The electric bass
guitar
is similar in appearance
to the electric guitar however it is played with the fingers
while using a variety of plucking techniques such as slapping, popping, and tapping.
The electric bass guitar has a larger body than that of its cousin
along with a longer neck and normally only four
strings.
The electric bass provides the
background music in a lot of bands since it primarily
used to produce low pitched bass lines. However it does depend
on the type of music being played with the bass. Music such as
rock and metal will use the electric bass guitar for solos and bass
runs to add style to the flow of the
music.
Common nowadays
are electric bass guitars with no frets. Can you guess what
these guitars are called? Exactly, a fretless electric bass guitar, pretty original huh!
On a normal bass guitar with frets, the frets divide the fret board
into different note pitches and usually into 24 different
pitches.
A fretless electric base guitar
has a distinct sound over a fretted guitar. This is due to
the absence of the frets which means that the strings
must be pressed down directly onto the wood of the
fret board. This creates a “mwaah” sound and allows players to
use devices that are capable of changing the tone around significantly. Most artists
use fretted guitars but it is common to see a fretless guitar being
used in music genre’s such as jazz and jazz
fusion.
To give
a little history lesson, the first fretless electric bass guitar to go into
production was the Ampeg AUB-1 which was introduced in 1966. Fender soon jumped
on the bandwagon and produced the Precision Bass in
1970.
In order to play fretless electric
bass guitar a player will usually have marking on the
fret board and strings wound in tape so that the strings
do not ruin the wood finishing when they smack against it. Some fretless
basses will use epoxy to coat the fret board and give the guitar
a brighter sound while enhancing the life of the
instrument.
