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.
A bass guitar is very much like a regular guitar, although many differences are apparent. While both bass and normal guitars can be acoustic, electric bass guitars are widely preferred over acoustic versions. Bass guitars are usually limited to only four strings, which are tuned one octave lower than the lowest four strings on a normal guitar. In addition, the frets of a bass guitar may be removed. This has been copied by guitar players over time, but interestingly enough bassists were the first to try it.
One thing that makes the bass guitar so appealing to so many people is that there are many ways to play it. One method, called fingerstyle, involves the player using only their fingers to fret the notes on the neck and pluck the strings. Fingerstyle is a popular method mainly because of the many tones one can create using it.
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.
Bass Guitars in Modern Music
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.
The bass guitar was synonymous with jazz since before the electric bass had even been invented, back in the days of the upright bass. Modern bass guitars are well suited to jazz because along with the drums, a bass guitar is perfect for maintaining the swinging feeling of jazz. Upright bass lines are perfect examples of jazz bass playing. As the bassist moves from chord to chord, playing one note per beat, you can literally feel the song swinging and rocking back and forth.
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.