Bass guitar
The electric bass guitar is an electrically amplified string instrument, which can be manipulated through use of the fingers, either plucked, picked or slapped. The bass is similar in visual appearance to an electric guitar, however, has a larger body, an elongated neck and scale length, and, commonly, four strings tuned one octave lower in pitch, in the bass range.
Since the 1950s, the electric bass has generally replaced the double bass in popular music. The bass is commonly used to deliver the low-pitched bass line(s) and bass runs in popular music and jazz. The electric bass is also utilised as a soloing instrument in jazz, Latin, fusion and funk styles.
History
Early solid body basses – 1930s
Paul Tutmarc engineered a guitar-style electric bass instrument that was fretted and designed, to be held and played horizontally. Audiovox's sales catalogue of 1935–6 (also featuring a solid body six-string electric guitar) listed what is perhaps the world’s first fretted, solid body electric bass that is designed to be played horizontally — the Model #736 Electric Double Bass. The change to a "guitar" form made the instrument comfortable to hold and carry around; the addition of guitar-style frets allowed bassists to play in tune with more ease (which also made the new electric bass more simple to learn).
The Fender Bass – 1950s and 1960s
Leo Fender a self-educated electrical engineer, established the first mass-produced electric bass in the 1950s. He introduced the fender precision bass in 1951, which became a widely emulated industry standard. The Precision Bass developed from an uncomplicated, uncontoured 'slab' body design not that dissimilar to that of a Telecaster with an individual piece, four-pole pickup to a contoured body design with bevelled edges for ease of play and a single "split coil pickup", (staggered humbucker).
Amplifiers, PAs and pick-ups
The end of the 1940s saw amplification contributing a dominant role in popular music. The major elements of a move towards louder music were amplifiers, PAs, pick-ups and the Fender Telecaster guitar.
Restricted by their large acoustic double basses - some bass players - fitted pick-ups to their instruments, placing them through adapted amplifiers. Influenced by Les Paul's example, others played bass runs on the bottom strings of electric guitars. The concept of a solid-body bass guitar was initiated by Leo Fender. In 1950, he began work on a prototype bass guitar, in response to the problems faced by bass players having to deal with the cumbersome nature and difficulty of manageability of the instrument. By adapting from the vertical design of the double bass to the idea of a bass guitar supported by a shoulder strap, Leo Fender considered that guitarists would be in far better able to "double" on bass when required.
As with the bottom four strings of a guitar, the bass is tuned to E, A, D and G. Consequently, this necessitates that all bass guitars have a longer "scale length" requiring additional reinforcement.
Fender Jazz bass - 1960
One of the early models, the 1960 Jazz bas was introduced as a 2 pick-up alternative to the Precision. With its dot fret markers instead of the subsequent slap inlays. The Jazz bass has the same scale length as the Precision, however the neck is narrower at the nut, which according to many bassist, they find that this feature makes it a little easier to play.
Fender Bass VI - 1962
The 6-string bass has 3 single-coil pick-ups and a tremelo arm and is tuned an octave lower than the guitar. The shape of the body and the layout of the controls, was similar to that of the Jaguar. Due to its unpopularity however, Fender discontinued it prematurely in the 1970s.
