin, funk
, and in some rock and metal styles.
In the 1930s, musician and inventor Paul Tutmarc
from Seattle, Washington, developed the first electric string bass in its modern form, a fret
ted instrument designed to be held and played horizontally. The 1935 sales catalog for Tutmarc's electronic musical instrument company, Audiovox, featured his "Model 736 Bass Fiddle
," a four-stringed, solid-bodied, fretted electric bass instrument with a 30½-inch scale length. The alteration to a "guitar" form made the instrument easier to hold and transport, and the addition of frets enabled bassists to play in tune more easily. Around 100 of these instruments were made during this period.
Around 1947, Tutmarc's son, Bud, began marketing a similar bass under the Serenader brand name, prominently advertised in the nationally distributed L.D. Heater Co. wholesale jobber catalogue of '48. However, the Tutmarc family inventions did not achieve market success.
In the 1950s, Leo Fender
, with the help of his employee George Fullerton, developed the first mass-produced electric bass. His Fender Precision Bass
, introduced in 1951, became a widely copied industry standard. The Precision Bass (or "P-bass") evolved from a simple, uncontoured "slab" body design similar to that of a Telecaster
with a single coil pickup
, to a contoured body design with beveled edges for comfort and a single four-pole "single coil pickup." This "split pickup", introduced in 1957, appears to have been two mandolin pickups (Fender was marketing a four string solid body electric mandolin at the time). Because the pole pieces of the coils were reversed with respect to each other, and the leads were also reversed with respect to each other, the two coils, wired in series, produced a humbucking
effect (the same effect is achieved if the coils are wired in parallel).
The "Fender Bass was a revolutionary new instrument, one that could easily be played by an electric guitarist, could be easily transported to a gig, and could be amplified to just about any volume without feeding back". Monk Montgomery
was the first bass player to tour with the Fender bass guitar, with Lionel Hampton's
postwar big band
. Roy Johnson, who replaced Montgomery in Hampton's band, and Shifty Henry
with Louis Jordan
& His Tympany Five
, were other early Fender bass pioneers. Bill Black
, playing with Elvis Presley
, adopted the Fender Precision Bass around 1957.
Following Fender's lead, Gibson
released the violin
-shaped electric bass with extendable end pin in 1953, allowing it to be played upright or horizontally. Gibson renamed the Electric Bass in 1958 as the EB-1 (The EB-1 was reissued around 1970, but this time without the end pin.) Also in 1958 Gibson released the maple arched top EB-2 described in the Gibson catalogue as A hollow-body electric bass that features a Bass/Baritone pushbutton for two different tonal characteristics. In 1959 these were followed by the more conventional-looking EB-0 Bass
. The EB-0 was very similar to a Gibson SG
in appearance (although the earliest examples have a slab-sided body shape closer to that of the double-cutaway Les Paul Special).
Whereas Fender basses had pickups mounted in positions in between the base of the neck and the top of the bridge, many of Gibson's early basses featured one humbucking
pickup mounted directly against the neck pocket. The EB-3
, introduced in 1961, also had a "mini-humbucker" at the bridge position. Gibson basses also tended to be smaller, sleeker instruments; Gibson did not produce a 34" scale bass until 1963 with the release of the Thunderbird
, which was also the first Gibson bass to use dual-humbucking pickups in a more traditional position, about halfway between the neck and bridge. A small number of other companies also began manufacturing bass guitars during the 1950s: Kay
in 1952, and Danelectro
in 1956;
1956 saw the appearance at the German trade fair "Musikmesse Frankfurt" of the distinctive Höfner 500/1
violin bass made using violin construction techniques by Walter Höfner
, a second generation violin luthier. The instrument is often known as the "Beatle Bass", due to its endorsement by Paul McCartney
.
In 1957 Rickenbacker
introduced the model 4000 bass, the first bass to feature a neck-through-body design; the Fender and Gibson versions used bolt-on and glued-on necks.
First introduced in 1960, the Fender Jazz Bass
was known as the Deluxe Bass and was meant to accompany the Jazzmaster guitar. The Jazz Bass (often referred to as a "J-bass") featured two single-coil pickups, one close to the bridge and one in the Precision bass' split coil pickup position. The earliest production basses had a 'stacked' volume and tone control for each pickup. This was soon changed to the familiar configuration of a volume control for each pickup, and a single, passive tone control. The Jazz Bass' neck was narrower at the nut than the Precision bass (1½" versus 1¾").
Another visual difference that set the Jazz Bass apart from the Precision is its "offset-waist" body. Pickup shapes on electric basses are often referred to as "P" or "J" pickups in reference to the visual and electrical differences between the Precision Bass and Jazz Bass pickups.
Significantly, Fender chose to label the headstock of this model with a decal noting Jazz Bass Electric Bass http://www.vintageguitars.org.uk/adDetails/359.
Fender also began production of the Mustang Bass
; a 30" scale length instrument used by bassists such as Tina Weymouth
of Talking Heads
and Bill Wyman
of The Rolling Stones
("P" and "J" basses have a scale length of 34", a design echoed on most current production electric basses of all makes). In the 1950s and 1960s, the instrument was often called the "Fender bass", due to Fender's early dominance in the market.
Gibson introduced the short-scale (30.5") bass the Gibson EB-3
in 1961, favoured by Jack Bruce
of Cream
.
The 1970s saw the founding of Music Man
Instruments by Tom Walker, Forrest White and Leo Fender, which produced the StingRay
, the first widely produced bass with active (powered) electronics. This amounts to an impedance buffering pre-amplifier on-board the instrument to lower the output impedance of the bass's pickup circuit, increasing low-end output, and overall frequency response (more lows and highs). Specific models became identified with particular styles of music, such as the Rickenbacker 4001 series, which became identified with progressive rock bassists like Chris Squire
of Yes
, and Geddy Lee
of Rush
, while the StingRay was used by Louis Johnson
of the funk band The Brothers Johnson.
In 1971, Alembic
established the template for what became known as "boutique" or "high-end" electric bass guitars. These expensive, custom-tailored instruments, as used by Phil Lesh
, Jack Casady
, and Stanley Clarke, featured unique designs, premium hand-finished wood bodies, onboard electronics for preamplification and equalization, and innovative construction techniques such as multi-laminate neck-through-body
construction and graphite necks. In the mid-1970s, Alembic and other boutique bass manufacturers, such as Tobias, produced four-string and five-string basses with a low "B" string. In 1975, bassist Anthony Jackson commissioned luthier Carl Thompson to build a six-string bass tuned (low to high) B0, E1, A1, D2, G2, C3.
In the 1980s, bass designers continued to explore new approaches. Ned Steinberger
introduced a headless bass in 1979 and continued his innovations in the 1980s, using graphite
and other new materials and (in 1984) introducing the TransTrem tremolo bar
. In 1987, the Guild Guitar Corporation launched the fretless Ashbory bass
, which used silicone rubber strings and a piezoelectric pickup to achieve a "double bass" sound with a short 18" scale length. In the late 1980s, MTV's "Unplugged"
show, which featured bands performing with acoustic instruments, helped to popularize hollow-bodied acoustic bass guitar
s amplified with pickups.
During the 1990s, as five-string basses became more widely available and more affordable, an increasing number of bassists in genres ranging from metal
to gospel
began using five-string instruments for added lower range—a low "B" below the standard "E" string. Some bass players who performed a lot in a solo setting used five-string basses to get a higher range by adding a high "C" string as the fifth string (this is known as "tenor tuning"). As well, the onboard battery-powered electronics such as preamplifiers and equalizer circuits, which were previously only available on expensive "boutique" instruments, became increasingly available on modestly priced basses.
In the first decade of the 21st century, some bass manufacturers included digital
modelling circuits inside the instrument to recreate tones and sounds from many models of basses (e.g., Line 6's Variax bass). Traditional bass designs such as the Fender Precision Bass
and Fender Jazz Bass
remained popular in the first decade of the 21st century; in 2011, a 60th Anniversary P-bass was introduced by Fender, along with the introduction of the Fender Jaguar Bass
.
(for example, some of the Steinberger
designs) have also been used. While a wide variety of woods
are suitable for use in the body, neck, and fretboard of the bass guitar, the most common type of wood used for the body is alder
, for the neck is maple
, and for the fretboard is rosewood. Other commonly used woods include mahogany, maple, ash, and poplar for bodies, mahogany for necks, and maple and ebony for fretboards.
Other design options include finishes, such as lacquer, wax and oil; flat and carved designs; Luthier
-produced custom-designed instruments; headless basses, which have tuning machines in the bridge of the instrument (e.g., Steinberger
and Hohner
designs) and several artificial materials such as luthite
. The use of artificial materials (e.g., BassLab
) allows for unique production techniques such as die-casting, to produce complex body shapes. While most basses have solid bodies, they can also include hollow chambers to increase the resonance or reduce the weight of the instrument. Some basses are built with entirely hollow bodies, which change the tone and resonance of the instrument. Acoustic bass guitar
s are typically equipped with piezoelectric or magnetic pickups and amplified.
Instruments handmade by highly skilled luthiers are becoming increasingly available. Exotic materials include woods such as bubinga, wenge
, ovangkol, ebony
and goncalo alves
. Graphite composite
is used to make lightweight necks Exotic woods are used on more expensive instruments: for example, Alembic uses cocobolo as a body or top layer material because of its attractive grain. Warwick bass guitars are also well known for exotic hardwoods: most of the necks are made of ovangkol, and the fingerboards wenge or ebony. Solid bubinga bodies are also used for tonal and aesthetic qualities.
The "long scale" necks used on Leo Fender's basses, giving a scale length
(distance between nut and bridge
) of 34", remain the standard for electric basses. However, 30" or "short scale" instruments, such as the Höfner 500/1
"violin bass" played by Paul McCartney
, and the Fender Mustang Bass
are popular, especially for players with smaller hands. While 35", 35.5" and 36" scale lengths were once only available in "boutique" instruments, in the first decade of the 21st century, many manufacturers have begun offering these lengths, also called an "extra long scale." This extra long scale provides a higher string tension, which yields a more defined tone on the low "B" string of five- and six-stringed instruments (or detuned four-string basses).
Another design consideration for the bass is whether to use fret
s on the fingerboard. On a fretted bass, the frets divide the fingerboard into semitone
divisions (as on a guitar). The original Fender basses had 20 frets, but modern basses may have 24 or more. Fretless bass
es have a distinct sound, because the absence of frets means that the string must be pressed down directly onto the wood of the fingerboard as with the double bass
. The string buzzes against the wood and is somewhat muted because the sounding portion of the string is in direct contact with the flesh of the player's finger. The fretless bass allows players to use the expressive devices of glissando
, vibrato
and microtonal intonations such as quarter tone
s and just intonation
.
Some bassists use both fretted and fretless basses in performances, according to the type of material they are performing, as with Pino Palladino
, whose performance on the fretless bass during the 1980s made him a highly desirable session player
backing high profile musicians that included Eric Clapton
and David Gilmour
. However, the late 1990s showed a shift toward fretted basses as well, as he branched out into a wide variety of genres. While fretless basses are often associated with jazz
and jazz fusion
, bassists from other genres use fretless basses, such as metal bassist Steve DiGiorgio
and Colin Edwin
of modern/progressive rock band Porcupine Tree
as well as Tony Levin
, studio bassist & live bassist for Peter Gabriel
throughout his post-Genesis
solo career.
The first fretless bass guitar was made by Bill Wyman
in 1961 when he converted an inexpensive Japanese fretted bass by removing the frets. The first production fretless bass was the Ampeg
AUB-1 introduced in 1966, and Fender introduced a fretless Precision Bass in 1970. In the early 1970s, fusion-jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius
created his own fretless bass by removing the frets from a Fender Jazz Bass, filling the holes with wood putty, and coating the fretboard with epoxy resin. Some fretless basses have "fret line" markers inlaid in the fingerboard as a guide, while others only use guide marks on the side of the neck.
Tapewound (double bass type) and flatwound strings are sometimes used with the fretless bass so the metal string windings do not wear down the fingerboard
. Some fretless basses have epoxy coated fingerboards to increase the fingerboard' durability, enhance sustain, and give a brighter tone. Although most fretless basses have four strings, five-string and six-string fretless basses are also available. Fretless basses with more than six strings are also available as "boutique" or custom-made instruments.
The standard design for the electric bass guitar has four strings
, tuned E, A, D and G, in fourths such that the open highest string, G, is an eleventh (an octave and a fourth) below middle C, making the tuning of all four strings the same as that of the double bass
. This tuning is also the same as the standard tuning on the lower four strings on a six-string guitar, only an octave lower. String types include all-metal strings (roundwound, flatwound, halfwound, ground wound, and pressure wound); as well as metal strings with different coverings, such as tapewound and plastic-coatings. The variety of materials used in the strings gives bass players a range of tonal options. In the 1950s and early 1960s, bassists mostly used flatwound strings with a smooth surface, which had a smooth, damped sound reminiscent of a double bass. In the late 1960s and 1970s, roundwound bass strings similar to guitar strings became popular, though flatwounds also continue to be popular. Roundwounds have a brighter timbre
with longer sustain than flatwounds.
A number of other tuning options and bass types have been used to extend the range of the instrument. The most common are four, five, or six strings:
Some bassists have used other types of tuning methods to obtain an extended range or other benefits such as providing multiple octaves of notes at any given position, as well as a significantly larger tonal range. Instrument types or tunings used for this purpose include basses with fewer than four strings (one-string bass guitars, two-string bass guitars, three-string bass guitars [tuned to E-A-D]) alternative tunings (e.g., tenor bass, piccolo bass
, and guitar-tuned basses) and 8, 10, 12 and 15-string basses, which are built on the same principle as the 12-string guitar, where the strings are grouped into "courses" tuned in unison or octaves, to be played simultaneously.
Extended Range Basses
(ERBs) are basses with six to twelve strings—with the additional strings used for range rather than unison or octave pairs. A seven-string bass (B0-E1-A1-D2-G2-C3-F3) was built by luthier Michael Tobias in 1987. This instrument, commissioned by bassist Garry Goodman, was an early example of a bass with more than six single course strings. Conklin builds eight- and nine-string basses. The Guitarbass is a ten-string instrument with four bass strings (tuned E-A-D-G) and six guitar strings (tuned E-A-D-G-B-E).
Luthier Michael Adler built the first 11-string bass in 2004 and completed the first single-course 12-string bass in 2005. Adler's 11- and 12-string instruments have the same range as a grand piano. Sub-contra basses, such as C#-F#-B-E ("C#" being at 17.32 Hz (C♯0)) have been created. Ibanez
had released SR7VIISC in 2009, featuring a 30" scale and narrower width, and tuned as B-E-A-D-G-C-E; the company dubbed it a cross between bass and guitar. Yves Carbonne developed 10 and 12 string fretless sub-bass guitars.
Many basses have just one pickup, typically a "P" or soapbar pickup. Multiple pickups are also quite common, two of the most common configurations being a "P" near the neck and a "J" near the bridge (e.g., Fender Precision Bass Special, Fender Precision Bass Plus), or two "J" pickups (e.g., Fender Jazz). A two-"soapbar" configuration is also very common, especially on basses by makes such as Ibanez
and Yamaha
. A combination of a J or other single-coil pickup at the neck and a Music Man-style humbucker in the bridge has become popular among boutique builders, giving a very bright, focused tone that is good for jazz and thumbstyle.
Some basses use more unusual pickup configurations, such as a soapbar and a "P" pickup (found on some Fenders), Stu Hamm's "Urge" basses, which have a "P" pickup sandwiched between two "J" pickups, and some of Bootsy Collins
' custom basses, which had as many as 5 J pickups. Another unusual pickup configuration is found on some of the custom basses that Billy Sheehan
uses, in which there is one humbucker at the neck and a split-coil pickup at the middle position.
The placement of the pickup greatly affects the sound. A pickup near the neck joint emphasizes the fundamental and low-order harmonics and thus produces a deeper, bassier sound, while a pickup near the bridge emphasizes higher-order harmonics and makes a "tighter" or "sharper" sound. Usually basses with multiple pickups allow blending of the output from the pickups, with electrical and acoustical interactions between the two pickups (such as partial phase cancellations) allowing a range of tonal effects.
, which create different tones.
Like the electric guitar
, the electric bass guitar is often connected to an amplifier and a speaker with a patch cord for live performances. Electric bassists use either a "combo" amplifier, which combines an amplifier and a speaker in a single cabinet, or an amplifier and a separate speaker cabinet (or cabinets). In some cases when the bass is being used with large-scale PA
amplification, it is plugged into a "DI"
or "direct box", which routes their signal directly into a mixing console
, and thence to the main and monitor speakers. Recording may use a microphone setup for the amplified signal, a direct box feeding the recording console or a mix of both.
Various electronic bass effects such as preamplifier
s, "stomp box"-style pedals and signal processors and the configuration of the amplifier
and speaker
can be used to alter the basic sound of the instrument. In the 1990s and early first decade of the 21st century, signal processors such as equalizers, overdrive devices, and compressors
or limiter
s became increasingly popular. Modulation effects like chorus, flanging, phase shifting, and time effects such as delay and looping are less commonly used with bass than with electric guitar, but they are used in some styles of music.
, will alternate between standing or seated playing. It is a matter of the player's preference as to which position gives the greatest ease of playing and what a bandleader expects. When sitting, right-handed players can balance the instrument on the right thigh or like classical guitar players, the left. Balancing the bass on the left thigh usually positions it in such a way that it mimics the standing position, allowing for less difference between the standing and sitting positions. Balancing the bass on the right thigh provides better access to the neck and fretboard in its entirety, especially lower frets.
In contrast to the upright bass (or double bass), the electric bass guitar is played horizontally across the body, like an electric guitar. When the strings are plucked with the fingers (pizzicato
), the index and middle fingers (and sometimes with the thumb, ring, and pinky fingers as well) are used. James Jamerson
, an influential bassist from the Motown era, played intricate bass lines using only his index finger, which he called "The Hook." There are also variations in how a bassist chooses to rest the right-hand thumb (or left thumb in the case of left-handed players). A player may rest his or her thumb on the top edge of one of the pickups or on the side of the fretboard, which is especially common among bassists who have an upright bass influence. Some bassists anchor their thumbs on the lowest string and move it off to play on the low string. Alternatively, the thumb can be rested loosely on the strings to mute the unused strings.
The string can be plucked at any point between the bridge and the point where the fretting hand is holding down the string; different timbre
s are produced depending on where along the string it is plucked. Some players are known for plucking near the bridge where the string is most taut, such as jazz fusion bassist Jaco Pastorius
, whereas other bassists prefer the "looser" part of the string nearer to the fingerboard.
Bassists trying to emulate the sound of a double bass sometimes pluck the strings with their thumb and use palm-muting
to create a short, "thumpy" tone. The late Monk Montgomery
(who played in Lionel Hampton's band) and Bruce Palmer
(who performed with Buffalo Springfield
) use thumb downstrokes. The use of the thumb was acknowledged by early Fender models, which came with a "thumbrest" or "Tug Bar" attached to the pickguard below the strings. Contrary to its name, this was not used to rest the thumb, but to provide leverage while using the thumb to pluck the strings. The thumbrest was moved above the strings in 1970s models and eliminated in the 1980s.
method, or "thumbstyle", most associated with funk, uses tones and percussive sounds achieved by striking, thumping, or "slapping" a string with the thumb and snapping (or "popping") a string or strings with the index or middle fingers. Bassists often interpolate left hand-muted "dead notes" between the slaps and pops to achieve a rapid percussive effect, and after a note is slapped or popped, the fretting hand may cause other notes to sound by using "hammer ons", "pull offs", or a left-hand glissando
(slide). Larry Graham
of Sly and the Family Stone and Graham Central Station
was an early innovator of the slap style, and Louis Johnson
of The Brothers Johnson is also credited as an early slap bass player.
Slap and pop style is also used by many bassists in other genres, such as rock (e.g., J J Burnel and Les Claypool
), metal (e.g., Eric Langlois, Martin Mendez
, Fieldy and Ryan Martinie
), and fusion (e.g., Marcus Miller
, Victor Wooten
and Alain Caron
). Slap style playing was popularized throughout the 1980s and early 1990s by pop bass players such as Mark King
(from Level 42
) and rock bassists such as with Pino Palladino
(currently a member of the John Mayer Trio
and bassist for The Who
),
Flea
(from the Red Hot Chili Peppers
) and Alex Katunich
(from Incubus
). Spank bass
developed from the slap and pop style and treats the electric bass as a percussion instrument, striking the strings above the pickups with an open palmed hand. Wooten popularized the "double thump," in which the string is slapped twice, on the upstroke and a downstroke (for more information, see Classical Thump). A rarely used playing technique related to slapping is the use of wooden dowel
"funk fingers
", an approach popularized by Tony Levin
.
(or plectrum
) is used to obtain a more articulate attack, for speed, or just personal preference. Although the use of a pick is primarily associated with rock
and punk rock
, picks are also used in other styles. Jazz bassist Steve Swallow
uses a pick for upbeat or funky songs while Pink Floyd
bassist Roger Waters
uses one for a heavier tone. Picks can be used with alternating downstrokes and upstrokes, or with all downstrokes for a more consistent attack. The pick is usually held with the index and thumb, with the up-and-down plucking motion supplied by the wrist.
There are many varieties of picks available, but due to the thicker, heavier strings of the electric bass, bassists tend to use heavier picks than those used for electric guitar, typically ranging from 1.14 mm–3.00 mm (3.00 is unusual). Different materials are used for picks, including plastic, nylon, and felt, all of which produce different tones. Felt picks are used to emulate a fingerstyle tone.
One prominent example of the pick/palm-muting combination is Paul McCartney
, who has consistently used this technique for decades. Sting also uses palm-muting; but often does so without a pick, using the thumb and first finger to pluck.
The fretting hand can add vibrato
to a plucked or picked note, either a gentle, narrow vibrato or a more exaggerated, wide vibrato with bigger pitch variations. For fretted basses, vibrato is always an alternation between the pitch of the note and a slightly higher pitch. For fretless basses, the player can use this style of vibrato, or they can alternate between the note and a slightly lower pitch. While vibrato is mostly done on "stopped" notes
—that is, notes that are pressed down on the fingerboard—open strings can also be vibratoed by pressing down on the string behind the nut. As well, the fretting hand can be used to "bend" a plucked or picked note up in pitch. To create the opposite effect, a "bend down", the string is pushed to a higher pitch before being plucked or picked and then allowed to fall to the lower, regular pitch after it is sounded. Though rare, some bassists may use a tremolo bar-equipped bass to produce the same effect.
In addition to pressing down one note at a time, bassists can also press down several notes at one time with their fretting hand to perform a chord. While chords are used less often by bassists than by electric guitarists, a variety of chords can be performed on the electric bass, especially with instruments with higher ranges such as six-string basses. Another variation to fully pressing down a string is to gently graze the string with the finger at the harmonic
node points on the string, which creates chime-like upper partials. Glissando
is an effect in which the fretting hand slides up or down the neck. A subtle glissando can be performed by moving the fretting hand without plucking or picking the string; for a more pronounced effect, the string is plucked or picked first, or, in a metal or hardcore punk context, a pick may be scraped along the sides of the strings.
The fretting hand can also be used to sound notes, either by plucking an open string
with the fretting hand, or, in the case of a string that has already been plucked or picked, by "hammering on" a higher pitch or "pulling off" a finger to pluck a lower fretted or open stringed note. Jazz bassists use a subtle form of fretting hand pizzicato by plucking a very brief open string grace note
with the fretting hand right before playing the string with the plucking hand. When a string is rapidly hammered on, the note can be prolonged into a trill
.
In the two-handed tapping
styles, bassists use both hands to play notes on the fretboard by rapidly pressing and holding the string to the fret. Instead of plucking or picking the string to create a sound, in this technique, the action of striking the string against the fret or the fretboard creates the sound. Since two hands can be used to play on the fretboard, this makes it possible to play interweaving contrapuntal
lines, to simultaneously play a bassline and a simple chord, or play chords
and arpeggios. Bassist John Entwistle
of The Who
tapped percussively on the strings, causing them to strike the fretboard with a twangy sound to create drum-style fills
. Players noted for this technique include Billy Sheehan
, Stuart Hamm
, John Myung
, Victor Wooten
, Les Claypool
, Mark King
and Michael Manring
. The Chapman Stick
and Warr Guitars are string instruments specifically designed to be played using two-handed tapping.
bands and rock groups use the bass guitar as a member of the rhythm section
, which provides the chord
sequence or "progression
" and sets out the "beat
" for the song. The rhythm section typically consists of a rhythm guitar
ist or electric keyboard player, or both, a bass guitarist and a drummer
; larger groups may add additional guitarists, keyboardists, or percussionists.
The types of bassline
s performed by the bass guitarist vary widely from one style of music to another. Despite all of the differences in the styles of bassline, in most styles of popular music, the bass guitarist fulfills a similar role: anchoring the harmonic framework (often by emphasizing the roots of the chord progression) and laying down the beat (in collaboration with the drummer). The importance of the bass guitarist and the bass line varies in different styles of music. In some pop styles, such as 1980s-era pop and musical theater, the bass sometimes plays a relatively simple part, and the music forefronts the vocals and melody instruments. In contrast, in reggae
, funk, or hip-hop, entire songs may be centered on the bass groove, and the bassline is usually very prominent in the mix.
In traditional country music
, folk rock
, and related styles, the bass often plays the roots and fifth of each chord in alternation. In Chicago blues
, the electric bass often performs a walking bassline made up of scales and arpeggios. In blues rock bands, the bassist often plays blues scale
-based riffs and chugging boogie
-style lines. In metal
, the bass guitar may perform complex riff
s along with the rhythm guitarist or play a low, rumbling pedal point
to anchor the group's sound.
The bass guitarist sometimes breaks out of the strict rhythm section role to perform bass breaks or bass solos. The types of basslines used for bass breaks or bass solos vary by style. In a rock band, a bass break may consist of the bassist playing a riff
or lick
during a pause in the song. In some styles of metal, a bass break may consist of "shred guitar
"-style tapping
on the bass. In a funk
or funk rock band, a bass solo may showcase the bassist's percussive slap and pop playing. In genres such as progressive rock
, art rock
, or progressive metal
, the bass guitar player may play melody
lines along with the lead guitar
(or vocalist) and perform extended guitar solo
s. Other contemporary musicians such as Edo Castro
have taken the electric bass, including 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9 strings, into a new and evolving genre centered entirely around the bass itself.
The electric bass is a relative newcomer to the world of jazz
. The big band
s of the 1930s and 1940s Swing era and the small combos of the 1950s Bebop
and Hard Bop
movements all used the double bass
. The electric bass was introduced during the late 1960s and early 1970s, when rock influences were blended with jazz to create jazz-rock fusion.
The introduction of the electric bass in jazz fusion, as in the rock world, enabled the bass to be used in high-volume stadium concerts with powerful amplifiers, because it is much easier to amplify the electric bass than the double bass (the latter is prone to feedback in high-volume settings). The electric bass has both an accompaniment and a soloing role in jazz
. In accompaniment, the bassist may perform walking basslines for traditional tunes and "jazz standards", playing smooth quarter note lines that imitate the double bass. For latin
or salsa
tunes and rock-infused jazz fusion tunes, the electric bass may play rapid, syncopated rhythmic figures in coordination with the drummer, or lay down a low, heavy groove.
In a jazz setting, the electric bass tends to have a much more expansive solo role than in most popular styles. In most rock settings, the bass guitarist may only have a few short bass breaks or brief solos during a concert. During a jazz concert, a jazz bassist may have a number of lengthy improvised solos, which are called "blowing" in jazz parlance. Whether a jazz bassist is comping (accompanying) or soloing, they usually aim to create a rhythmic drive and "timefeel" that creates a sense of "swing
" and "groove". For information on notable jazz bassists, see the List of jazz bassists article.
uses both the standard instruments of Western Art music (piano, violin, double bass, etc.) and newer instruments or sound producing devices, ranging from electrically amplified instruments to tape players and radios. The electric bass guitar has occasionally been used in contemporary classical music (art music) since the late 1960s.
Contemporary composers often obtained unusual sounds or instrumental timbres through the use of non-traditional (or unconventional) instruments or playing techniques. As such, bass guitarists playing contemporary classical music may be instructed to pluck or strum the instrument in unusual ways.
American composers using electric bass in the 1960s included experimental classical music composer Christian Wolff
(born 1934) (Electric Spring 1, 1966; Electric Spring 2, 1966/70; Electric Spring 3, 1967; and Untitled, 1996); Francis Thorne
, a student of Paul Hindemith at Yale University (born 1922), who wrote (Liebesrock 1968–69); and Krzysztof Penderecki
(Cello Concerto no. 1, 1966/67, rev. 1971/72), The Devils of Loudun
, 1969; Kosmogonia, 1970; and Partita, 1971), Louis Andriessen
(Spektakel, 1970; De Staat, 1972–76; Hoketus, 1976; De Tijd, 1980–81 and De Materie
, 1984–1988). European composers who began scoring for the bass guitar in the 1960s included Danish composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen
(born 1932) (Symfoni på Rygmarven, 1966; Rerepriser, 1967; and Piece by Piece, 1968); Irwin Bazelon
(Churchill Downs, 1970).
In the 1970s, electric bass was used by the American conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein
(1918–1990) for his MASS (1971). American jazz pianist Dave Brubeck
used bass guitar for his 1971 piece Truth Has Fallen. Russia
n and Soviet
composer Alfred Schnittke
used the instrument for his Symphony no. 1, 1972. In 1977, David Amram
(born 1930) scored for electric bass in En memoria de Chano Pozo. Amram is an American composer known for his eclectic use of jazz, ethnic and folk music.
In the 1980s and 1990s, electric bass was used in works by Hans Werner Henze
(El Rey de Harlem, 1980; and Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, 1981), Harold Shapero
, On Green Mountain (Chaconne after Monteverdi), 1957, orchestrated 1981; Steve Reich
's Electric Counterpoint
(1987), Wolfgang Rihm
(Die Eroberung von Mexico, 1987–91), Arvo Pärt
(Miserere, 1989/92), Steve Martland
(Danceworks, 1993; and Horses of Instruction, 1994), Sofia Gubaidulina
(Aus dem Stundenbuch, 1991), Giya Kancheli
(Wingless, 1993), John Adams (I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky
, 1995; and Scratchband, 1996/97), and Michael Nyman
(various works for the Michael Nyman Band
).
's How to Play the Electric Bass.
In the jazz scene, since the bass guitar takes on much of the same role as the double bass—laying down the rhythm, and outlining the harmonic foundation—electric bass players have long used both bass guitar methods and jazz double bass method books. The use of jazz double bass method books by electric bass players in jazz is facilitated in that jazz methods tend to emphasize improvisation techniques (e.g., how to improvise walking basslines) and rhythmic exercises rather than specific ways of holding or plucking the instrument.
Several colleges offer electric bass training in the US. The Bass Institute of Technology (BIT) in Los Angeles was founded in 1978, as part of the Musician's Institute. Chuck Rainey
(electric bassist for Aretha Franklin
and Marvin Gaye
) was BIT's first director. BIT was one of the earliest professional training program for electric bassists. The program teaches a range of modern styles, including funk, rock, jazz, Latin, and R&B.
The Berklee College of Music
in Boston offers training for electric bass players. Electric bass students get private lessons and there is a choice of over 270 ensembles to play in. Specific electric bass courses include funk/fusion styles for bass; slap techniques for electric bass; fingerstyle R&B; five- and six-string electric bass playing (including performing chords); and how to read bass sheet music. Berklee College alumni include Jeff Andrews
, Victor Bailey, Jeff Berlin
, Michael Manring
, and Neil Stubenhaus
. The Bass Department has two rooms with bass amps for classes and ten private lesson studios equipped with audio recording gear. Berklee offers instruction for the four-, five-, and six-string electric bass, the fretless bass, and double bass. "Students learn concepts in Latin, funk, Motown, and hip-hop,...jazz, rock, and fusion."
In Canada, the Humber College
Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning offers an Advanced Diploma (a three-year program) in jazz and commercial music. The program accepts performers who play bass, guitar, keyboard, drums, melody instruments (e.g., sax, flute, violin) and who sing. Students get private lessons and perform in 40 student ensembles.
Although there are far fewer university programs that offer electric bass instruction in jazz and popular music, some universities offer Bachelor's degrees (B.Mus.) and Master of Music (M.Mus.) degrees in jazz performance or "commercial music", where electric bass can be the main instrument. In the US, the Manhattan School of Music
has a jazz program leading to B.Mus. and M.Mus degrees that accepts students who play bass (double bass and electric bass), guitar, piano, drums, and melody instruments (e.g., sax, trumpet, etc.).
In the Australian state of Victoria, the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority has set out minimum standards for its electric bass students doing their end-of-year Solo performance recital. To graduate, students must perform pieces and songs from a set list that includes Baroque suite movements that were originally written for cello, 1960s Motown tunes, 1970s fusion jazz solos, and 1980s slap bass tunes. A typical program may include a Prelude by J.S. Bach; "Portrait of Tracy" by Jaco Pastorius
; "Twisted" by Wardell Gray
and Annie Ross; "What’s Going On" by James Jamerson
; and the funky Disco hit "Le Freak
" by Chic.
In addition to college and university diplomas and degrees, there are a variety of other training programs such as jazz or funk summer camps and festivals, which give students the opportunity to play a wide range of contemporary music, from 1970s-style jazz-rock fusion to first decade of the 21st century-style R&B.
Finger
A finger is a limb of the human body and a type of digit, an organ of manipulation and sensation found in the hands of humans and other primates....
s or thumb
Thumb
The thumb is the first digit of the hand. When a person is standing in the medical anatomical position , the thumb is the lateral-most digit...
(by fingering, slapping
Slapping
In music, the term slapping is often used to refer to two different playing techniques used on the double bass and on the bass guitar.-Double bass:...
, popping, tapping, or thumping), or by using a pick
Guitar pick
A guitar pick is a plectrum used for guitars. A pick is generally made of one uniform material; examples include plastic, nylon, rubber, felt, tortoiseshell, wood, metal, glass, and stone...
.
The bass guitar is similar in appearance and construction to an electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
, but with a longer neck
Neck (music)
The neck is the part of certain string instruments that projects from the main body and is the base of the fingerboard, where the fingers are placed to stop the strings at different pitches. Guitars, lutes, the violin family, and the mandolin family are examples of instruments which have necks.The...
and scale
Scale (string instruments)
In stringed instruments, the scale length is the maximum vibrating length of the strings to produce sound. In the classical community, it may be called simply "string length" or less often "mensure." On instruments in which strings are not "stopped" or divided in length like for example the...
length, and four, five, six, or eight strings
Strings (music)
A string is the vibrating element that produces sound in string instruments, such as the guitar, harp, piano, and members of the violin family. Strings are lengths of a flexible material kept under tension so that they may vibrate freely, but controllably. Strings may be "plain"...
. The four-string bass—by far the most common—is usually tuned the same as the double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
, which corresponds to pitches one octave
Octave
In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...
lower than the four lower strings of a guitar (E, A, D, and G). The bass guitar is a transposing instrument
Transposing instrument
A transposing instrument is a musical instrument for which written notes are read at a pitch different from the corresponding concert pitch, which a non-transposing instrument, such as a piano, would play. Playing a written C on a transposing instrument will produce a note other than concert C...
, as it is notated in bass clef an octave higher than it sounds (as is the double bass) to avoid excessive ledger line
Ledger line
A ledger line or leger line is musical notation to notate pitches above or below the lines and spaces of the regular musical staff. A line slightly longer than the note head is drawn parallel to the staff, above or below, spaced at the same distance as the lines within the staff .Notes more than...
s. Like the electric guitar, the bass guitar is plugged into an amplifier and speaker
Bass instrument amplification
Bass instrument amplification, used for the bass guitar, double bass and similar instruments, is distinct from other types of amplification systems due to the particular challenges associated with low-frequency sound reproduction. This distinction affects the design of the loudspeakers, the speaker...
for live performances.
Since the 1950s, the bass guitar has largely replaced the double bass in popular music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
as the bass instrument in the rhythm section
Rhythm section
A rhythm section is a collection of musicians who make up a section of instruments which provides the accompaniment section of the music, giving the music its rhythmic texture and pulse, also serving as a rhythmic reference for the rest of the band...
. While the types of bassline
Bassline
A bassline is the term used in many styles of popular music, such as jazz, blues, funk, dub and electronic music for the low-pitched instrumental part or line played by a rhythm section instrument such as the electric bass, double bass, tuba or keyboard...
s performed by the bassist vary widely from one style of music to another, the bassist fulfills a similar role in most types of music: anchoring the harmonic framework and laying down the beat. The bass guitar is used in many styles of music including rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
, metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
, pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
, punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
, country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
, reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
, blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, and jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
. It is used as a soloing instrument in jazz, fusion
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...
, Latin, funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
, and in some rock and metal styles.
1930s–1940s
Paul Tutmarc
Paul Tutmarc was a Seattle musician and musical instrument inventor. He was a tenor singer and a performer and teacher of the lap steel guitar and the ukulele. He developed a number of variant types of stringed musical instruments, such as electrically amplified double basses, electric basses, and...
from Seattle, Washington, developed the first electric string bass in its modern form, a fret
Fret
A fret is a raised portion on the neck of a stringed instrument, that extends generally across the full width of the neck. On most modern western instruments, frets are metal strips inserted into the fingerboard...
ted instrument designed to be held and played horizontally. The 1935 sales catalog for Tutmarc's electronic musical instrument company, Audiovox, featured his "Model 736 Bass Fiddle
Fiddle
The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...
," a four-stringed, solid-bodied, fretted electric bass instrument with a 30½-inch scale length. The alteration to a "guitar" form made the instrument easier to hold and transport, and the addition of frets enabled bassists to play in tune more easily. Around 100 of these instruments were made during this period.
Around 1947, Tutmarc's son, Bud, began marketing a similar bass under the Serenader brand name, prominently advertised in the nationally distributed L.D. Heater Co. wholesale jobber catalogue of '48. However, the Tutmarc family inventions did not achieve market success.
1950s
Leo Fender
Clarence Leonidas "Leo" Fender was an American inventor who founded Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company, or "Fender" for short...
, with the help of his employee George Fullerton, developed the first mass-produced electric bass. His Fender Precision Bass
Fender Precision Bass
The Fender Precision Bass is an electric bass.Designed by Leo Fender as a prototype in 1950 and brought to market in 1951, the Precision was the first electric bass to earn widespread attention and use. A revolutionary instrument for the time, the Precision Bass has made an immeasurable impact on...
, introduced in 1951, became a widely copied industry standard. The Precision Bass (or "P-bass") evolved from a simple, uncontoured "slab" body design similar to that of a Telecaster
Fender Telecaster
The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele , is typically a dual-pickup, solid-body electric guitar made by Fender.Its simple yet effective design and revolutionary sound broke ground and set trends in electric guitar manufacturing and popular music...
with a single coil pickup
Single coil
A single coil pickup is a type of magnetic transducer, or pickup, for the electric guitar and the electric bass. It electromagnetically converts the vibration of the strings to an electric signal...
, to a contoured body design with beveled edges for comfort and a single four-pole "single coil pickup." This "split pickup", introduced in 1957, appears to have been two mandolin pickups (Fender was marketing a four string solid body electric mandolin at the time). Because the pole pieces of the coils were reversed with respect to each other, and the leads were also reversed with respect to each other, the two coils, wired in series, produced a humbucking
Humbucking
For the purposes of this article, "hum" is defined as "an unwanted signal, generally at the frequency of the local A.C. electrical supply" ....
effect (the same effect is achieved if the coils are wired in parallel).
Monk Montgomery
William Howard "Monk" Montgomery was an American jazz bassist.Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Montgomery was the older brother of guitarist Wes Montgomery; younger brother, Buddy Montgomery played vibraphone and piano...
was the first bass player to tour with the Fender bass guitar, with Lionel Hampton's
Lionel Hampton
Lionel Leo Hampton was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Like Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players. Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy...
postwar big band
Big band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
. Roy Johnson, who replaced Montgomery in Hampton's band, and Shifty Henry
Shifty Henry
John Willie "Shifty" Henry was an American musician, most noted as a double bass and bass guitar player, and blues songwriter. He also played flute, violin, viola, saxophone, and oboe and was in demand as a session musician and arranger in Los Angeles in the 1940s and 1950s...
with Louis Jordan
Louis Jordan
Louis Thomas Jordan was a pioneering American jazz, blues and rhythm & blues musician, songwriter and bandleader who enjoyed his greatest popularity from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as "The King of the Jukebox", Jordan was highly popular with both black and white audiences in the...
& His Tympany Five
Tympany Five
Tympany Five was a successful rhythm and blues and jazz dance band founded by Louis Jordan in 1938. The group was composed of a horn section of three to five different pieces and also drums, double bass, guitar and piano. After playing in Chicago at the Capitol Lounge in 1941, Jordan and his band...
, were other early Fender bass pioneers. Bill Black
Bill Black
William Patton "Bill" Black, Jr. was an American musician who is noted as one of the pioneers of rockabilly music. Black was the bassist in Elvis Presley's early trio and the leader of Bill Black's Combo....
, playing with Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
, adopted the Fender Precision Bass around 1957.
Following Fender's lead, Gibson
Gibson Guitar Corporation
The Gibson Guitar Corporation, formerly of Kalamazoo, Michigan and currently of Nashville, Tennessee, manufactures guitars and other instruments which sell under a variety of brand names...
released the violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
-shaped electric bass with extendable end pin in 1953, allowing it to be played upright or horizontally. Gibson renamed the Electric Bass in 1958 as the EB-1 (The EB-1 was reissued around 1970, but this time without the end pin.) Also in 1958 Gibson released the maple arched top EB-2 described in the Gibson catalogue as A hollow-body electric bass that features a Bass/Baritone pushbutton for two different tonal characteristics. In 1959 these were followed by the more conventional-looking EB-0 Bass
Gibson EB-0
The Gibson EB-0 is a bass guitar that was introduced by Gibson in 1959.-History:The EB-0 was first marketed in 1959 in response to the declining sales of Gibson's EB-1. The body was styled after the Les Paul Junior, but retained the mahogany neck and body and 30.5" scale length of the EB-1. It was...
. The EB-0 was very similar to a Gibson SG
Gibson SG
At the launch of the SG in 1961, Gibson offered four variants of the SG; the SG Junior , the SG Special, the SG Standard, and the top-of-the-line SG Custom. However, Gibson's current core variants as of 2010 are the SG Standard and the SG Special...
in appearance (although the earliest examples have a slab-sided body shape closer to that of the double-cutaway Les Paul Special).
Humbucker
A humbucker is a type of electric guitar pickup, first patented by Seth Lover and the Gibson company, that uses two coils, both generating string signal. Humbuckers have higher output than a single coil pickup since both coils are connected in series...
pickup mounted directly against the neck pocket. The EB-3
Gibson EB-3
The Gibson EB-3 is an electric bass guitar model produced by the Gibson Guitar Corporation.Introduced in 1961, the EB-3 was one of the bass guitar equivalents of the popular Gibson SG...
, introduced in 1961, also had a "mini-humbucker" at the bridge position. Gibson basses also tended to be smaller, sleeker instruments; Gibson did not produce a 34" scale bass until 1963 with the release of the Thunderbird
Gibson Thunderbird
The Gibson Thunderbird is an electric bass guitar made by Gibson.-Background and introduction:The Gibson Thunderbird was introduced in 1963. At the time, Fender had been the leader in the electric bass market since their introduction of the Precision Bass twelve years earlier.The Thunderbird was...
, which was also the first Gibson bass to use dual-humbucking pickups in a more traditional position, about halfway between the neck and bridge. A small number of other companies also began manufacturing bass guitars during the 1950s: Kay
Kay Musical Instrument Company
Kay Musical Instrument Company was a prolific American manufacturer of musical instruments that operated from the 1930s through the 1960s. Although Kay's first electric guitar was offered in 1936 , Kay is known as an electric guitar pioneer because their past company Stromberg-Voisinet...
in 1952, and Danelectro
Danelectro
Danelectro is an American manufacturer of musical instruments and accessories, specializing in rock instruments such as guitars, bass guitars, amplifiers and effects units.-History:...
in 1956;
1956 saw the appearance at the German trade fair "Musikmesse Frankfurt" of the distinctive Höfner 500/1
Höfner 500/1
The Höfner 500/1 violin bass is a hollow-bodied bass guitar manufactured by Höfner under several varieties...
violin bass made using violin construction techniques by Walter Höfner
Höfner
Karl Höfner GmbH & Co. KG is a German manufacturer of musical instruments, with one division that manufactures guitars and basses, and another that manufactures other string instruments....
, a second generation violin luthier. The instrument is often known as the "Beatle Bass", due to its endorsement by Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
.
In 1957 Rickenbacker
Rickenbacker
Rickenbacker International Corporation, also known as Rickenbacker, is an electric and bass guitar manufacturer based in Santa Ana, California...
introduced the model 4000 bass, the first bass to feature a neck-through-body design; the Fender and Gibson versions used bolt-on and glued-on necks.
1960s
With the explosion of the popularity of rock music in the 1960s, many more manufacturers began making electric basses.First introduced in 1960, the Fender Jazz Bass
Fender Jazz Bass
The Jazz Bass was the second model of electric bass created by Leo Fender. The bass is distinct from the Precision Bass in that its tone is brighter and richer in the midrange and treble with less emphasis on the fundamental harmonic...
was known as the Deluxe Bass and was meant to accompany the Jazzmaster guitar. The Jazz Bass (often referred to as a "J-bass") featured two single-coil pickups, one close to the bridge and one in the Precision bass' split coil pickup position. The earliest production basses had a 'stacked' volume and tone control for each pickup. This was soon changed to the familiar configuration of a volume control for each pickup, and a single, passive tone control. The Jazz Bass' neck was narrower at the nut than the Precision bass (1½" versus 1¾").
Significantly, Fender chose to label the headstock of this model with a decal noting Jazz Bass Electric Bass http://www.vintageguitars.org.uk/adDetails/359.
Fender also began production of the Mustang Bass
Fender Mustang Bass
The Fender Mustang Bass is an electric bass guitar model produced by Fender. Two variants, the Musicmaster Bass and the Bronco Bass, have also been produced from time to time using the same body and neck shape.-History:...
; a 30" scale length instrument used by bassists such as Tina Weymouth
Tina Weymouth
Martina Michèle "Tina" Weymouth is an American musician, best known as a founding member and bassist of the New Wave group Talking Heads and its side project Tom Tom Club .-Profile:Weymouth is of French heritage on her mother's side. Weymouth was a cheerleader in high school...
of Talking Heads
Talking Heads
Talking Heads were an American New Wave and avant-garde band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band comprised David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison...
and Bill Wyman
Bill Wyman
Bill Wyman is an English musician best known as the bass guitarist for the English rock and roll band the Rolling Stones from 1962 until 1992. Since 1997, he has recorded and toured with his own band, Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings...
of The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
("P" and "J" basses have a scale length of 34", a design echoed on most current production electric basses of all makes). In the 1950s and 1960s, the instrument was often called the "Fender bass", due to Fender's early dominance in the market.
Gibson introduced the short-scale (30.5") bass the Gibson EB-3
Gibson EB-3
The Gibson EB-3 is an electric bass guitar model produced by the Gibson Guitar Corporation.Introduced in 1961, the EB-3 was one of the bass guitar equivalents of the popular Gibson SG...
in 1961, favoured by Jack Bruce
Jack Bruce
John Symon Asher "Jack" Bruce is a Scottish musician and songwriter, respected as a founding member of the British psychedelic rock power trio, Cream, for a solo career that spans several decades, and for his participation in several well-known musical ensembles...
of Cream
Cream (band)
Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup consisting of bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, guitarist/vocalist Eric Clapton, and drummer Ginger Baker...
.
1970s
Music Man (company)
Music Man is an American guitar, and bass guitar manufacturer. It is a division of the Ernie Ball corporation.-Early years:The Music Man story began in 1971 when Forrest White and Tom Walker talked with Leo Fender about starting a company they would call Tri-Sonic, Inc...
Instruments by Tom Walker, Forrest White and Leo Fender, which produced the StingRay
Music Man StingRay
Music Man StingRay is an electric bass guitar by Music Man, introduced in 1976.- History :In 1971, Fender employees Forrest White and Tom Walker, unhappy with the way CBS was managing the company, left their positions with Fender to start their own venture. First known as Tri-Sonic and then later...
, the first widely produced bass with active (powered) electronics. This amounts to an impedance buffering pre-amplifier on-board the instrument to lower the output impedance of the bass's pickup circuit, increasing low-end output, and overall frequency response (more lows and highs). Specific models became identified with particular styles of music, such as the Rickenbacker 4001 series, which became identified with progressive rock bassists like Chris Squire
Chris Squire
Christopher Russell Edward "Chris" Squire , is an English musician, known as the bass guitarist and backing vocalist for the progressive rock group Yes. He is the only member of the group to appear on every album.-Before Yes:...
of Yes
Yes (band)
Yes are an English rock band who achieved worldwide success with their progressive, art, and symphonic style of rock music. Regarded as one of the pioneers of the progressive genre, Yes are known for their lengthy songs, mystical lyrics, elaborate album art, and live stage sets...
, and Geddy Lee
Geddy Lee
Gary Lee Weinrib, OC, better known as Geddy Lee , is a Canadian musician, best known as the lead vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist for the Canadian rock group Rush...
of Rush
Rush (band)
Rush is a Canadian rock band formed in August 1968, in the Willowdale neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario. The band is composed of bassist, keyboardist, and lead vocalist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and drummer and lyricist Neil Peart...
, while the StingRay was used by Louis Johnson
Louis Johnson (bassist)
Louis Johnson is an American bass guitarist.Johnson is best known for his group The Brothers Johnson and his session playing on several hit albums of the 1970s and '80s including the "best selling album of all time" Thriller...
of the funk band The Brothers Johnson.
In 1971, Alembic
Alembic Inc
Alembic was founded in 1969 and is a manufacturer of high-end electric basses, guitars and preamps.-History:Ron and Susan Wickersham founded Alembic, Inc. in 1969...
established the template for what became known as "boutique" or "high-end" electric bass guitars. These expensive, custom-tailored instruments, as used by Phil Lesh
Phil Lesh
Phillip Chapman Lesh is a musician and a founding member of the Grateful Dead, with whom he played bass guitar throughout their 30-year career....
, Jack Casady
Jack Casady
Jack Casady , is an American musician considered one of the foremost bass guitarists of the rock music era and best known as a member of Jefferson Airplane. First playing as a lead guitarist with the Washington D.C...
, and Stanley Clarke, featured unique designs, premium hand-finished wood bodies, onboard electronics for preamplification and equalization, and innovative construction techniques such as multi-laminate neck-through-body
Neck-thru
Neck-through or neck-thru is a method of electric guitar or bass guitar construction that involves extending the piece of wood used for the neck through the entire length of the body, essentially making it the core of the body. The strings, fretboard, pickups and bridge are all mounted on this...
construction and graphite necks. In the mid-1970s, Alembic and other boutique bass manufacturers, such as Tobias, produced four-string and five-string basses with a low "B" string. In 1975, bassist Anthony Jackson commissioned luthier Carl Thompson to build a six-string bass tuned (low to high) B0, E1, A1, D2, G2, C3.
1980s–2000s
Ned Steinberger
Ned Steinberger is an American creator of innovative musical instruments. He is most notable for his design of guitars and basses without a traditional headstock, which are called Steinberger instruments...
introduced a headless bass in 1979 and continued his innovations in the 1980s, using graphite
Graphite
The mineral graphite is one of the allotropes of carbon. It was named by Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1789 from the Ancient Greek γράφω , "to draw/write", for its use in pencils, where it is commonly called lead . Unlike diamond , graphite is an electrical conductor, a semimetal...
and other new materials and (in 1984) introducing the TransTrem tremolo bar
Tremolo arm
A whammy bar, tremolo arm/bar, or vibrato arm/bar is a component of a guitar, used to add vibrato to the sound by changing the tension of the strings, typically at the bridge or tailpiece...
. In 1987, the Guild Guitar Corporation launched the fretless Ashbory bass
Ashbory bass
The Ashbory bass, designed by Alun Ashworth-Jones and Nigel Thornbory, is an 18-inch scale fretless electric bass developed in 1985. This scale is just over half of the 34-inch scale of an ordinary bass guitar...
, which used silicone rubber strings and a piezoelectric pickup to achieve a "double bass" sound with a short 18" scale length. In the late 1980s, MTV's "Unplugged"
MTV Unplugged
MTV Unplugged is a TV series showcasing many popular musical artists usually playing acoustic instruments. The show has received the George Foster Peabody Award and 3 Primetime Emmy nominations among many accolades.-Unplugged:...
show, which featured bands performing with acoustic instruments, helped to popularize hollow-bodied acoustic bass guitar
Acoustic bass guitar
The acoustic bass guitar is a bass instrument with a hollow wooden body similar to, though usually somewhat larger than a steel-string acoustic guitar...
s amplified with pickups.
During the 1990s, as five-string basses became more widely available and more affordable, an increasing number of bassists in genres ranging from metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
to gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
began using five-string instruments for added lower range—a low "B" below the standard "E" string. Some bass players who performed a lot in a solo setting used five-string basses to get a higher range by adding a high "C" string as the fifth string (this is known as "tenor tuning"). As well, the onboard battery-powered electronics such as preamplifiers and equalizer circuits, which were previously only available on expensive "boutique" instruments, became increasingly available on modestly priced basses.
In the first decade of the 21st century, some bass manufacturers included digital
Digital signal processing
Digital signal processing is concerned with the representation of discrete time signals by a sequence of numbers or symbols and the processing of these signals. Digital signal processing and analog signal processing are subfields of signal processing...
modelling circuits inside the instrument to recreate tones and sounds from many models of basses (e.g., Line 6's Variax bass). Traditional bass designs such as the Fender Precision Bass
Fender Precision Bass
The Fender Precision Bass is an electric bass.Designed by Leo Fender as a prototype in 1950 and brought to market in 1951, the Precision was the first electric bass to earn widespread attention and use. A revolutionary instrument for the time, the Precision Bass has made an immeasurable impact on...
and Fender Jazz Bass
Fender Jazz Bass
The Jazz Bass was the second model of electric bass created by Leo Fender. The bass is distinct from the Precision Bass in that its tone is brighter and richer in the midrange and treble with less emphasis on the fundamental harmonic...
remained popular in the first decade of the 21st century; in 2011, a 60th Anniversary P-bass was introduced by Fender, along with the introduction of the Fender Jaguar Bass
Fender Jaguar Bass
The Fender Jaguar Bass is an electric bass guitar manufactured in Japan by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation.-Design:In appearance, the Jaguar Bass is largely faithful to the original Fender Jaguar, with exception of the neck, bridge, and pickups taken from the Fender Jazz Bass...
.
Design considerations
Bass bodies are typically made of wood, although other materials such as graphiteGraphite
The mineral graphite is one of the allotropes of carbon. It was named by Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1789 from the Ancient Greek γράφω , "to draw/write", for its use in pencils, where it is commonly called lead . Unlike diamond , graphite is an electrical conductor, a semimetal...
(for example, some of the Steinberger
Steinberger
Steinberger refers to a series of distinctive electric guitars and bass guitars, designed and originally manufactured by Ned Steinberger. The word Steinberger can be used to refer to either the instruments themselves or the company that produced them...
designs) have also been used. While a wide variety of woods
Tonewood
Tonewood generally refers to any wood which may be used in the construction of a musical instrument. Many acoustic properties are often assigned to specific wood species; however the description of these properties is itself a large subject and beyond the scope of this article...
are suitable for use in the body, neck, and fretboard of the bass guitar, the most common type of wood used for the body is alder
Alder
Alder is the common name of a genus of flowering plants belonging to the birch family . The genus comprises about 30 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, few reaching large size, distributed throughout the North Temperate Zone and in the Americas along the Andes southwards to...
, for the neck is maple
Maple
Acer is a genus of trees or shrubs commonly known as maple.Maples are variously classified in a family of their own, the Aceraceae, or together with the Hippocastanaceae included in the family Sapindaceae. Modern classifications, including the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system, favour inclusion in...
, and for the fretboard is rosewood. Other commonly used woods include mahogany, maple, ash, and poplar for bodies, mahogany for necks, and maple and ebony for fretboards.
Other design options include finishes, such as lacquer, wax and oil; flat and carved designs; Luthier
Luthier
A luthier is someone who makes or repairs lutes and other string instruments. In the United States, the term is used interchangeably with a term for the specialty of each maker, such as violinmaker, guitar maker, lute maker, etc...
-produced custom-designed instruments; headless basses, which have tuning machines in the bridge of the instrument (e.g., Steinberger
Steinberger
Steinberger refers to a series of distinctive electric guitars and bass guitars, designed and originally manufactured by Ned Steinberger. The word Steinberger can be used to refer to either the instruments themselves or the company that produced them...
and Hohner
Hohner
Hohner Musikinstrumente GmbH & Co. KG is a company specialising in the manufacture of musical instruments. Founded in 1857 by Matthias Hohner , Hohner is identified especially with harmonicas and accordions. The Hohner company has invented and produced many different styles, and most of the...
designs) and several artificial materials such as luthite
Luthite
Luthite is a light-weight synthetic material developed by Westheimer Corporation for the construction of bass guitar and guitar bodies....
. The use of artificial materials (e.g., BassLab
BassLab
The company BassLab produces stringed instruments, mainly basses and guitars, and also some versions of the Chapman Stick and a viola model for Ned Steinberger. Each instrument is crafted of a mixed material, "Tunable Mixed Composite"....
) allows for unique production techniques such as die-casting, to produce complex body shapes. While most basses have solid bodies, they can also include hollow chambers to increase the resonance or reduce the weight of the instrument. Some basses are built with entirely hollow bodies, which change the tone and resonance of the instrument. Acoustic bass guitar
Acoustic bass guitar
The acoustic bass guitar is a bass instrument with a hollow wooden body similar to, though usually somewhat larger than a steel-string acoustic guitar...
s are typically equipped with piezoelectric or magnetic pickups and amplified.
Instruments handmade by highly skilled luthiers are becoming increasingly available. Exotic materials include woods such as bubinga, wenge
Wenge
Wenge is a tropical timber, very dark in color with a distinctive figure and a strong partridge pattern. The wood is heavy and hard, suitable for flooring and staircases. It also gives its name to the colour wenge.-Uses:...
, ovangkol, ebony
Ebony
Ebony is a dense black wood, most commonly yielded by several species in the genus Diospyros, but ebony may also refer to other heavy, black woods from unrelated species. Ebony is dense enough to sink in water. Its fine texture, and very smooth finish when polished, make it valuable as an...
and goncalo alves
Goncalo alves
Goncalo alves is a hardwood . It is sometimes referred to as zebrawood or tigerwood — names that underscore the wood’s often dramatic, contrasting color scheme, that some compare to rosewood....
. Graphite composite
Graphite
The mineral graphite is one of the allotropes of carbon. It was named by Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1789 from the Ancient Greek γράφω , "to draw/write", for its use in pencils, where it is commonly called lead . Unlike diamond , graphite is an electrical conductor, a semimetal...
is used to make lightweight necks Exotic woods are used on more expensive instruments: for example, Alembic uses cocobolo as a body or top layer material because of its attractive grain. Warwick bass guitars are also well known for exotic hardwoods: most of the necks are made of ovangkol, and the fingerboards wenge or ebony. Solid bubinga bodies are also used for tonal and aesthetic qualities.
The "long scale" necks used on Leo Fender's basses, giving a scale length
Scale length
*Length scale, - a significant concept in physics used to define the order of magnitude of a system*Scale height, - a specific parameter in physics denoting the distance over which a quantity decreases by a factor of e...
(distance between nut and bridge
Bridge (instrument)
A bridge is a device for supporting the strings on a stringed instrument and transmitting the vibration of those strings to some other structural component of the instrument in order to transfer the sound to the surrounding air.- Explanation :...
) of 34", remain the standard for electric basses. However, 30" or "short scale" instruments, such as the Höfner 500/1
Höfner 500/1
The Höfner 500/1 violin bass is a hollow-bodied bass guitar manufactured by Höfner under several varieties...
"violin bass" played by Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
, and the Fender Mustang Bass
Fender Mustang Bass
The Fender Mustang Bass is an electric bass guitar model produced by Fender. Two variants, the Musicmaster Bass and the Bronco Bass, have also been produced from time to time using the same body and neck shape.-History:...
are popular, especially for players with smaller hands. While 35", 35.5" and 36" scale lengths were once only available in "boutique" instruments, in the first decade of the 21st century, many manufacturers have begun offering these lengths, also called an "extra long scale." This extra long scale provides a higher string tension, which yields a more defined tone on the low "B" string of five- and six-stringed instruments (or detuned four-string basses).
Fretted and fretless basses
Fret
A fret is a raised portion on the neck of a stringed instrument, that extends generally across the full width of the neck. On most modern western instruments, frets are metal strips inserted into the fingerboard...
s on the fingerboard. On a fretted bass, the frets divide the fingerboard into semitone
Semitone
A semitone, also called a half step or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically....
divisions (as on a guitar). The original Fender basses had 20 frets, but modern basses may have 24 or more. Fretless bass
Fretless guitar
A fretless guitar is a guitar without frets. It operates in the same manner as most other stringed instruments and traditional guitars, but does not have any frets to act as the lower end point of the vibrating string...
es have a distinct sound, because the absence of frets means that the string must be pressed down directly onto the wood of the fingerboard as with the double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
. The string buzzes against the wood and is somewhat muted because the sounding portion of the string is in direct contact with the flesh of the player's finger. The fretless bass allows players to use the expressive devices of glissando
Glissando
In music, a glissando is a glide from one pitch to another. It is an Italianized musical term derived from the French glisser, to glide. In some contexts it is distinguished from the continuous portamento...
, vibrato
Vibrato
Vibrato is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation and the speed with which the pitch is varied .-Vibrato and...
and microtonal intonations such as quarter tone
Quarter tone
A quarter tone , is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale, an interval about half as wide as a semitone, which is half a whole tone....
s and just intonation
Just intonation
In music, just intonation is any musical tuning in which the frequencies of notes are related by ratios of small whole numbers. Any interval tuned in this way is called a just interval. The two notes in any just interval are members of the same harmonic series...
.
Some bassists use both fretted and fretless basses in performances, according to the type of material they are performing, as with Pino Palladino
Pino Palladino
Pino Palladino is a Welsh bass guitarist who gained fame playing primarily rock and roll, blues rock, and rhythm and blues music, although he has been lauded for his ability to play most genres of popular music, including jazz, neo soul, and funk...
, whose performance on the fretless bass during the 1980s made him a highly desirable session player
Session musician
Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...
backing high profile musicians that included Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
and David Gilmour
David Gilmour
David Jon Gilmour, CBE, D.M. is an English rock musician and multi-instrumentalist who is best known as the guitarist, one of the lead singers and main songwriters in the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Gilmour has worked as a producer for a variety of...
. However, the late 1990s showed a shift toward fretted basses as well, as he branched out into a wide variety of genres. While fretless basses are often associated with jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and jazz fusion
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...
, bassists from other genres use fretless basses, such as metal bassist Steve DiGiorgio
Steve DiGiorgio
Steve DiGiorgio is an American bassist and musician.DiGiorgio has played bass guitar in heavy metal bands such as Death, Autopsy, Control Denied, Testament, Vintersorg, Iced Earth, Sebastian Bach, Charred Walls of the Damned, Obituary, and is a founding member of Sadus. He is widely renowned for...
and Colin Edwin
Colin Edwin
Colin Edwin is a member of the British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree, where he plays both fretted and fretless bass guitar as well as double bass and guimbri. He joined the band in December 1993...
of modern/progressive rock band Porcupine Tree
Porcupine Tree
Porcupine Tree is a progressive rock band formed by Steven Wilson in 1987 in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England. Their music is difficult to categorise, being associated with both psychedelic rock and progressive rock, yet having been influenced by trance, krautrock and ambient due to Steven...
as well as Tony Levin
Tony Levin
Tony Levin is an American progressive rock musician, specializing in bass guitar, Chapman stick and upright bass ....
, studio bassist & live bassist for Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel
Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...
throughout his post-Genesis
Genesis (band)
Genesis are an English rock band that formed in 1967. The band currently comprises the longest-tenured members Tony Banks , Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins . Past members Peter Gabriel , Steve Hackett and Anthony Phillips , also played major roles in the band in its early years...
solo career.
The first fretless bass guitar was made by Bill Wyman
Bill Wyman
Bill Wyman is an English musician best known as the bass guitarist for the English rock and roll band the Rolling Stones from 1962 until 1992. Since 1997, he has recorded and toured with his own band, Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings...
in 1961 when he converted an inexpensive Japanese fretted bass by removing the frets. The first production fretless bass was the Ampeg
Ampeg
Ampeg is primarily a musical instrument amplifier manufacturer headquartered in Woodinville, Washington, though they also manufacture guitars to a small extent...
AUB-1 introduced in 1966, and Fender introduced a fretless Precision Bass in 1970. In the early 1970s, fusion-jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius
Jaco Pastorius
John Francis Anthony Pastorius III , known as Jaco Pastorius, was an American jazz musician and composer widely acknowledged as a virtuoso electric bass player....
created his own fretless bass by removing the frets from a Fender Jazz Bass, filling the holes with wood putty, and coating the fretboard with epoxy resin. Some fretless basses have "fret line" markers inlaid in the fingerboard as a guide, while others only use guide marks on the side of the neck.
Tapewound (double bass type) and flatwound strings are sometimes used with the fretless bass so the metal string windings do not wear down the fingerboard
Fingerboard
The fingerboard is a part of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of material, usually wood, that is laminated to the front of the neck of an instrument and above which the strings run...
. Some fretless basses have epoxy coated fingerboards to increase the fingerboard' durability, enhance sustain, and give a brighter tone. Although most fretless basses have four strings, five-string and six-string fretless basses are also available. Fretless basses with more than six strings are also available as "boutique" or custom-made instruments.
Strings and tuning
Strings (music)
A string is the vibrating element that produces sound in string instruments, such as the guitar, harp, piano, and members of the violin family. Strings are lengths of a flexible material kept under tension so that they may vibrate freely, but controllably. Strings may be "plain"...
, tuned E, A, D and G, in fourths such that the open highest string, G, is an eleventh (an octave and a fourth) below middle C, making the tuning of all four strings the same as that of the double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
. This tuning is also the same as the standard tuning on the lower four strings on a six-string guitar, only an octave lower. String types include all-metal strings (roundwound, flatwound, halfwound, ground wound, and pressure wound); as well as metal strings with different coverings, such as tapewound and plastic-coatings. The variety of materials used in the strings gives bass players a range of tonal options. In the 1950s and early 1960s, bassists mostly used flatwound strings with a smooth surface, which had a smooth, damped sound reminiscent of a double bass. In the late 1960s and 1970s, roundwound bass strings similar to guitar strings became popular, though flatwounds also continue to be popular. Roundwounds have a brighter timbre
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
with longer sustain than flatwounds.
A number of other tuning options and bass types have been used to extend the range of the instrument. The most common are four, five, or six strings:
- Four strings with alternative tunings to obtain an extended lower range. Tuning in fifths e.g., CGDA gives an extended upper and lower range.
- Five strings usually tuned B0-E1-A1-D2-G2, which provides extended lower range. Five string basses tuned to B-E-A-D-G (and sometimes A-D-G-C-F) are often used in contemporary rockHard rockHard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...
and metalHeavy metal musicHeavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
alongside seven string guitars, baritone guitarBaritone guitarThe baritone guitar is a variation on the standard guitar, with a longer scale length that allows it to be tuned to a lower range. It first appeared in the classical music realm...
s, and otherwise downtuned instruments. Another common tuning used on early five-string basses is E-A-D-G-C, known as "tenor tuning". This is still a popular tuning for jazzJazzJazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and solo bass. Other tunings such as C-E-A-D-G are used though rare. The fifth string provides a greater lower range (if a low B or A is used) or a greater upper range (if a high C string is added) than the four-string bass, and gives access to more notes for any given hand position. The earliest five string was created by FenderFenderFender Musical Instruments Corporation, commonly referred to as simply Fender, of Scottsdale, Arizona is a manufacturer of stringed instruments and amplifiers, such as solid-body electric guitars, including the Stratocaster and the Telecaster...
in 1965. The Fender Bass VFender Bass VThe original Fender Bass V was a quirky and unusual electric bass guitar model produced by Fender between 1965 and 1970. It was the world's first five string bass guitar, a popular concept today....
had the E-A-D-G-C tuning, but was unpopular and discontinued in 1970. The common low B five string was created by Jimmy JohnsonJimmy Johnson (bassist)Jimmy Johnson is an American bass guitarist best known for his work with James Taylor, Allan Holdsworth, Lee Ritenour and Flim & the BB's...
as a custom instrument in 1975. He bought a EADGC 5-string AlembicAlembic IncAlembic was founded in 1969 and is a manufacturer of high-end electric basses, guitars and preamps.-History:Ron and Susan Wickersham founded Alembic, Inc. in 1969...
bass, replaced the nut, and used a new, thick low B string from GHSGHS (strings)GHS Strings is a Battle Creek, Michigan based guitar and bass guitar string manufacturer. The company was founded in 1964, and in 1975 was bought by Robert McFee, who is still the CEO...
to accommodate the instrument accordingly. SteinbergerSteinbergerSteinberger refers to a series of distinctive electric guitars and bass guitars, designed and originally manufactured by Ned Steinberger. The word Steinberger can be used to refer to either the instruments themselves or the company that produced them...
made a 5-string headless instrument called the L-2/5 in 1982, and later YamahaYamahaYamaha may refer to:* Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services** Yamaha Motor Company, a Japanese motorized vehicle-producing company...
offered the first production model as the BB5000 in 1984. - Six strings are usually tuned B0-E1-A1-D2-G2-C3—like a four-string bass with an additional low "B" string and a high "C" string. Some players prefer B0-E1-A1-D2-F2-B3, which preserves the intervals of standard guitar tuning and makes the highest and lowest string the same note two octaves apart. While less common than four or five-string basses, they appear in Latin, jazz, and other genres, as well as in studio work where a single instrument must be highly versatile. Alternative tunings for six-string bass include B-E-A-D-G-B, matching the first five strings of an acoustic or electric guitar, and EADGBE, completely matching the tuning of a six-string guitar but one octave lower allowing the use of guitar chord fingerings. Rarer tunings such as EADGCF and F#BEADG provide a lower or higher range in a given position while maintaining consistent string intervals. The original six-string bass was the LongHorn6, created by Danelectro in 1958, as a guitar tuned down an octave (EADGBE). In 1974, Anthony Jackson worked with Carl Thompson to create the Contrabass guitar (BEADGC). Later, Jackson brought his ideas to FoderaFoderaFodera is an American manufacturer of electric bass guitars. Fodera Basses are made in the Fodera Shop in Brooklyn, New York. Vinnie Fodera and Joey Lauricella started their own company around 1983 after dissolving their working relationship with Ken Smith Basses. The company also manufactures a...
in cooperation with Ken Smith to create a wider-spaced Contrabass guitar, which evolved to the modern six-string bass. - Eight- and twelve-stringTwelve-string bassThe twelve-string bass is an electric bass with four courses each of three strings.Normal tuning is eeE-aaA-ddD-ggG, with one string of each course tuned similarly to the corresponding string of the four-string bass, and the remaining two strings tuned to the octave.-Notable 12-string Bassists:*...
models are both built on the same course stringCourse (music)A course is a pair or more of adjacent strings tuned to unison or an octave and usually played together as if a single string. It may also refer to a single string normally played on its own on an instrument with other multi-string courses, for example the bass string on a nine string baroque...
concept found on twelve-string guitar, where sets of strings are spaced together in groups of two or three, to be played simultaneously. - DetunerDetunerDetuners or "Xtenders" are mechanical devices used to simplify the tuning of a stringed instrument during performance. This allows the musician to quickly and accurately reach notes outside the normal range of their instrument...
s, such as the Hipshot, are mechanical devices operated by the thumb on the fretting hand that allow one or more strings to be quickly detuned to a pre-set lower pitch. Hipshots are typically used to drop the "E"-string down to "D" on a four string bass.
Alternative range approaches
Piccolo bass
Piccolo bass can refer to two string instruments, the acoustic piccolo bass and the electric piccolo bass.Carl Thompson and Stanley Clarke collaborated on the electric piccolo bass and Ron Carter invented the first upright piccolo bass....
, and guitar-tuned basses) and 8, 10, 12 and 15-string basses, which are built on the same principle as the 12-string guitar, where the strings are grouped into "courses" tuned in unison or octaves, to be played simultaneously.
Extended Range Basses
Extended-range bass
Extended-range bass refers to an electric bass guitar with greater frequency range than the standard 4-string bass guitar. Bass guitars tuned one octave lower than a standard four-string instrument are also considered an extended-range bass...
(ERBs) are basses with six to twelve strings—with the additional strings used for range rather than unison or octave pairs. A seven-string bass (B0-E1-A1-D2-G2-C3-F3) was built by luthier Michael Tobias in 1987. This instrument, commissioned by bassist Garry Goodman, was an early example of a bass with more than six single course strings. Conklin builds eight- and nine-string basses. The Guitarbass is a ten-string instrument with four bass strings (tuned E-A-D-G) and six guitar strings (tuned E-A-D-G-B-E).
Luthier Michael Adler built the first 11-string bass in 2004 and completed the first single-course 12-string bass in 2005. Adler's 11- and 12-string instruments have the same range as a grand piano. Sub-contra basses, such as C#-F#-B-E ("C#" being at 17.32 Hz (C♯0)) have been created. Ibanez
Ibanez
is a Japanese guitar brand owned by Hoshino Gakki. Based in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan, Hoshino Gakki were one of the first Japanese musical instrument companies to gain a significant foothold in import guitar sales in the United States and Europe, as well as the first brand of guitars to mass produce...
had released SR7VIISC in 2009, featuring a 30" scale and narrower width, and tuned as B-E-A-D-G-C-E; the company dubbed it a cross between bass and guitar. Yves Carbonne developed 10 and 12 string fretless sub-bass guitars.
Pickups and amplification
- For more information on pickups, see Pick up (music technology).
Magnetic pickups
Most electric bass guitars use magnetic pickups. The vibrations of the instrument's metal strings within the magnetic field of the permanent magnets in magnetic pickups produce small variations in the magnetic flux threading the coils of the pickups. This in turn produces small electrical voltages in the coils. These low-level signals are then amplified and played through a speaker. Since the 1980s, basses are often available with battery-powered "active" electronics that boost the signal, provide equalization controls to boost or cut bass and treble frequencies, or both.- "Jazz" pickups (referring to the original Fender Jazz Bass), also referred to as "J pickups", are wider eight-pole pickups that lie underneath all four strings. J pickups are typically single-coil designs, although there are a large number of humbucking designs. As with the halves of the P-pickups, the J-pickups are reverse-wound with reverse magnetic polarity. As a result they have hum canceling properties when used at the same volume, with hum cancellation decreasing when the pickups are used at unequal volume and altogether absent when each pickup is used individually. 'J' Style pickups tend to have a lower output and a thinner sound than 'P' Style pickups making it perfect for most rock music. Many bassists choose to combine a 'J' pickup at the bridge and a 'P' pickup at the neck, to be 'blended' together for a unique sound.
- "Precision" pickups (which refers to the original Fender Precision Bass), which are also referred to as "P pickups", are actually two distinct single-coil pickups. Each is offset a small amount along the length of the body so that each half is underneath two strings. The pickups are reverse-wound with reversed magnetic polarity to reduce hum. This makes the 'P' pickup a [humbucking] single coil pickup, something almost unique to the 'P' style pickup. Less common is the single-coil "P" pickup, used on the original 1951 Fender Precision bass.
- "Dual Coil" (HumbuckerHumbuckerA humbucker is a type of electric guitar pickup, first patented by Seth Lover and the Gibson company, that uses two coils, both generating string signal. Humbuckers have higher output than a single coil pickup since both coils are connected in series...
) pickups, also known as "DC pickups", have two signal producing coils that are reverse wound around opposed polarity magnets (similar in principle to the two individual J-pickups). This significantly reduces noise from interference compared to single coil pickups. Humbuckers also often produce a higher output level than single coil pickups. Dual coil pickups come in two main varieties; ceramic or ceramic and steel. Ceramic only magnets have a relatively harsher sound than their ceramic and steel counterparts, and are thus used more commonly in heavier rock styles.- A well-known bass humbucker is the pickup used on the Music Man series of basses; it has two coils, each with four large polepieces. This style is known as the "MM" pickup for this reason, and many aftermarket pickup manufacturers and custom builders incorporate these pickups. The most common configurations are a single pickup at the bridge, two pickups similar in placement to a Jazz Bass, or an MM pickup at the bridge with a single-coil pickup (often a "J") at the neck. These pickups can often be "tapped", meaning one of the two coils can be essentially turned off, giving a sound similar to a single-coil pickup.
- "Soapbar" Pickups are so-named due to their resemblance to a bar of soap and originally referred to the Gibson P-90P-90The P-90 is a single coil electric guitar pickup produced by Gibson since 1946. Having a more complex architecture and larger dimensions than Fender's single coils, it is occasionally mistaken for a humbucker.- History :...
guitar pickup. The term is also used to describe any pickup with a rectangular shape and no visible pole pieces; most of the pickups falling into this category are humbucking. They are commonly found in basses designed for the rock and metal genres, such as GibsonGibsonGibson may refer to:* Gibson Amphitheatre* Gibson Appliance* Gibson Girl* Gibson Guitar Corporation* Gibson * Gibson Generating Station-Places:In the United States:* Gibson, Arkansas* Gibson, Georgia* Gibson, Iowa* Gibson, Louisiana...
, ESP GuitarsESP Guitars, located in North Hollywood, California, is an American-based, Japanese-owned manufacturer of electric guitars and basses.- History :In 1975, Hisatake Shibuya opened a shop called Electric Sound Products in Tokyo. It provided custom replacement parts for guitars. In 1976, ESP gained a reputation...
, and SchecterSchecter Guitar ResearchSchecter Guitar Research, commonly known as simply as Schecter, is a US guitar manufacturer. The company was founded in 1976 by David Schecter and originally produced only replacement parts for existing guitars from manufacturers such as Fender and Gibson...
. 'Soapbar pickups' are also called 'extended housing'.
Many basses have just one pickup, typically a "P" or soapbar pickup. Multiple pickups are also quite common, two of the most common configurations being a "P" near the neck and a "J" near the bridge (e.g., Fender Precision Bass Special, Fender Precision Bass Plus), or two "J" pickups (e.g., Fender Jazz). A two-"soapbar" configuration is also very common, especially on basses by makes such as Ibanez
Ibanez
is a Japanese guitar brand owned by Hoshino Gakki. Based in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan, Hoshino Gakki were one of the first Japanese musical instrument companies to gain a significant foothold in import guitar sales in the United States and Europe, as well as the first brand of guitars to mass produce...
and Yamaha
Yamaha
Yamaha may refer to:* Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services** Yamaha Motor Company, a Japanese motorized vehicle-producing company...
. A combination of a J or other single-coil pickup at the neck and a Music Man-style humbucker in the bridge has become popular among boutique builders, giving a very bright, focused tone that is good for jazz and thumbstyle.
Some basses use more unusual pickup configurations, such as a soapbar and a "P" pickup (found on some Fenders), Stu Hamm's "Urge" basses, which have a "P" pickup sandwiched between two "J" pickups, and some of Bootsy Collins
Bootsy Collins
William Earl "Bootsy" Collins is an American funk bassist, singer, and songwriter.Rising to prominence with James Brown in the late 1960s, and with Parliament-Funkadelic in the '70s, Collins's driving bass guitar and humorous vocals established him as one of the leading names in funk...
' custom basses, which had as many as 5 J pickups. Another unusual pickup configuration is found on some of the custom basses that Billy Sheehan
Billy Sheehan
William "Billy" Sheehan is an American bassist known for his work with Talas, Steve Vai, David Lee Roth, Mr. Big, and Niacin. Sheehan has won the "Best Rock Bass Player" readers' poll from Guitar Player Magazine five times for his "lead bass" playing style...
uses, in which there is one humbucker at the neck and a split-coil pickup at the middle position.
The placement of the pickup greatly affects the sound. A pickup near the neck joint emphasizes the fundamental and low-order harmonics and thus produces a deeper, bassier sound, while a pickup near the bridge emphasizes higher-order harmonics and makes a "tighter" or "sharper" sound. Usually basses with multiple pickups allow blending of the output from the pickups, with electrical and acoustical interactions between the two pickups (such as partial phase cancellations) allowing a range of tonal effects.
Non-magnetic pickups
The use of non-magnetic pickups allows bassists to use non-ferrous strings such as nylon, brass or even silicone rubberAshbory bass
The Ashbory bass, designed by Alun Ashworth-Jones and Nigel Thornbory, is an 18-inch scale fretless electric bass developed in 1985. This scale is just over half of the 34-inch scale of an ordinary bass guitar...
, which create different tones.
- PiezoelectricPiezoelectricityPiezoelectricity is the charge which accumulates in certain solid materials in response to applied mechanical stress. The word piezoelectricity means electricity resulting from pressure...
pickups (also called "piezo" pickups) are non-magnetic pickups that use a transducerTransducerA transducer is a device that converts one type of energy to another. Energy types include electrical, mechanical, electromagnetic , chemical, acoustic or thermal energy. While the term transducer commonly implies the use of a sensor/detector, any device which converts energy can be considered a...
to convert vibrations in the instrument's body or bridge into an electrical signal. They are typically mounted under the bridge saddle or near the bridge and produce a different tone from magnetic pickups, often similar to that of an acoustic bass. Piezo pickups are often used in acoustic bass guitars. - Optical pickups are another type of non-magnetic pickup. They use an infrared LEDLEdLEd is a TeX/LaTeX editing software working under Microsoft Windows. It is a freeware product....
to optically track the movement of the string, which allows them to reproduce low-frequency tones at high volumes without the "hum" or excessive resonance associated with conventional magnetic pickups. Since optical pickups do not pick up high frequencies or percussive sounds well, they are commonly paired with piezoelectric pickups to fill in the missing frequencies. LightWave Systems builds basses with optical pickups.
Amplification and effects
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
, the electric bass guitar is often connected to an amplifier and a speaker with a patch cord for live performances. Electric bassists use either a "combo" amplifier, which combines an amplifier and a speaker in a single cabinet, or an amplifier and a separate speaker cabinet (or cabinets). In some cases when the bass is being used with large-scale PA
Public address
A public address system is an electronic amplification system with a mixer, amplifier and loudspeakers, used to reinforce a sound source, e.g., a person giving a speech, a DJ playing prerecorded music, and distributing the sound throughout a venue or building.Simple PA systems are often used in...
amplification, it is plugged into a "DI"
DI unit
A DI unit, DI box, Direct Box, or simply DI , is a device typically used in recording studios to connect a high-impedance, line level, unbalanced output signal to a low-impedance microphone level balanced input, usually via XLR connector...
or "direct box", which routes their signal directly into a mixing console
Mixing console
In professional audio, a mixing console, or audio mixer, also called a sound board, mixing desk, or mixer is an electronic device for combining , routing, and changing the level, timbre and/or dynamics of audio signals. A mixer can mix analog or digital signals, depending on the type of mixer...
, and thence to the main and monitor speakers. Recording may use a microphone setup for the amplified signal, a direct box feeding the recording console or a mix of both.
Various electronic bass effects such as preamplifier
Preamplifier
A preamplifier is an electronic amplifier that prepares a small electrical signal for further amplification or processing. A preamplifier is often placed close to the sensor to reduce the effects of noise and interference. It is used to boost the signal strength to drive the cable to the main...
s, "stomp box"-style pedals and signal processors and the configuration of the amplifier
Amplifier
Generally, an amplifier or simply amp, is a device for increasing the power of a signal.In popular use, the term usually describes an electronic amplifier, in which the input "signal" is usually a voltage or a current. In audio applications, amplifiers drive the loudspeakers used in PA systems to...
and speaker
Loudspeaker
A loudspeaker is an electroacoustic transducer that produces sound in response to an electrical audio signal input. Non-electrical loudspeakers were developed as accessories to telephone systems, but electronic amplification by vacuum tube made loudspeakers more generally useful...
can be used to alter the basic sound of the instrument. In the 1990s and early first decade of the 21st century, signal processors such as equalizers, overdrive devices, and compressors
Audio level compression
Dynamic range compression, also called DRC or simply compression reduces the volume of loud sounds or amplifies quiet sounds by narrowing or "compressing" an audio signal's dynamic range...
or limiter
Limiter
In electronics, a limiter is a circuit that allows signals below a specified input power to pass unaffected while attenuating the peaks of stronger signals that exceed this input power....
s became increasingly popular. Modulation effects like chorus, flanging, phase shifting, and time effects such as delay and looping are less commonly used with bass than with electric guitar, but they are used in some styles of music.
Sitting or standing
Most bass players stand while playing, although sitting is also accepted, particularly in large ensemble settings, such as jazz big bands or in acoustic genres such as folk music. Some bassists, such as Jah WobbleJah Wobble
Jah Wobble is an English bass guitarist, singer, poet and composer. He became known to a wider audience as the original bass player in Public Image Ltd in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but left the band after two albums...
, will alternate between standing or seated playing. It is a matter of the player's preference as to which position gives the greatest ease of playing and what a bandleader expects. When sitting, right-handed players can balance the instrument on the right thigh or like classical guitar players, the left. Balancing the bass on the left thigh usually positions it in such a way that it mimics the standing position, allowing for less difference between the standing and sitting positions. Balancing the bass on the right thigh provides better access to the neck and fretboard in its entirety, especially lower frets.
Performing techniques
Pizzicato
Pizzicato is a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument. The exact technique varies somewhat depending on the type of stringed instrument....
), the index and middle fingers (and sometimes with the thumb, ring, and pinky fingers as well) are used. James Jamerson
James Jamerson
James Lee Jamerson was an American bass player. He was the uncredited bassist on most of Motown Records' hits in the 1960s and early 1970s , and he is now regarded as one of the most influential bass players in modern music history...
, an influential bassist from the Motown era, played intricate bass lines using only his index finger, which he called "The Hook." There are also variations in how a bassist chooses to rest the right-hand thumb (or left thumb in the case of left-handed players). A player may rest his or her thumb on the top edge of one of the pickups or on the side of the fretboard, which is especially common among bassists who have an upright bass influence. Some bassists anchor their thumbs on the lowest string and move it off to play on the low string. Alternatively, the thumb can be rested loosely on the strings to mute the unused strings.
The string can be plucked at any point between the bridge and the point where the fretting hand is holding down the string; different timbre
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
s are produced depending on where along the string it is plucked. Some players are known for plucking near the bridge where the string is most taut, such as jazz fusion bassist Jaco Pastorius
Jaco Pastorius
John Francis Anthony Pastorius III , known as Jaco Pastorius, was an American jazz musician and composer widely acknowledged as a virtuoso electric bass player....
, whereas other bassists prefer the "looser" part of the string nearer to the fingerboard.
Bassists trying to emulate the sound of a double bass sometimes pluck the strings with their thumb and use palm-muting
Palm mute
The palm mute is a playing technique for guitar and bass guitar executed by placing the side of the picking hand below the little finger across all of the strings very close to the bridge and then plucking the strings with the fingers while the damping is in effect. This produces a muted sound...
to create a short, "thumpy" tone. The late Monk Montgomery
Monk Montgomery
William Howard "Monk" Montgomery was an American jazz bassist.Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Montgomery was the older brother of guitarist Wes Montgomery; younger brother, Buddy Montgomery played vibraphone and piano...
(who played in Lionel Hampton's band) and Bruce Palmer
Bruce Palmer
Bruce Palmer was a Canadian musician notable for playing bass guitar in the folk rock band Buffalo Springfield.-Early years:Palmer was born and raised in Toronto Ontario, Canada...
(who performed with Buffalo Springfield
Buffalo Springfield
Buffalo Springfield is a North American folk rock band renown both for its music and as a springboard for the careers of Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and Jim Messina. Among the first wave of North American bands to become popular in the wake of the British invasion, the group combined...
) use thumb downstrokes. The use of the thumb was acknowledged by early Fender models, which came with a "thumbrest" or "Tug Bar" attached to the pickguard below the strings. Contrary to its name, this was not used to rest the thumb, but to provide leverage while using the thumb to pluck the strings. The thumbrest was moved above the strings in 1970s models and eliminated in the 1980s.
"Slap and pop"
The slap and popSlapping
In music, the term slapping is often used to refer to two different playing techniques used on the double bass and on the bass guitar.-Double bass:...
method, or "thumbstyle", most associated with funk, uses tones and percussive sounds achieved by striking, thumping, or "slapping" a string with the thumb and snapping (or "popping") a string or strings with the index or middle fingers. Bassists often interpolate left hand-muted "dead notes" between the slaps and pops to achieve a rapid percussive effect, and after a note is slapped or popped, the fretting hand may cause other notes to sound by using "hammer ons", "pull offs", or a left-hand glissando
Glissando
In music, a glissando is a glide from one pitch to another. It is an Italianized musical term derived from the French glisser, to glide. In some contexts it is distinguished from the continuous portamento...
(slide). Larry Graham
Larry Graham
Larry Graham, Jr. is an African American bass guitar player, both with the popular and influential psychedelic soul/funk band Sly & the Family Stone, and as the founder and frontman of Graham Central Station...
of Sly and the Family Stone and Graham Central Station
Graham Central Station
Graham Central Station is a funk band named after founder Larry Graham . The name is a pun on New York City's Grand Central Terminal, often incorrectly called Grand Central Station....
was an early innovator of the slap style, and Louis Johnson
Louis Johnson (bassist)
Louis Johnson is an American bass guitarist.Johnson is best known for his group The Brothers Johnson and his session playing on several hit albums of the 1970s and '80s including the "best selling album of all time" Thriller...
of The Brothers Johnson is also credited as an early slap bass player.
Slap and pop style is also used by many bassists in other genres, such as rock (e.g., J J Burnel and Les Claypool
Les Claypool
Leslie Edward "Les" Claypool is an American musician and writer, best known as the lead vocalist and bassist in the band Primus. Claypool's playing style on the electric bass mixes tapping, flamenco-like strumming, whammy bar bends and slapping.Claypool has also self produced and engineered his...
), metal (e.g., Eric Langlois, Martin Mendez
Martin Mendez
Martín Méndez is the bass guitar player of progressive death metal band Opeth and second most constant member of the band, behind lead vocalist, songwriter and guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt....
, Fieldy and Ryan Martinie
Ryan Martinie
Ryan Martinie is an American bassist, best known for being the bass player of heavy metal band Mudvayne. He is well known for his complex basslines and unique playing style...
), and fusion (e.g., Marcus Miller
Marcus Miller
Marcus Miller is an American jazz composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist. Miller is best known as a bassist, working with trumpeter Miles Davis, singer Luther Vandross, and saxophonist David Sanborn, as well as maintaining a prolific solo career...
, Victor Wooten
Victor Wooten
Victor Lemonte Wooten is an American bass player, composer, author, and producer, and has been the recipient of five Grammy Awards....
and Alain Caron
Alain Caron (bass player)
Alain Caron is a French Canadian jazz bassist.The youngest of 11 children, Caron started playing bass at age 11 and began pursuing jazz at age 15...
). Slap style playing was popularized throughout the 1980s and early 1990s by pop bass players such as Mark King
Mark King (musician)
Mark King is an English musician. He is most famous for being the lead singer and bassist of the band, Level 42. In the early 1980s King popularized the 1970s-era slap and pop style for playing the bass guitar by incorporating it into pop music.-Early life:King was brought up on the Isle of Wight,...
(from Level 42
Level 42
Level 42 are an English pop rock and jazz-funk band who had a number of worldwide and UK hits during the 1980s and 1990s.The band gained fame for their high-calibre musicianship—in particular that of Mark King, whose percussive slap-bass guitar technique provided the driving groove of many of the...
) and rock bassists such as with Pino Palladino
Pino Palladino
Pino Palladino is a Welsh bass guitarist who gained fame playing primarily rock and roll, blues rock, and rhythm and blues music, although he has been lauded for his ability to play most genres of popular music, including jazz, neo soul, and funk...
(currently a member of the John Mayer Trio
John Mayer Trio
In February 2005, the trio played Mayer's single "Daughters" at the 47th Grammy Awards, for which Mayer went on to win the award for Best Male Vocal Performance later that night . The Trio released "Come When I Call" exclusively to iTunes...
and bassist for The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
),
Flea
Flea (musician)
Michael Peter Balzary , better known by his stage name Flea, is an Australian-American musician and occasional actor. He is best known as the bassist, co-founding member, and one of the composers of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers...
(from the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers is an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1983. The group's musical style primarily consists of rock with an emphasis on funk, as well as elements from other genres such as punk, hip hop and psychedelic rock...
) and Alex Katunich
Alex Katunich
George Alex Katunich is the former bassist of Incubus.Since high school, Alex went by the stage name of Dirk Lance which was apparently taken from the credits of an anonymous '70s porn flick...
(from Incubus
Incubus (band)
Incubus is an American rock band from Calabasas, California. The band was formed in 1991 by vocalist Brandon Boyd, lead guitarist Mike Einziger, and drummer Jose Pasillas while enrolled in high school and later expanded to include bassist Alex "Dirk Lance" Katunich, and Gavin "DJ Lyfe" Koppell;...
). Spank bass
Spank bass
Spank bass is a musical performance technique evolving out of the slap and pop or slapping methods of bass playing. Spank bass treats the electric bass as a percussion instrument, striking the strings above the pickups with an open palmed hand. The term derives from the motion of spanking.While...
developed from the slap and pop style and treats the electric bass as a percussion instrument, striking the strings above the pickups with an open palmed hand. Wooten popularized the "double thump," in which the string is slapped twice, on the upstroke and a downstroke (for more information, see Classical Thump). A rarely used playing technique related to slapping is the use of wooden dowel
Dowel
A dowel is a solid cylindrical rod, usually made of wood, plastic or metal. In its original manufactured form, dowel is called dowel rod.Dowel rod is employed in numerous, diverse applications. It is used to form axles in toys, as detents on gymnastics grips, as knitting needles, as structural...
"funk fingers
Funk fingers
Funk Fingers are a kind of drumsticks that are attached to the fingers of a bass player for producing percussive, funky sounds on a bass guitar. They were created by Tony Levin and his guitar tech, Andy Moore...
", an approach popularized by Tony Levin
Tony Levin
Tony Levin is an American progressive rock musician, specializing in bass guitar, Chapman stick and upright bass ....
.
Picking techniques
The pickGuitar pick
A guitar pick is a plectrum used for guitars. A pick is generally made of one uniform material; examples include plastic, nylon, rubber, felt, tortoiseshell, wood, metal, glass, and stone...
(or plectrum
Plectrum
A plectrum is a small flat tool used to pluck or strum a stringed instrument. For hand-held instruments such as guitars and mandolins, the plectrum is often called a pick, and is a separate tool held in the player's hand...
) is used to obtain a more articulate attack, for speed, or just personal preference. Although the use of a pick is primarily associated with rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
and punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
, picks are also used in other styles. Jazz bassist Steve Swallow
Steve Swallow
Steve Swallow is a jazz double bass and bass guitarist and composer born in Fair Lawn, New Jersey.One of the leading bassists in jazz, Swallow is noted for collaborations with Jimmy Giuffre, Gary Burton and Carla Bley...
uses a pick for upbeat or funky songs while Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
bassist Roger Waters
Roger Waters
George Roger Waters is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. He was a founding member of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd, serving as bassist and co-lead vocalist. Following the departure of bandmate Syd Barrett in 1968, Waters became the band's lyricist, principal songwriter...
uses one for a heavier tone. Picks can be used with alternating downstrokes and upstrokes, or with all downstrokes for a more consistent attack. The pick is usually held with the index and thumb, with the up-and-down plucking motion supplied by the wrist.
There are many varieties of picks available, but due to the thicker, heavier strings of the electric bass, bassists tend to use heavier picks than those used for electric guitar, typically ranging from 1.14 mm–3.00 mm (3.00 is unusual). Different materials are used for picks, including plastic, nylon, and felt, all of which produce different tones. Felt picks are used to emulate a fingerstyle tone.
Palm-muting techniques
Palm-muting is a widely used bass technique. The outer edge of the palm of the picking hand is rested on the bridge while picking, and “mutes” the strings, shortening the sustain time. The harder the palm presses, or the more string area that is contacted by the palm, the shorter the string’s sustain. The sustain of the picked note can be varied for each note or phrase. The shorter sustain of a muted note on an electric bass can be used to imitate the shorter sustain and character of an upright bass. Palm-muting is commonly done while using a pick, but can also be done without a pick, as when doing down-strokes with the thumb.One prominent example of the pick/palm-muting combination is Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
, who has consistently used this technique for decades. Sting also uses palm-muting; but often does so without a pick, using the thumb and first finger to pluck.
Fretting techniques
The fretting hand—the left hand for right-handed bass players and the right hand for left-handed bass players—is used to press down the strings to play different notes and shape the tone or timbre of a plucked or picked note. The fundamental technique used in the fretting hand is known as "a finger per fret", where each finger in the fretting hand plays one fret in a given position. The fretting hand can be used to change a sounded note, either by fully muting it after it is plucked or picked to shorten its duration or by partially muting it near the bridge to reduce the volume of the note, or make the note die away faster. The fretting hand is often used to mute strings that are not being played and stop the sympathetic vibrations, particularly when the player wants a "dry" or "focused" sound. On the other hand, the sympathetic resonance of harmonically related strings may be desired for some songs, such as ballads. In these cases, a bassist can fret harmonically related notes. For example, while fretting a sustained "F" (on the third fret of the "D" string), underneath an F major chord being played by a piano player, a bassist might hold down the "C" and low "F" below this note so their harmonics sound sympathetically.The fretting hand can add vibrato
Vibrato
Vibrato is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation and the speed with which the pitch is varied .-Vibrato and...
to a plucked or picked note, either a gentle, narrow vibrato or a more exaggerated, wide vibrato with bigger pitch variations. For fretted basses, vibrato is always an alternation between the pitch of the note and a slightly higher pitch. For fretless basses, the player can use this style of vibrato, or they can alternate between the note and a slightly lower pitch. While vibrato is mostly done on "stopped" notes
Stopped note
-Bowed strings:On bowed string instruments, a stopped note is a played note that is fingered with the left hand, i.e. not an open string, on the string being bowed by the right hand...
—that is, notes that are pressed down on the fingerboard—open strings can also be vibratoed by pressing down on the string behind the nut. As well, the fretting hand can be used to "bend" a plucked or picked note up in pitch. To create the opposite effect, a "bend down", the string is pushed to a higher pitch before being plucked or picked and then allowed to fall to the lower, regular pitch after it is sounded. Though rare, some bassists may use a tremolo bar-equipped bass to produce the same effect.
Harmonic
A harmonic of a wave is a component frequency of the signal that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency, i.e. if the fundamental frequency is f, the harmonics have frequencies 2f, 3f, 4f, . . . etc. The harmonics have the property that they are all periodic at the fundamental...
node points on the string, which creates chime-like upper partials. Glissando
Glissando
In music, a glissando is a glide from one pitch to another. It is an Italianized musical term derived from the French glisser, to glide. In some contexts it is distinguished from the continuous portamento...
is an effect in which the fretting hand slides up or down the neck. A subtle glissando can be performed by moving the fretting hand without plucking or picking the string; for a more pronounced effect, the string is plucked or picked first, or, in a metal or hardcore punk context, a pick may be scraped along the sides of the strings.
The fretting hand can also be used to sound notes, either by plucking an open string
Pizzicato
Pizzicato is a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument. The exact technique varies somewhat depending on the type of stringed instrument....
with the fretting hand, or, in the case of a string that has already been plucked or picked, by "hammering on" a higher pitch or "pulling off" a finger to pluck a lower fretted or open stringed note. Jazz bassists use a subtle form of fretting hand pizzicato by plucking a very brief open string grace note
Grace note
A grace note is a kind of music notation used to denote several kinds of musical ornaments. When occurring by itself, a single grace note normally indicates the intention of either an appoggiatura or an acciaccatura...
with the fretting hand right before playing the string with the plucking hand. When a string is rapidly hammered on, the note can be prolonged into a trill
Trill (music)
The trill is a musical ornament consisting of a rapid alternation between two adjacent notes, usually a semitone or tone apart, which can be identified with the context of the trill....
.
Two-handed tapping
Tapping
Tapping is a guitar playing technique, where a string is fretted and set into vibration as part of a single motion of being pushed onto the fretboard, as opposed to the standard technique being fretted with one hand and picked with the other...
styles, bassists use both hands to play notes on the fretboard by rapidly pressing and holding the string to the fret. Instead of plucking or picking the string to create a sound, in this technique, the action of striking the string against the fret or the fretboard creates the sound. Since two hands can be used to play on the fretboard, this makes it possible to play interweaving contrapuntal
Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
lines, to simultaneously play a bassline and a simple chord, or play chords
Guitar chord
In music, a guitar chord is a chord, or collection of tones usually sounded together at once, played on a guitar. It can be composed of notes played on adjacent or separate strings or all the strings together...
and arpeggios. Bassist John Entwistle
John Entwistle
John Alec Entwistle was an English bass guitarist, songwriter, singer, horn player, and film and record producer who was best known as the bass player for the rock band The Who. His aggressive lead sound influenced many rock bass players...
of The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
tapped percussively on the strings, causing them to strike the fretboard with a twangy sound to create drum-style fills
Fill (music)
In popular music, a fill is a short musical passage, riff, or rhythmic sound which helps to sustain the listener's attention during a break between the phrases of a melody....
. Players noted for this technique include Billy Sheehan
Billy Sheehan
William "Billy" Sheehan is an American bassist known for his work with Talas, Steve Vai, David Lee Roth, Mr. Big, and Niacin. Sheehan has won the "Best Rock Bass Player" readers' poll from Guitar Player Magazine five times for his "lead bass" playing style...
, Stuart Hamm
Stuart Hamm
Stuart "Stu" Hamm is an American bass guitar player, known for his session and live work with numerous artists as well for his unconventional playing style and solo recordings.-Beginning career:...
, John Myung
John Myung
John Ro Myung is an American bassist, Chapman Stick player and a founding member of the progressive metal group Dream Theater. He is considered a virtuoso player who is widely recognized for his technical proficiency....
, Victor Wooten
Victor Wooten
Victor Lemonte Wooten is an American bass player, composer, author, and producer, and has been the recipient of five Grammy Awards....
, Les Claypool
Les Claypool
Leslie Edward "Les" Claypool is an American musician and writer, best known as the lead vocalist and bassist in the band Primus. Claypool's playing style on the electric bass mixes tapping, flamenco-like strumming, whammy bar bends and slapping.Claypool has also self produced and engineered his...
, Mark King
Mark King (musician)
Mark King is an English musician. He is most famous for being the lead singer and bassist of the band, Level 42. In the early 1980s King popularized the 1970s-era slap and pop style for playing the bass guitar by incorporating it into pop music.-Early life:King was brought up on the Isle of Wight,...
and Michael Manring
Michael Manring
Michael Manring is an American electric bassist from the San Francisco Bay Area, .-Biography:...
. The Chapman Stick
Chapman Stick
The Chapman Stick is an electric musical instrument devised by Emmett Chapman in the early 1970s. A member of the guitar family, the Chapman Stick usually has ten or twelve individually tuned strings and has been used on music recordings to play bass lines, melody lines, chords or textures...
and Warr Guitars are string instruments specifically designed to be played using two-handed tapping.
Popular music
Popular musicPopular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
bands and rock groups use the bass guitar as a member of the rhythm section
Rhythm section
A rhythm section is a collection of musicians who make up a section of instruments which provides the accompaniment section of the music, giving the music its rhythmic texture and pulse, also serving as a rhythmic reference for the rest of the band...
, which provides the chord
Chord (music)
A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...
sequence or "progression
Chord progression
A chord progression is a series of musical chords, or chord changes that "aims for a definite goal" of establishing a tonality founded on a key, root or tonic chord. In other words, the succession of root relationships...
" and sets out the "beat
Beat (music)
The beat is the basic unit of time in music, the pulse of the mensural level . In popular use, the beat can refer to a variety of related concepts including: tempo, meter, rhythm and groove...
" for the song. The rhythm section typically consists of a rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...
ist or electric keyboard player, or both, a bass guitarist and a drummer
Drummer
A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...
; larger groups may add additional guitarists, keyboardists, or percussionists.
The types of bassline
Bassline
A bassline is the term used in many styles of popular music, such as jazz, blues, funk, dub and electronic music for the low-pitched instrumental part or line played by a rhythm section instrument such as the electric bass, double bass, tuba or keyboard...
s performed by the bass guitarist vary widely from one style of music to another. Despite all of the differences in the styles of bassline, in most styles of popular music, the bass guitarist fulfills a similar role: anchoring the harmonic framework (often by emphasizing the roots of the chord progression) and laying down the beat (in collaboration with the drummer). The importance of the bass guitarist and the bass line varies in different styles of music. In some pop styles, such as 1980s-era pop and musical theater, the bass sometimes plays a relatively simple part, and the music forefronts the vocals and melody instruments. In contrast, in reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
, funk, or hip-hop, entire songs may be centered on the bass groove, and the bassline is usually very prominent in the mix.
In traditional country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
, folk rock
Folk rock
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...
, and related styles, the bass often plays the roots and fifth of each chord in alternation. In Chicago blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, the electric bass often performs a walking bassline made up of scales and arpeggios. In blues rock bands, the bassist often plays blues scale
Blues scale
The term blues scale is used to describe a few scales with differing numbers of pitches and related characteristics. See: blues.The hexatonic, or six note, blues scale consists of the minor pentatonic scale plus the 4th or 5th degree...
-based riffs and chugging boogie
Boogie
Boogie is a repetitive, swung note or shuffle rhythm, "groove" or pattern used in blues which was originally played on the piano in boogie-woogie music. The characteristic rhythm and feel of the boogie was then adapted to guitar, double bass, and other instruments. The earliest recorded...
-style lines. In metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
, the bass guitar may perform complex riff
RIFF
The Resource Interchange File Format is a generic file container format for storing data in tagged chunks. It is primarily used to store multimedia such as sound and video, though it may also be used to store any arbitrary data....
s along with the rhythm guitarist or play a low, rumbling pedal point
Pedal point
In tonal music, a pedal point is a sustained tone, typically in the bass, during which at least one foreign, i.e., dissonant harmony is sounded in the other parts. A pedal point sometimes functions as a "non-chord tone", placing it in the categories alongside suspensions, retardations, and passing...
to anchor the group's sound.
The bass guitarist sometimes breaks out of the strict rhythm section role to perform bass breaks or bass solos. The types of basslines used for bass breaks or bass solos vary by style. In a rock band, a bass break may consist of the bassist playing a riff
RIFF
The Resource Interchange File Format is a generic file container format for storing data in tagged chunks. It is primarily used to store multimedia such as sound and video, though it may also be used to store any arbitrary data....
or lick
Lick (music)
In popular music genres such as rock or jazz music, a lick is "a stock pattern or phrase" consisting of a short series of notes that is used in solos and melodic lines...
during a pause in the song. In some styles of metal, a bass break may consist of "shred guitar
Shred guitar
Shred guitar or shredding is lead electric guitar playing that relies heavily on fast guitar solos. While some critics argue that shred guitar is associated with "... sweep-picked arpeggios, diminished and harmonic minor scales, finger-tapping and ... whammy-bar abuse", several guitar...
"-style tapping
Tapping
Tapping is a guitar playing technique, where a string is fretted and set into vibration as part of a single motion of being pushed onto the fretboard, as opposed to the standard technique being fretted with one hand and picked with the other...
on the bass. In a funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
or funk rock band, a bass solo may showcase the bassist's percussive slap and pop playing. In genres such as progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
, art rock
Art rock
Art rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, with influences from art, avant-garde, and classical music. The first usage of the term, according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, was in 1968. Influenced by the work of The Beatles, most notably their Sgt...
, or progressive metal
Progressive metal
Progressive metal is a subgenre of heavy metal originating in the United Kingdom and North America in the late 1980s...
, the bass guitar player may play melody
Melody
A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...
lines along with the lead guitar
Lead guitar
Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
(or vocalist) and perform extended guitar solo
Guitar solo
In popular music, a guitar solo is a melodic passage, section, or entire piece of music written for an electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. Guitar solos, which often contain varying degrees of improvisation, are used in many styles of popular music such as blues, jazz, rock and metal styles such...
s. Other contemporary musicians such as Edo Castro
Edo Castro
Edo Castro is an American Jazz Bassist and composer.-Biography:Born in San Francisco to mother Aida Saberi, Edo was an only child from Aida’s first marriage. Later Aida remarried and had two more sons, Thomas & Ted Saberi. Edo attended Grattan Elementary, Herbert Hoover Junior High and J...
have taken the electric bass, including 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9 strings, into a new and evolving genre centered entirely around the bass itself.
Jazz and jazz fusion
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
. The big band
Big band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
s of the 1930s and 1940s Swing era and the small combos of the 1950s Bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
and Hard Bop
Hard bop
Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano...
movements all used the double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
. The electric bass was introduced during the late 1960s and early 1970s, when rock influences were blended with jazz to create jazz-rock fusion.
The introduction of the electric bass in jazz fusion, as in the rock world, enabled the bass to be used in high-volume stadium concerts with powerful amplifiers, because it is much easier to amplify the electric bass than the double bass (the latter is prone to feedback in high-volume settings). The electric bass has both an accompaniment and a soloing role in jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
. In accompaniment, the bassist may perform walking basslines for traditional tunes and "jazz standards", playing smooth quarter note lines that imitate the double bass. For latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
or salsa
Salsa music
Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...
tunes and rock-infused jazz fusion tunes, the electric bass may play rapid, syncopated rhythmic figures in coordination with the drummer, or lay down a low, heavy groove.
In a jazz setting, the electric bass tends to have a much more expansive solo role than in most popular styles. In most rock settings, the bass guitarist may only have a few short bass breaks or brief solos during a concert. During a jazz concert, a jazz bassist may have a number of lengthy improvised solos, which are called "blowing" in jazz parlance. Whether a jazz bassist is comping (accompanying) or soloing, they usually aim to create a rhythmic drive and "timefeel" that creates a sense of "swing
Swing (jazz performance style)
In jazz and related musical styles, the term swing is used to describe the sense of propulsive rhythmic "feel" or "groove" created by the musical interaction between the performers, especially when the music creates a "visceral response" such as feet-tapping or head-nodding...
" and "groove". For information on notable jazz bassists, see the List of jazz bassists article.
Contemporary classical music
Contemporary classical musicContemporary classical music
Contemporary classical music can be understood as belonging to the period that started in the mid-1970s with the retreat of modernism. However, the term may also be employed in a broader sense to refer to all post-1945 modern musical forms.-Categorization:...
uses both the standard instruments of Western Art music (piano, violin, double bass, etc.) and newer instruments or sound producing devices, ranging from electrically amplified instruments to tape players and radios. The electric bass guitar has occasionally been used in contemporary classical music (art music) since the late 1960s.
Contemporary composers often obtained unusual sounds or instrumental timbres through the use of non-traditional (or unconventional) instruments or playing techniques. As such, bass guitarists playing contemporary classical music may be instructed to pluck or strum the instrument in unusual ways.
Christian Wolff (composer)
Christian G. Wolff is an American composer of experimental classical music.-Biography:Wolff was born in Nice in France to German literary publishers Helen and Kurt Wolff, who had published works by Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, and Walter Benjamin. After relocating to the U.S...
(born 1934) (Electric Spring 1, 1966; Electric Spring 2, 1966/70; Electric Spring 3, 1967; and Untitled, 1996); Francis Thorne
Francis Thorne
Francis Thorne is an American composer of contemporary classical music and grandson of the writer Gustav Kobbé.-Life:...
, a student of Paul Hindemith at Yale University (born 1922), who wrote (Liebesrock 1968–69); and Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...
(Cello Concerto no. 1, 1966/67, rev. 1971/72), The Devils of Loudun
The Devils of Loudun (opera)
The Devils of Loudun is an opera in three acts written in between 1968-69 by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki. The work was commissioned by the Hamburg State Opera, which consequently gave the premiere on June 20, 1969...
, 1969; Kosmogonia, 1970; and Partita, 1971), Louis Andriessen
Louis Andriessen
Louis Andriessen is a Dutch composer and pianist based in Amsterdam. He teaches composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague...
(Spektakel, 1970; De Staat, 1972–76; Hoketus, 1976; De Tijd, 1980–81 and De Materie
De Materie
De Materie is a four-part vocal and orchestral composition by Dutch composer Louis Andriessen, which he composed over the period 1984 to 1988. Robert Wilson directed the first staging of the work on 1 June 1989 at the Muziektheater, Amsterdam, with James Doing, Wendy Hill, Beppie Blankert and...
, 1984–1988). European composers who began scoring for the bass guitar in the 1960s included Danish composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen
Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen
-Biography:Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, and is the son of the sculptor Jørgen Gudmundsen-Holmgreen. He studied at the Royal Danish Conservatory in Copenhagen, with Høffding, Westergaard, and Hjelmborg, graduating in 1958 .He won the Nordic Council Music Prize in 1980...
(born 1932) (Symfoni på Rygmarven, 1966; Rerepriser, 1967; and Piece by Piece, 1968); Irwin Bazelon
Irwin Bazelon
Irwin Bazelon was an American composer of contemporary classical music.Contemporary American composer Irwin Bazelon’s music is known for its interesting rhythms and its emphasis on the brass and percussion sections. In total, Bazelon composed nine symphonies and over sixty orchestral, chamber, and...
(Churchill Downs, 1970).
In the 1970s, electric bass was used by the American conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
(1918–1990) for his MASS (1971). American jazz pianist Dave Brubeck
Dave Brubeck
David Warren "Dave" Brubeck is an American jazz pianist. He has written a number of jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke". Brubeck's style ranges from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother's attempts at classical training and his improvisational skills...
used bass guitar for his 1971 piece Truth Has Fallen. Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n and Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
composer Alfred Schnittke
Alfred Schnittke
Alfred Schnittke ; November 24, 1934 – August 3, 1998) was a Russian and Soviet composer. Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich. He developed a polystylistic technique in works such as the epic First Symphony and First Concerto Grosso...
used the instrument for his Symphony no. 1, 1972. In 1977, David Amram
David Amram
David Amram is an American composer, musician, conductor, and writer. As a classical composer and performer, his integration of jazz , ethnic and folk music has led him to work with the likes of Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Willie Nelson, Langston...
(born 1930) scored for electric bass in En memoria de Chano Pozo. Amram is an American composer known for his eclectic use of jazz, ethnic and folk music.
In the 1980s and 1990s, electric bass was used in works by Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
(El Rey de Harlem, 1980; and Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, 1981), Harold Shapero
Harold Shapero
Harold Samuel Shapero is an American composer.-Early years:Born in Lynn, Massachusetts, Shapero and his family later moved to nearby Newton. He learned to play the piano as a child, and for some years was a pianist in dance orchestras. With a friend, he founded the Hal Kenny Orchestra, a swing-era...
, On Green Mountain (Chaconne after Monteverdi), 1957, orchestrated 1981; Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...
's Electric Counterpoint
Electric Counterpoint
Electric Counterpoint is a minimalist composition written by American composer Steve Reich. The piece consists of three movements, "Fast", "Slow", and "Fast"...
(1987), Wolfgang Rihm
Wolfgang Rihm
Wolfgang Rihm is a German composer.Rihm is Head of the Institute of Modern Music at the Karlsruhe Conservatory of Music and has been composer in residence at the Lucerne Festival and the Salzburg Festival...
(Die Eroberung von Mexico, 1987–91), Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-made compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from...
(Miserere, 1989/92), Steve Martland
Steve Martland
Steve Martland is an English composer.-Life and Music :Martland was born in Liverpool, England and studied composition at Liverpool University and in the Netherlands with Louis Andriessen...
(Danceworks, 1993; and Horses of Instruction, 1994), Sofia Gubaidulina
Sofia Gubaidulina
Sofia Asgatovna Gubaidulina, is a Russian composer of half Russian, half Tatar ethnicity.Gubaidulina's music is marked by the use of unusual instrumental combinations...
(Aus dem Stundenbuch, 1991), Giya Kancheli
Giya Kancheli
Giya Kancheli , born 10 August 1935, in Tbilisi, is a Georgian composer resident in Belgium.Since 1991, Kancheli has lived in Western Europe: first in Berlin, and since 1995 in Antwerp, where he is composer-in-residence for the Royal Flemish Philharmonic....
(Wingless, 1993), John Adams (I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky
I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky
I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky is a 1995 musical/opera with music composed by John Adams, with a libretto by June Jordan. The work was first performed May 1995 in Berkeley, California with staging by Peter Sellars...
, 1995; and Scratchband, 1996/97), and Michael Nyman
Michael Nyman
Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano...
(various works for the Michael Nyman Band
Michael Nyman Band
The Michael Nyman Band, formerly known as the Campiello Band, is a group formed as a street band for a 1976 production of Carlo Goldoni's 1756 play, Il Campiello directed by Bill Bryden at the Old Vic...
).
Pedagogy and training
The pedagogy and training for the electric bass varies widely by genre and country. Rock and pop bass has a history of pedagogy dating back to the 1950s and 1960s, when method books were developed to help students learn the instrument. One notable method book was Carol KayeCarol Kaye
Carol Kaye is an American musician, best known as one of the most prolific and widely heard bass guitarists in history, playing on an estimated 10,000 recording sessions in a 55 year career....
's How to Play the Electric Bass.
In the jazz scene, since the bass guitar takes on much of the same role as the double bass—laying down the rhythm, and outlining the harmonic foundation—electric bass players have long used both bass guitar methods and jazz double bass method books. The use of jazz double bass method books by electric bass players in jazz is facilitated in that jazz methods tend to emphasize improvisation techniques (e.g., how to improvise walking basslines) and rhythmic exercises rather than specific ways of holding or plucking the instrument.
Formal training
Of all of the genres, jazz and the mainstream commercial genres (rock, R&B, etc.) have the most established and comprehensive systems of instruction and training for electric bass. In the jazz scene, teens can begin taking private lessons on the instrument and performing in amateur big bands at high schools or run by the community. Young adults who aspire to becoming professional jazz bassists or studio rock bassists can continue their studies in a variety of formal training settings, including colleges and some universities.Several colleges offer electric bass training in the US. The Bass Institute of Technology (BIT) in Los Angeles was founded in 1978, as part of the Musician's Institute. Chuck Rainey
Chuck Rainey
Chuck Rainey, is an American bass guitar session musician, known for playing with many well-known American musicians and acts, including Donald Byrd, Steely Dan, Quincy Jones, and Aretha Franklin.-Biography:Rainey's youthful pursuits included violin, piano and trumpet...
(electric bassist for Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...
and Marvin Gaye
Marvin Gaye
Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....
) was BIT's first director. BIT was one of the earliest professional training program for electric bassists. The program teaches a range of modern styles, including funk, rock, jazz, Latin, and R&B.
The Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music, located in Boston, Massachusetts, is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known primarily as a school for jazz, rock and popular music, it also offers college-level courses in a wide range of contemporary and historic styles, including hip...
in Boston offers training for electric bass players. Electric bass students get private lessons and there is a choice of over 270 ensembles to play in. Specific electric bass courses include funk/fusion styles for bass; slap techniques for electric bass; fingerstyle R&B; five- and six-string electric bass playing (including performing chords); and how to read bass sheet music. Berklee College alumni include Jeff Andrews
Jeff Andrews
Jeffrey J. Andrews is an American former professional baseball player and current coach. He was the pitching coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2008, having been fired after one season at the position. Andrews spent each of the last 22 years as a minor league pitching coach/coordinator, the last...
, Victor Bailey, Jeff Berlin
Jeff Berlin
Jeff Berlin is an American jazz, jazz fusion and progressive rock electric bass player.Jeff Berlin's bass playing is somewhat similar to that of Jaco Pastorius, though Berlin plays a fretted bass and has stated his distaste for Jaco imitators.-Early life:Jeff Berlin was born to parents who were...
, Michael Manring
Michael Manring
Michael Manring is an American electric bassist from the San Francisco Bay Area, .-Biography:...
, and Neil Stubenhaus
Neil Stubenhaus
Neil Stubenhaus is an American bass guitarist.-Career:He started his musical training playing drums and switched to bass guitar at the age of 12. He studied at the Berklee College of Music where he graduated in 1975...
. The Bass Department has two rooms with bass amps for classes and ten private lesson studios equipped with audio recording gear. Berklee offers instruction for the four-, five-, and six-string electric bass, the fretless bass, and double bass. "Students learn concepts in Latin, funk, Motown, and hip-hop,...jazz, rock, and fusion."
In Canada, the Humber College
Humber College
Humber College Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning is a polytechnic college in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Humber offers more than 150 programs including: bachelor’s degree, diploma, certificate, post-graduate certificate and apprenticeship programs, across 40 fields of study. Humber serves...
Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning offers an Advanced Diploma (a three-year program) in jazz and commercial music. The program accepts performers who play bass, guitar, keyboard, drums, melody instruments (e.g., sax, flute, violin) and who sing. Students get private lessons and perform in 40 student ensembles.
Although there are far fewer university programs that offer electric bass instruction in jazz and popular music, some universities offer Bachelor's degrees (B.Mus.) and Master of Music (M.Mus.) degrees in jazz performance or "commercial music", where electric bass can be the main instrument. In the US, the Manhattan School of Music
Manhattan School of Music
The Manhattan School of Music is a major music conservatory located on the Upper West Side of New York City. The school offers degrees on the bachelors, masters, and doctoral levels in the areas of classical and jazz performance and composition...
has a jazz program leading to B.Mus. and M.Mus degrees that accepts students who play bass (double bass and electric bass), guitar, piano, drums, and melody instruments (e.g., sax, trumpet, etc.).
In the Australian state of Victoria, the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority has set out minimum standards for its electric bass students doing their end-of-year Solo performance recital. To graduate, students must perform pieces and songs from a set list that includes Baroque suite movements that were originally written for cello, 1960s Motown tunes, 1970s fusion jazz solos, and 1980s slap bass tunes. A typical program may include a Prelude by J.S. Bach; "Portrait of Tracy" by Jaco Pastorius
Jaco Pastorius
John Francis Anthony Pastorius III , known as Jaco Pastorius, was an American jazz musician and composer widely acknowledged as a virtuoso electric bass player....
; "Twisted" by Wardell Gray
Wardell Gray
Wardell Gray was an American jazz tenor saxophonist who straddled the swing and bebop periods.Today often overlooked, Gray's playing displays a unique style, an unmatched tone and a strong presence.-Early years:...
and Annie Ross; "What’s Going On" by James Jamerson
James Jamerson
James Lee Jamerson was an American bass player. He was the uncredited bassist on most of Motown Records' hits in the 1960s and early 1970s , and he is now regarded as one of the most influential bass players in modern music history...
; and the funky Disco hit "Le Freak
Le Freak
"Le Freak" is a successful 1978 disco song by the disco band Chic. It was the band's third single album and first Billboard Hot 100 and soul music number-one song. Along with the tracks, "I Want Your Love" and "Chic Cheer", "Le Freak" scored number one on the disco charts for seven weeks...
" by Chic.
In addition to college and university diplomas and degrees, there are a variety of other training programs such as jazz or funk summer camps and festivals, which give students the opportunity to play a wide range of contemporary music, from 1970s-style jazz-rock fusion to first decade of the 21st century-style R&B.
Informal training
In other less mainstream genres, such as hardcore punk or metal, the pedagogical systems and training sequences are typically not formalized and institutionalized. As such, many players learn "by ear", by copying the basslines from records and CDs, and by playing in a number of bands. Even in non-mainstream styles, though, students may be able to take lessons from experts in these or other styles, adapting learned techniques to their own style. As well, there are a range of books, playing methods, and, since the 1990s, instructional DVDs (e.g., how to play metal bass).See also
- Acoustic bass guitarAcoustic bass guitarThe acoustic bass guitar is a bass instrument with a hollow wooden body similar to, though usually somewhat larger than a steel-string acoustic guitar...
- Bass amplifierBass instrument amplificationBass instrument amplification, used for the bass guitar, double bass and similar instruments, is distinct from other types of amplification systems due to the particular challenges associated with low-frequency sound reproduction. This distinction affects the design of the loudspeakers, the speaker...
- Bass guitar tuningBass guitar tuningBass guitar tuning refers to the pitch adjustments carried out on the individual strings of an electric bass in order to achieve a prescribed arrangement of notes on the open strings....
- BassistBassistA bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...
- Electric upright bassElectric upright bassThe electric upright bass is an electronically amplified version of the double bass that has a minimal or 'skeleton' body, which greatly reduces the size and weight of the instrument. The EUB retains enough of the features of the double bass so that double bass players are comfortable performing...
, a smaller, lighter, electrically amplified variant of the double bass - Guitarrón mexicano
- List of bass guitar manufacturers
- List of bass guitarists
- OctobassOctobassThe octobass is an extremely large bowed string instrument constructed about 1850 in Paris by the French luthier Jean Baptiste Vuillaume...
, an extremely large and rare bass instrument from the violin family used in orchestraOrchestraAn orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
s. - Washtub bassWashtub bassThe washtub bass, or "gutbucket", is a stringed instrument used in American folk music that uses a metal washtub as a resonator. Although it is possible for a washtub bass to have four or more strings and tuning pegs, traditional washtub basses have a single string whose pitch is adjusted by...
External links
- Weird Bass Guitars (Images)
- Bass fingering chart http://www.alfred.com/img/pdf/BOP/FingeringCharts/Electric_Bass.pdf