Bass Musical Instruments

From the folksy low-pitched sound of washboard or a milk jug to a high end stringed double bass, bass musical instruments offer an impressive vibrating tone to any style of music. The instruments that can produce the distinctive low sound are usually made with a long string or they have a long air column.

Some of the instruments included in this category include the bass horn, bass guitar, bass drum, keyboard bass or string bass, and bassists who are worth their salt in sound know the magic of any instrument that can give a listener the magical bass sound.

The bass guitar is made from a wide variety of woods or graphite. Since wood is the most commonly used material type, designers have made certain types of woods popular for specific parts of the guitar. The body of the guitar is most often made from alder wood, which belongs to the birch family. Necks of guitars use maple, which is considered a tonewood and carries sounds well. Fretboards mostly use strong and heavy rosewood.

Unlike the upright bass, the electric bass guitar is played across the body and the technique that most bassists’ use is finger plucking. Although many famous musicians differ on the fingers that they use for plucking, the most common fingers used are the middle finger and index finger. The thumb is used to mute unused strings or it rests somewhere near the fretboard.

Another plucking technique involves using the thumb to pluck and the palm to mute and create a short thump sound. The slap and pop plucking method used by most funk artists requires the player to slap (or strike) the guitar with the thumb and then pop the strings with the middle or index finger. Fender was the first guitar manufacturer to come up with a guitar part that accommodated the thumb: the thumb rest. It was not a place to rest the thumb, however. It gave the thumb something to do between striking the strings. Most guitar makers eliminated the thumb rest in the 1980s.

The bass guitar has been extremely popular in rock music. It is part of the rhythm section (comprised of a guitar, keyboard, drum and bass), which sets the beat for a song. For many styles of music, the base is the anchor around which the rest of the song is built. It is the unforgettable progression that plays in the head of a listener long after the song is done. For some styles like hip hop, funk or blues, the bass is the entire heartbeat of the song. Many jazz bands make use of the bassist for bass breaks or solos.

Those who are attracted to bass musical instruments and have a sincere desire to learn how to play bass guitar have a few options for training. Although it is an instrument you may be able to pick up and teach to yourself to play "by ear" if you have other musical training, the best lessons come from private instruction and mentoring. Across the country, though, many colleges and universities are now offering electric bass as a concentration of study - among them, the Berklee College of Music in Boston and the Bass Institute of Technology at the Musicians Institute in Los Angeles.

For more on Bass Musical Instruments visit Amazon.com