The Basics Of Bass Guitars

Chances are that if you're writing a piece of music that calls for a low-pitched instrument, you're not going to have many choices. Luckily, the bass guitar is an instrument that can be put to a variety of uses in modern music.

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument which usually has four strings and is often tuned one octave lower than a regular guitar, although obviously many tuning configurations are possible. Another difference between bass guitars and regular guitars is the fact that some bass guitarists prefer to remove the frets from the necks of their instruments. This fretless variation was first used on a bass guitar, but many guitar players are now following suit. Bass guitars may be either electric or acoustic, but electric versions are far more widely used and popular.

There are many methods to playing a bass guitar, and each method suits different styles of music. One might play a bass guitar with their fingers only, using their fretting hand to depress the strings and choose notes while their other hand plucks the strings. This fingerstyle method is prominent in all styles of music where bass guitars are used and is sometimes said to be the most versatile way to play.

When bass guitars were first separated from upright basses, the guitar players of the time could all be seen using picks more often than not. Not surprisingly, many bass guitar players use ordinary guitar picks to play also. The string is simply strummed with the pick, resulting in a sharper tone compared to a bass guitar played with the fingers only.

Usage of Modern Bass Guitars

Musically, the bass guitar is not as versatile as a regular guitar. Having two less strings makes less chord tones available, which limits the bass guitar to a more rhythmic role instead of a melodic one. In modern rock, a genre the electric bass guitar is well suited for, the bass guitar usually forms the backbone of a song along with the drums. By playing single notes in a rhythmic fashion, the bass moves the song along from chord to chord and keeps the music going. In more extreme hard rock and metal music, the bass is often distorted much like an electric guitar and played just as quickly as the lead guitar player might play.

Jazz is another musical genre in which the bass guitar is often heard. Jazz often uses swing rhythms, and since the bass guitar is an important part of all rhythm sections, you can often feel the bass pushing the music along. In jazz, one type of bass line is very common: the walking bass line. In walking bass lines, chord tones are played one after another, one note per beat, hitting every beat of the measure. Even though walking bass lines were first developed on upright basses before normal bass guitars were made, the walk is still used in jazz today.

At first glance, a bass guitar may simply seem like a normal guitar with a few less strings and a lower voice, but in reality bass guitarists can accomplish just as much, if not more than any other guitar players. After all, not many other instruments have as many applications in the modern music world as the bass guitar.

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