The Bass Guitar

About

The bass guitar is a large instrument consisting of three main parts, a body, neck and head. The body is usually solid on the more widely used electric version of the instrument. and contains electromagnetic “pickups” which transduce the vibration of the metal strings in to electrical current. This takes the place of the hollow acoustic amplifier ‘box’ in the non-electric bass.

The strings of the bass are very thick, typically made from alloys, and are stretched over a longer scale length (the distance from the nut to the saddle) than the guitar. This is because the notes of the open strings are in a lower octave than the guitar.

Tuning

The strings are typically tuned to the same notes as the four lowest pitched guitar strings. However while the note identities are the same (E, A, D and G) they are pitched in a lower octave. Because of the this the bass clef (or ‘f’ clef) is used in staff notation. The open string notes are notated as follows:

Note the use of the bass clef instead of the treble clef. This tuning is known as ‘standard’ tuning, but as with the guitar there are a number of alternative tunings in common usage, such as ‘dropped D’ tuning.

Playing

In the sitting position, the bass guitar is usually placed on the thigh of the dominant side of the player, with the non-dominant hand reaching to fret notes. The dimensions of the typical bass do not facilitate the classical guitar position as the lower frets would be out of arms reach.

The picking hand uses two main techniques. The fingers of the hand can be used to pluck the strings in a manner very similar to the ‘apoyando’ (rest stroke) technique in classical guitar, or alternatively a plectrum can be used. Both techniques have their advantages and disadvantages with the use of each being left up to the performer in sympathy with the style of music played.

The plectrum style gives a sharper attack transient than the skin of the fingers making it a popular tone for contemporary, musically aggressive styles such as rock or metal. Alternatively for more mellow music the skin of the fingers gives a less harsh transient to the notes making it a favourite amongst jazz.

A third technique, known as ‘slapping’ is also used whereby the thumb of the picking hand strikes the string against the fret, making the tone more percussive and metallic in nature. This tends to be a favourite among players in the funk genre where the bass can accent the percussion of the drums and lend the music a highly syncopated, ‘groovy’ feel. Mostly this technique is usually performed along with a fourth technique where the fingers pull the string away from the fretboard and release it, allowing the string to ‘snap’ against the frets (known as ‘popping’). Combining the latter two techniques along with legato playing, such as hammer-ons and pull-offs allows very rapid successions of notes to be performed, and is very popular in funk, disco, soul and more modern contemporary music.

This is not to imply that any of these techniques are exclusive to one genre of music. Frequently the techniques cross from genre to genre with many rock and metal bassists using slap, popping and fingerstyle.

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