Origins of the Electric Bass Guitar

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July 28th, 2009

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From old music to new music, there has always been a musical line composed for a bass part. No matter what the instrument is, a bass line is usually always represented in some form or another, from the lower instruments of an orchestra, to the bass notes played by a solo acoustic guitarist, the bass line serves as the foundation and root for the music. Some music works without a bass line, but usually in those cases bass line is cleverly implied by the arrangement and performer. Generally music tends to feel incomplete in the absence of a solid bass part. With the advent of jazz, blues and then rock and roll, a different type of instrument was needed to play a strong bass line. This is when the bass guitar came into play.

Though the very first electric bass guitar was invented in the 1930’s it never achieved the critical mass of popularity until the brought the electric bass to the masses. The equivalent prior instrument, the upright bass existed for hundreds of years prior to this. With a sound that was different from the familiar upright acoustic basses in use, the electric bass guitar offered a variety of tonal adjustments, playing techniques, sounds and all of this could be heard clearly and loudly with new electric amplification, which in and of itself offered some means of creative tonal adjustments and sound shaping. With it’s guitar like playing position the electric bass guitar differed from the hard to carry acoustic bass, electric bass strings also were not bowed like those of an acoustic and offered musicians a relatively easier to play and use highly portable instrument. The bass guitar looks similar to an electric guitar in that it’s body is solid, but the bass guitar has a longer neck than an electric guitar. Also, unlike an acoustic guitar which is hollow, with a sound hole to allow for amplification, the sound of a is amplified by plugging it in to an amplifier and speaker. With four strings tuned in 4ths just like the four lowest strings of a regular guitar except tuned an octave lower, the bass guitar is similar to the guitar and guitarist sometimes play bass and vice versa. Some of the bass playing techniques include, picking, fingering, slapping, thumb playing, thumping, muting among others. Because of it’s close relationship to the drums and the pulse of the music, the is considered to be a rhythm section instrument.

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