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The instrument with no name

BassyBill

BassyBill

Gold Supporting Member
In Memoriam
Mar 12, 2005
18,174
4,621
West Midlands UK
#1
So, what should we call this instrument we all love to play so much?

"Bass" is way too generic and could include a multitude of instruments. "Electric bass" is neither specific enough (includes EUBs, for example) or accurate (excludes ABGs).

"Bass guitar" is still the most accurate description (in that it includes and excludes exactly what it should, imo), but some people don't like it - almost to the point of being completely irrational about it - and I'll confess to never feeling 100% comfortable using this name to respond to the question "What instrument do you play?" But no other answer really covers all the angles, as mentioned.

So, what's the answer? All suggestions welcome, but play nicely.
 
#3
When I started playing (around 1979), "electric bass" seemed to be the most popular term. Prior to that, i.e. in the personnel listings on old records and such, I frequently saw "Fender bass", but that seemed to have fallen out of vogue by the 80's.

I've always avoided "bass guitar" myself, but only because it seems to kind of imply that we're actually just guitarists having to fill in on bass because no one else wants to play it ;).

Anthony Jackson calls it the "contrabass" or "contrabass guitar", tho that's referring to his 6 string.

So I still say "electric bass" just out of habit.

But I see what you mean - the guitar, drums and keyboards have a longer history than the bass so people seem to have a more uniform idea of what you're talking about when you say "guitar", etc. But the bass really didn't come into its own until Leo Fender's Precision and then the Jazz. So it's still kind of a new instrument....

LS
 
#6
I play UB and EB so I always say "bass", as it defines my musical role. Some will ask whether I play "stand-up" or whatever. I've met a guy that claimed to play "lead bass" and recently got asked if our guitarists axe was "rhythm" of "lead" guitar, I explained to him that the guitar does both thanks to all those bright flashing pedal things.
 
#20
Reading this thread is the first time I've heard of anyone saying "Fender bass" as a generic term. I either call it bass or electric bass. I don't say "bass guitar" because I started out on guitar, and I like to pretend that refusing to call it that will help me avoid the bad habits that guitarists tend to have when playing bass.
 

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