HA! I'm from Newhall/Valencia/Canyon Country so when people ask where I'm from I ask if they know where Magic Mountain is. If they say no I simply say that I'm from L.A.
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A guitar is a guitar!
- Thread starter Cheez
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JeezyMcNuggles
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- Feb 23, 2018
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Hahaha, exactly. But what I mean is people say it like it's a status quo. And, they totally live an hour or more away from LA.
JeezyMcNuggles
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I live in Santa Maria, but I either say Santa Barbara, Pismo Beach, Or San Luis Obispo
Not to put too fine a point on it, but a revolver is a type of handgun. The term "pistol" is technically reserved for describing a semi-auto handgun, i.e. one with a slide and magazine.
^ This. When someone is playing a tenor sax, do you say that he is playing a TENOR?Only if I wish he was playing ten or eleven miles from here!
If he's playing alto, that's all too much!
(I'm kinda put out with bitchwhistles lately!)
I beg to differ my friend. Without getting too technical, the term "pistol" is much older than John M. Forenings design og 1911, ør the borchart for that matter. You would get a muzzle loading pistol in the 18th century and even earlier. The word comes from french "pistole ".
You are ranking about a (semi)automatic pistol.
Enough with polemics. Back to topic.
I used to work with a guy who would book a job then get on the phone and round up a drummer man, a harp man, a guitar man, and a fender man.
To him a guitar was just a guitar but a bass was a Fender, but he was an older guy who came up when Fender was about the only electric bass most folks had ever seen.
A bass clarinet is a type of clarinet, a bass drum is a type of drum and a bass guitar is a type of guitar.
Nevertheless, it seems a bit weird to me to refer to a bass guitar as a "guitar". I mean, it is a kind of guitar, but actually I don’t even call it a bass guitar; I simply call it "a bass". Acoustic bass guitars and acoustic electric bass guitars I call "acoustic basses".
However, once it’s established that what someone is referring to when they say "guitar" is what I would call "a bass", then I can accept the term and move forward with the conversation from there. But, if "guitar" were used by someone who I didn’t know played bass guitar and referred to bass guitars that way, i would definitely get the wrong image in my head when he said "guitar".
Whatevas...
Nevertheless, it seems a bit weird to me to refer to a bass guitar as a "guitar". I mean, it is a kind of guitar, but actually I don’t even call it a bass guitar; I simply call it "a bass". Acoustic bass guitars and acoustic electric bass guitars I call "acoustic basses".
However, once it’s established that what someone is referring to when they say "guitar" is what I would call "a bass", then I can accept the term and move forward with the conversation from there. But, if "guitar" were used by someone who I didn’t know played bass guitar and referred to bass guitars that way, i would definitely get the wrong image in my head when he said "guitar".
Whatevas...
I'll mostly use "bass" to describe both a bass guitar and an upright bass, because the listeners are usually of one community, and not the other. When there may be overlap or confusion, I delineate by using "bass guitar" or "upright". If the listeners are really with it, I can use "bass" for bass guitar, and "upright" in the same discussion and all is well.
I remember some people saying "Fender bass" for any bass guitar back when I was a little kid. I found it disconcerting even then, long before I ever picked up a bass myself (yet I had no problem with calling any photocopy machine a "Xerox" or any adhesive bandages "Band-Aids". However, calling just any plastic flying disc a ”Frisbee", and especially calling any cola "a Coke" I considered just plain ignorant! Hmmm).
The weird thing is, about 2 years ago I met this quite well educated guy from a rural area in Canada that played [acoustic] guitar and we were talking about having an acoustic jam and I mentioned that I had an acoustic bass that would be fun to include, and he replied that he didn’t have much experience that way except for that he had an uncle that "just had a Fender bass". I couldn’t figure out why he used the word "just" there as it wasn’t like he was into boutique instruments and would look down on a mainstream brand like Fender or that he was into modern instruments and would look down on more traditional instruments like Fender makes. It was only like a day later (after our jam) that I figured out that what he had meant was that his uncle just had an electric bass, that he’d never played or played with an acoustic bass before. He was using "Fender bass" to mean any electric bass guitar, just like some people used to do back in the 70’s. It was like some sort of temporal anomaly or something! Or maybe it’s a regional thing. All I know is, I hadn’t heard that in years. Decades
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Officially it's called a bass guitar if only to initially separate it from a stand up bass but it's long been shortened in the musical vernacular to just bass although some "rookies" may still use it's official name. Ignore them or forgive them. It's a matter of choice.
When you look at where the modern instruments came from, it should be clear.
The electric guitar is a guitar with a solid body and magnetic pickups.
The electric bass guitar is a double bass in the shape of a (slightly larger) electric guitar.
So while it looks similar to the untrained eye, its evolution started with a totally different animal.
One could argue that the principles that make the electric guitar work also apply to the electric bass - but everyone who does that will have to call every fretted string instrument that uses magnetic pickups a guitar from now on.
The electric guitar is a guitar with a solid body and magnetic pickups.
The electric bass guitar is a double bass in the shape of a (slightly larger) electric guitar.
So while it looks similar to the untrained eye, its evolution started with a totally different animal.
One could argue that the principles that make the electric guitar work also apply to the electric bass - but everyone who does that will have to call every fretted string instrument that uses magnetic pickups a guitar from now on.
I consider bass guitar the lowest pitched instrument in the GUITAR Family. There’s also baritone GUITARS, tenor GUITARS And some people happen to call those “GUITARS” also.
Should we throw people in jail for calling a Bass clarinet a “clarinet?”
Should piccolo flute players start a war with piccolo trumpet players?
I guess I can’t joke too much though considering for me it’s like nails on a chalkboard when I hear someone call a kick drum a bass drum. But then again you don’t even play a kick drum and a bass drum with the same limbs. So I guess whenever everyone on talk bass switches to playing bass GUITAR with their feet I’ll have to shut my mouth
Should we throw people in jail for calling a Bass clarinet a “clarinet?”
Should piccolo flute players start a war with piccolo trumpet players?
I guess I can’t joke too much though considering for me it’s like nails on a chalkboard when I hear someone call a kick drum a bass drum. But then again you don’t even play a kick drum and a bass drum with the same limbs. So I guess whenever everyone on talk bass switches to playing bass GUITAR with their feet I’ll have to shut my mouth
D
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A bass is the huge orchestral / jazz instrument, what we play are bass guitars. As opposed to tenor guitars, baritone guitars or just plain guitars.
Well, we've got bass guitars, baritone guitars below and tenor guitars (kindasorta) above, so...alto guitars?
