Bass guitar

The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length, and typically four to six strings or courses. Since the mid-1950s, the bass guitar has largely replaced the double bass in popular music.

The four-string bass is usually tuned the same as the double bass, which corresponds to pitches one octave lower than the four lowest-pitched strings of a guitar (E, A, D, and G). It is played primarily with the fingers or thumb, or with a pick. To be heard at normal performance volumes, electric basses require external amplification.

According to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, an "Electric bass guitar a Guitar, usually with four heavy strings tuned E1'–A1'–D2–G2. It also defines bass as "Bass (iv). A contraction of Double bass or Electric bass guitar." According to some authors the proper term is "electric bass". Common names for the instrument are "bass guitar", "electric bass guitar", and "electric bass" and some authors claim that they are historically accurate. As the electric alternative to a double bass (which is not a guitar), many manufacturers such as Fender list the instrument in the electric bass category rather than the guitar category.

Like the double bass, the bass guitar is a transposing instrument, as it is notated in bass clef an octave higher than it sounds, to reduce the need for ledger lines in music written for the instrument, and simplify reading.

While electric bass guitars are traditionally fretted instruments, fretless bass guitars are used by some players to achieve different tones. In 1961, Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman converted a used UK-built Dallas Tuxedo bass by removing the frets and filling in the slots with wood putty