When people say they play the guitar, you may think immediately of a classic acoustic guitar, or perhaps a rockin’ electric guitar. What many people don’t always imagine right away, is the bass guitar. There are differences between a standard guitar and a bass guitar, including both the number of strings (guitars have six, bass guitars usually have four, however can sometimes be found with five to even twelve strings), the bass’ typically longer neck, and the sound that’ll results from playing it. However, while the differences exist, they also have many similarities. The knowledge required to play a guitar is not all that different than what you need to know to play the bass. So why are there bass guitars? The answer is that it assists with the Rhythm and the Harmony in music. The bass helps lay a foundation as well as accompany other instruments or vocals .
“But the bass is usually drowned out by the other instruments, you can barely hear it, why do we need it?” You may ask. Well, without it, music simply wouldnt be the same, and you might not realise that unless you take away the bass entirely from a song. If you don’t believe me, watch the video below.
As you can see, the sound of a bass may be a faint one, however it has a noticeable impact on the sound of a song. So where did it come from and who got the idea that bass would enhance music?
Interestingly enough, the electric bass guitar is relatively new in the history of instruments. The use of a bass instrument is not new, there is an instrument called the guitarrón (the “fingernail bass”) that was used in Latin music as the early as the 1600s, but the electric bass that we all know today showed up much more recently. The first modern electric bass was invented in the 1930s by Paul Tutmarc from Washington. It was not very popular, however in the 1950s, Leo Fender and George Fullerton created a bass guitar that began to be mass-produced and was much more popular. It was called the “Fender Precision Electric Bass”. The idea of these new bass guitars was to find a more portable way to achieve the lows of bass without lugging around the giant instruments that had previously been needed to play them. The electric bass proved to be the perfect instrument for reaching this goal (though, there are acoustic bass guitars as well).
guitarrón, an instrument that has been around for a long time, and is still used today quite frequently as a part of Mariachi bands. This video was from February of 1999. The song is “El Cantar De Un Guitarron” by a Mexican group called Mariachi Sol De Mexico. It was released January 1st, 1999. The instrument is a bit hard to hear, but it plays a very important role in keeping the rhythm with the rest of the instruments, and really pulls the music together.
Between the two examples above, there is a clear difference. While both videos were taken around a similar time frame, you can see that both bass instruments produce a very different sound. While the guitarron is very low, but light, the electric bass provides a rich and deep sound that is much more noticeable and not nearly as quiet. While both instruments tend to be heard within the background of many songs, they are often chosen to shine front and center like the examples above, and create a unique intro to many pieces. Both instruments have lower pitches than the other instruments included in their respective pieces and give each entire piece a larger range, making them a bit more interesting. Both the guitarron and the electric bass make excellent additions to the different music styles, though the electric bass is more intriguing when accompanying the other instruments and vocals in Rock music. The guitarron does this well within mariachi music and it has evolved a bit by itself, however it wouldn’t quite fit into modern bands (especially rock bands) the same way. Its volume isn’t loud enough without some sort of microphone like in the video above. With an instrument like the electric bass, it can be amplified directly and there is a clearer, smoother sound that results.
The electric bass is smaller and more comfortable to play for many musicians as well as much more portable, which is a plus. The electric bass overall is a pretty great step towards the beautiful clear sounds musicians probably desire most. I love how the modern bass sounds, and it’s edgy sounds ring out in a way that is very memorable. While older styles of the bass are still lovely, I think that the electric bass gives every note a sharper ring to it, and for certain genres of music, like rock, it is a much needed addition. The sharper, clearer, louder notes articulate the music and leave an impact on the essence of most songs. Even when it is only heard when you listen closely to the individual elements of a song, I love being able to pick out those deep sounds buried and intertwined within the noise of the drums, guitar, and vocals of my favorite music.
Sources:
Pouska, Andrew. “The Role of the Bass” Studybass, https://www.studybass.com/lessons/basics/the-role-of-the-bass/
Wikipedia, “Bass Guitar”, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bass_guitar
Thefourohfive, “A Brief History of the Bass Guitar” 26 Nov. 2014, https://www.thefourohfive.com/music/article/a-brief-history-of-the-bass-guitar-141
Synco-Payton 