The electric bass guitar[1] (also called electric bass,[2][3][4] or simply bass; pronounced /ˈbeɪs/, as in "base") is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb (either by plucking, slapping, popping, tapping, or thumping), or by using a plectrum.
The bass guitar is similar in appearance and construction to an electric guitar, but with a larger body, a longer neck and scale length, and usually four strings tuned to the same pitches as those of the double bass,[5] which correspond to pitches one octave lower than those of the four lower strings of a guitar (E, A, D, and G).[6] 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) in order to avoid the excessive use of ledger lines. Like the electric guitar, the electric bass guitar is plugged into an amplifier and speaker for live performances.
Since the 1950s, the electric bass guitar has largely replaced the double bass in popular music as the bass instrument in the rhythm section. While the types of basslines performed by the bass guitarist vary widely from one style of music to another, the bass guitarist 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, blues and jazz. It is used as a soloing instrument in jazz, fusion, Latin, funk, and in some rock and metal (mostly progressive rock and progressive metal) styles.
History
1930s
In the 1930s, inventor Paul Tutmarc from Seattle, Washington, developed the first guitar-style electric bass instrument that was fretted and designed to be held and played horizontally. The 1935 sales catalogue for Tutmarc's company, Audiovox, featured his "electronic bass fiddle," a four-stringed, solid-bodied, fretted electric bass guitar with a 30½-inch scale length.[7] The change to a "guitar" form made the instrument easier to hold and transport, and the addition of guitar-style frets enabled bassists to play in tune more easily and made the new electric bass easier to learn. However, Tutmarc's inventions never caught the public imagination, and little further development of the instrument took place until the 1950s.
1950s–1960s
In the 1950s, Leo Fender, with the help of his employee George Fullerton, developed the first mass-produced electric bass.[8] 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).
Monk Montgomery was the first bass player to tour with the Fender bass guitar, with Lionel Hampton's postwar big band.[9] Roy Johnson, who replaced Montgomery in Hampton's band, and Shifty Henry with Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five, were other early Fender Bass pioneers.[8] Bill Black, playing with Elvis Presley, adopted the Fender Precision Bass around 1957.[10]
A Rickenbacker 4003; note the distinctive shape of the headstock.
Following Fender's lead, Gibson released the violin-shaped EB-1 Bass in 1953,[11] followed by the more conventional-looking EB-0 Bass in 1959. As with Fender's designs, Gibson relied heavily upon an existing guitar design for this 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 utilize 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;[10] Rickenbacker and Höfner also produced models. With the explosion of the popularity of rock music in the 1960s many more manufacturers began making bass guitars.
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, and was designed by Leo Fender to be an easier bass for a guitarist to play than the existing Precision Bass, due to the narrower nut (noted later). 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").
70's Fender Jazz Bass with maple neck
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.
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 bass guitar was often called the "Fender bass", due to Fender's early dominance in the market for mass-produced bass guitars. The term "electric bass" began replacing "Fender bass" in the late 1960s, however, as evidenced by the title of Carol Kaye's popular bass instructional book in 1969 How to Play the Electric Bass[12] . The instrument is also referred to as an "electric bass guitar", or simply "bass".
1970s
Music Man Stingray Bass. Notice the pick-up placement that is ideal for slapping.
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, while the StingRay was used by Louis Johnson of the funk band The Brothers Johnson.
In 1971, Alembic established the template for what would subsequently be known as "boutique" or "high end" electric bass guitars. These expensive, custom-tailored instruments featured unique designs, premium wood bodies chosen and hand-finished by highly skilled luthiers, 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, and Ken Smith produced 4- string basses and 5-string basses with a low "B" string. In 1975, bassist Anthony Jackson commissioned luthier Carl Thompson to a 6-string bass tuned (low to high) B, E, A, D, G, C.
1980s–2000s
An early 1980s-era Steinberger headless bass
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 Trans-Trem 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 strumming acoustic instruments, helped to popularize hollow-bodied acoustic bass guitars 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 bassists 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. 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 2000s, 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 remain popular in the 2000s; in 2006, a 60th Anniversary P-bass was introduced by Fender, along with the introduction of the Fender Jaguar Bass.
