A guitar is a guitar!

[Teijo K.]

Why so many rules? Bass guitar can be shortened to bass or guitar, and we should be able to understand what it means from the context pretty easily. No reason to get uptight about it.

 

[metron]

I have never been genuinely confused by the reference for more than a brief moment.

 

[Jim622]

I don't refer to a bass as a guitar, but IMO it's not that big of a deal. After a couple post, I usually can catch on.

 

[herndonbassist]

When I am asked how many guitars I have, the person asking (often the mrs.) means all of them. (I am a bit sneaky and leave off the upright, the banjo and the mandolin as they are definitely NOT guitars).

Honestly, I don't really care. My non-musicians know that I own a lot of 'guitars' so I typically don't split hairs with them. I usually just say "Yes, I bought another guitar." even if it's a bass.

 

[capnsandwich]

IMO and IME, a bass GUITAR is a TYPE of guitar, albeit in a different range than your standard 6 string guitar. It's still a guitar but in the bass range. So people may call it a guitar but it's full name is BASS GUITAR, bass for short.

 

[khutch]

The bass guitar is a member of the guitar family. The double bass is a member of the violin family. I've never heard a DB referred to as a violin but then it neither looks like a violin when you play it nor does it have violin in its name. Of course the DB answers to many names and I am not sure if any of them are official!

The BG on the other hand is played the same way as a guitar and has guitar in its official name so there is no harm in calling it a guitar in situations where doing so creates no ambiguity. That is true here in most threads.

Most often here it is simply called a bass but if you think about it that is even more ambiguous since several instruments, about a quarter of all humans, and several species of fish could be called a bass!

 

[fhm555]

I'll mostly use "bass" to describe both a bass guitar and an upright bass...

Same here.

 

[khutch]

BTW, LA is a note to follow SO!

If I remember correctly Fender Bass was an early Fender marketing term for the instrument. Bass guitar came into vogue of necessity when other companies started making them. So it is an ancient term but still correct for instruments made by Fender.

 

[Mugre]

Yeah! I know how it feels. Why do you know that just t'other day a fella called my bass viola a violon?

 

[LedReign]

A guitar is not a bass unless it is tuned to a lower register, and a bass is not a guitar unless it has a guitar-like figure and string length.

 

[JPaulGeddy]

If we really want to get pedantic, there is no such thing as a 'bass'. Bass is an adjective, not a noun. Bass guitar, bass violin, bass singer, bass fisherman.

 

[sigterm]

A guitar is no one

 

[dabbler]

Ummm, no. The double bass (or contrabass, or string bass, or acoustic bass, or doghouse, or upright) is not even a member of the violin family; much less is it a violin. It is a member of the viol family, and thus "bass viol" is one way of referring to it.

Try showing up to tryouts for a violin opening in an orchestra with a double bass and see how that goes.

I stand corrected. And thank you for the information, seriously. However, I probably won't stop calling it a bass violin, because the people I hang with will know what I mean... and they wouldn't appreciate the history lesson.

 

[socialleper]

I suppose you would need a linguist to figure out the proper etymology, but my understanding is that what we colloquially refer to as a "bass" is technically an electric bass guitar. It is a lower tuned type of guitar that is also electric. There is some debate as to whether any bass with frets is in fact a "precision", but we will let that go for now.
The thing is that we never "tenor" guitar even though there is a baritone and bass guitar (or would it be a alto?) That messes people up.

 

[Mr.Ace]

I just change my vote from carrots to a bass is a bass. It’s also a guitar, but it really needs to be specified. IMHO

 

[Joedog]

To-may-to.....To-mah-to. That's all the energy I'm going to use up on this ridiculousness.

 

[Two-Spirit]

Seems like I'm seeing more threads on here on TALKBASS where the poster uses the term "guitar" while actually referring to a bass. This bothers me. I can deal with calling it a "bass guitar", but a guitar is a guitar...not a BASS.

So, is a guitar a bass?

The only thing an electric bass has in common with a double bass is it's tuning. Basses usually have frets like a guitar, guitars have frets so you can play stretched out chords. Double basses have nylon strings, electric basses has some kind of metal strings like a guitar. A Fender Bass is made of alder and Maple like a Fender guitar, even the pickups are simular.

 

[RickyWoo]

There is species and there is genus. Bass recorder, alto sax, tenor guitar, bass ? Bass what?

 

[Two Leggs]

Not a bass guitar just a bass!

 

[Spectrum]

Is minivan a car?

It's like a car, but bigger.

So it's a bass car.