Bass guitar
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The bass guitar (also called an "electric bass" or "bass") is a string instrument which is related to the electric guitar. The bass guitar is shaped like an electric guitar, except that it is longer than an electric guitar. The electric bass has many of the same parts as an electric guitar. However, the bass guitar produces lower tones than the electric guitar.
The bass guitar is used to play low musical sounds called "bass lines" in many styles of music such as rock music, pop music, country music, and jazz fusion music.
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[change] History
The bass guitar was invented in the 1930s by inventor Paul Tutmarc from Seattle, Washington. However, very few musicians were interested in the instrument that Tutmarc invented.
Until the 1950s, musicians played the double bass in jazz, blues, folk, and early rock music. The double bass was big, heavy, hard to carry around and was hard to play precise notes on. Musicians wanted a smaller instrument that weighed less. Inventors tried to think of ways of building a smaller and lighter bass instrument. One of these inventors was a man named Leo Fender in the United States. Leo Fender developed a bass guitar in the 1950s using the ideas developed by Tutmarc.
Leo Fender used many parts for the bass guitar that are similar to the parts of an electric guitar. Leo Fender called the instrument the "Fender Precision Bass". He used the word "Precision" in the name because his instrument had metal frets on the neck. The double bass did not have frets on its neck. The frets on the bass guitar made it easier for musicians to play precise notes. The bass guitar developed by Leo Fender became very popular. In the 2000s, many bass guitars are still designed to look like his Fender Precision Bass.
[change] Description
Bass guitars are usually made out of wood. Bass guitars have a few main pieces such as a body, neck, fingerboard, frets, and strings.
The body is made out of wood. A wooden neck is glued or bolted onto the body. A wooden fingerboard is then glued onto the neck. Thin metal strips called frets are glued onto the fingerboard. In the 1960s and 1970s some musicians took the frets off their bass guitars. Taking the frets off a bass guitar changes the sound of the bass guitar. A bass guitar without frets is called a fretless bass guitar.
Bass guitars usually have four metal strings. In the 1970s and 1980s, some bass guitar makers began to offer bass guitars with five or six metal strings. Bass guitars with five or six strings can play a lower range of tones than a bass guitar with four strings.
[change] How a bass guitar works
To hear the sounds from an electric bass, the electric bass needs to be connected with a metal cable to an electronic amplifier and a loudspeaker.
Bass guitars also have magnetic pickups mounted on the body underneath the strings. A musician plucks the strings with their fingers. This makes the strings vibrate. The magnetic pickups detect the vibrations. Then the vibrations from the strings are converted into an electronic signal which is sent with a metal cable to an electronic amplifier and a loudspeaker. The musician rotates a volume control knob that is located on the body of the bass to make the sound of a bass guitar loud or quiet.
[change] Other pages
- Bass
- Double bass, a large stringed instrument which is used to play the low-pitched bass notes in orchestras, jazz bands, jazz fusion bands, most country music groups, and rockabilly bands.
