A guitar is a guitar!

[RichardW]

I usually tell people I play the "bass" or the "bass guitar" and they always say: "oh...so how come you're so bad at it?

 

[Mister Boh]

What were we talking about again?

 

[bholder]

Just make sure to refer to your band mate as a treble guitar player. Drives mine nuts.

All wrong. It's a soprano bass vi.

 

[Bander]

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.

That would be the rock and pop music vernaculars. In the jazz, classical, early country, manouche, and virtually all other world music vernaculars, a "bass" is an upright bass, not a....guitar bass. I like that - guitar bass - I think I'll start using that.

 

[Root 5]

One of my mild pet peeves is people calling a bass guitar a "bass." Bass is what it does, not what it is.

 

[Gully Foyle]

Mmmm...semantics

 

[soulman969]

That would be the rock and pop music vernaculars. In the jazz, classical, early country, manouche, and virtually all other world music vernaculars, a "bass" is an upright bass, not a....guitar bass. I like that - guitar bass - I think I'll start using that.

I understand but rock, blues, r&b/soul, country rock is the neighborhood I live in and it's likely that a majority of others here do as well. In the '60s as I recall it may have been more commonly called a bass guitar or Fender bass as a sub for any electric bass but since then both terms have pretty much been replaced by the singular term "bass" or at least they have in my world.

If I was posting elsewhere or about those other genre I would probably look at it differently too.

 

[St_G]

Huh? In the phrase "bass guitar" bass is an adjective. In "a bass" it's a noun. I have very, very (very) seldom heard it used as a verb.

Whatcha doin?

Oh, just...bassing?

One of my mild pet peeves is people calling a bass guitar a "bass." Bass is what it does, not what it is.

 

[Rev. Cornelius]

Wow, 10 minutes of my life I won't get back....

Who gives a .

 

[Meyatch]

I feel like bass or even electric bass are less precise than guitar. Bass is a frequency range.

 

[Deleted member 165050]

Ladies and Gentlemen, at this stage of this thread, the only correct answer is carrots.

View attachment 2979832

Are those treble or bass carrots? Actually I think there's an alto carrot in there...

 

[design]

They are all in the Lute family! That is why a person who builds string instuments is called a Luthier.

In your own context you may simply say “guitar”, but is it a Spanish, a Portugese, a Hawaiian, a Mohan Veena, a Dreadnought, a Baroque guitar, a Parlour guitar, etc?

This pic is the headstock of a Portugese guitar, which uses Preston tuners.

 

[ole Jason]

They are all in the Lute family! That is why a person who builds string instuments is called a Luthier.

In your own context you may simply say “guitar”, but is it a Spanish, a Portugese, a Hawaiian, a Mohan Veena, a Dreadnought, a Baroque guitar, a Parlour guitar, etc?

That brings up an interesting point. Double bass comes from the gamba family. So isn't a bass guitar kind of a lute/gamba hybrid?

 

[micguy]

I play in churches - I'm at the back of the stage with the other instrumentalists, behind a bunch of vocalists, who have more light on them. Sometimes, someone recognizes me afterward a service and says "you're the guitarist" in a nice way. I say yes, or thanks, or whatever seems to fit. Close enough - no reason to get all technical and correct them.

 

[nilorius]

Call it - just bass (easier) or bass guitar. That's OK.

 

[klejst]

A guitar is a guitar, electric, acoustic, etc. But it never bothers me when someone calls a bass just a bass or even a bass guitar. It does bother me though when someone calls a bass just a guitar and then asks "where are your other two strings?!"

 

[erigod23]

I play instrument.

 

[Clef_de_fa]

I find "Bass" to be very vague ... I mean a lot of instrument do play in the bass register ... but everything else do have a specific name ...

 

[2tonic]

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'll assume that was a typo, and you meant John Moses Browning's design of 1911(or his 1903). Also, the Schönberger-Laumann 1892 was the first semi-automatic pistol. The first model to gain any commercial success was the Hugo Borchardt-designed C-93, designed in 1893 and made its public debut in 1894.
You are quite correct that the nomenclature "pistole" predates them, but I was trying to demonstrate that terminology changes with time and design, i.e. we no longer refer to revolvers as pistols. They are in separate classes. Much as we now refer to the electric bass as a bass guitar, to differentiate from an amplified upright.
Evolution in the design of the bass family has caused changes to the lexicon.
Fair enough, my friend?

 

[Element Zero]