A guitar is a guitar!

[Dwight Trash]

I had the pleasure of taking a couple lessons from First Lady of Bass Carol Kaye. She's a guitar player who was asked to play the Fender Bass on an upcoming recording project now known as Motown.
After kicking ass and taking names on most of the early Motown recordings she wrote a book. The name of the book was "How to Play The Electric Bass".
Prior to her book, everyone called it the Fender bass because Leo Fender was credited with inventing the electric bass.
The Precision Bass was named that because it has frets, an upright bass does not.
I also asked her the ultimate question pick, or fingers, but that's a different subject.

 

[ll Rip ll]

Viola da gamba - family.

Doesn't McCartney play a viola bass? And isn't Edgar Meyer's forte the bass viol?

 

[dbsfgyd1]

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?

A guitar can’t be a bass, but a bass can be a guitar. I hope that clears it up.

 

[Tim Skaggs]

A double bass, upright, bull bass, string bass is member of the violin family - it's a violin, a bass violin.

Not precisely correct. There is a bass violin, which is very similar in size to a Cello (but slightly larger) and is tuned in 5ths like a cello, but a whole step lower, which puts them at g-c-F-B flat. An alternate tuning is g-d-G-C. There are some bass violins in museums, and probably in closets & cellars around Europe, but the cello more or less replaced the bass violin a couple centuries back.

A double bass (bass viol, viol family) is tuned in 4ths (like a bass guitar) and is much larger than a bass violin. The 3/4 and 4/4 bass viols are similar in size relation to each other as a cello & bass violin are in size relation.

The 3/4 bass viol has almost replaced the 4/4 bass viol like the cello has pretty much replaced the bass violin.

 

[Bflat]

Does the guy that invented it get a say in the matter??? Or is he just wrong???

 

[chadds]

Based on the limited basis for basing this basic basting of what lies at the base, I’d say you have no baseline to base a bias about what is basically a fish called bass.

 

[MordBass]

its the square/rectangle thing. All rectangles are squares, but not all squares are rectangles. All horizontally played electric basses are a guitar.... but not all guitars are a bass.

 

[lowfreqgeek]

Does the guy that invented it get a say in the matter??? Or is he just wrong???
View attachment 2981548

Considering the ad copy is recommending it for taking the "place of 3 double basses", I'm not sure it matters what he called it.

 

[Bflat]

Considering the ad copy is recommending it for taking the "place of 3 double basses", I'm not sure it matters what he called it.

Yea I saw that, interesting......I guess he didn't have an SVT, he might have said 100 double basses

 

[design]

Is a bass a guitar?
No, it is either a ‘P’ or a ‘J’.
There are no other options.

 

[MEKer]

Is minivan a car?

Never really seen anything "mini" about a minivan.

 

[quickfix]

I usually call the bass a "bass", as I always call my guitars "guitars".


I used to call my issued rifle a "gun"...primarily to drive the army instructors nuts. They were always great guys but, it always made my day to watch the mustache twitch and spittle issue forth. They usually ended up just walking away muttering something about dumba$$ airforce zoomies.