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Is electric bass a guitar ?

Electric bass is a guitar ?

  • Yes

    Votes: 275 79.9%

  • No

    Votes: 69 20.1%
  • Total voters
    344
#162
If a bass is a guitar, then an apple must be an orange... Both a bass and a guitar have strings and both an apple and an orange are fruits. There are 4 string guitars and there are 6 string basses. To me it's like the guy that points to a truck and says I have my car... I guess that if you play both an upright or double bass and an electric bass then you are a bass player. But if you only play electric bass then you are a bass guitar player right?
 
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#163
knight of ni said:
Obviously since it looks like a guitar it should be one, or that's what wikipedia says. But apart from somewhat sterile instrument family trees, I feel naming bass a guitar or rather giving it a guitar status leads to misconceptions that go beyond that.
It implies that if you know how to play guitar you somehow know how to play bass. That if you teach guitar you should somehow know how to teach bass.
I feel this is wrong, I mean the closest instrument I feel bass is related to is double bass not guitar ! If I get a second instrument it will be EUB for sure. I actually created some problems at the (small) music school where I get instruction because I asked the violin teacher (also a bassist) for instruction and not the guitar teacher, who is supposed to be in charge of bass instruction but not himself a bassist... and plays bass like a guitar (you know what I mean).

One point maybe in favour of electric bass not really belonging to a guitar family is that it is often played fretless whereas fretless guitars are (very ?) uncommon, in fact the very definition of a guitar states that it is fretted.

Sorry if the subject has been discussed before, it is obviously quite difficult to search forums based on "bass guitar" keyword.

Opinions anyone ?
Click to expand...
 
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#172
Smooth_bass88 said:
Exactly. Call it whatever you want.

A car is a vehicle
A bass is an instrument
There are many different vehicles. There are many different instruments. That was my logic. I guess my point is that Leo Fender wasn't trying to make a lower-pitched guitar, he was trying to make a smaller more portable ampifiable version of the upright.
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It was originally conceived and Marketed as an Electric Bass. Call it what you want after that. I call mine Blackie, Red, and Lee.
 
#174
petrus61 said:
Doesn't matter if you say "I play bass" or "I play bass guitar", the reaction is still going to be anticlimactic and a general letdown for anyone involved in that particular conversation.
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Ah! And there it is.
Are we just trying to talk ourselves into being something we are not by disassociating ourselves from the very thing that will give us what we seek? Is that why we are so afraid of the G-word? Maybe anyone who is truly bothered by the name of the instrument they are playing, is just playing the wrong instrument.

Sheesh! Lop nine inches off your bass, put on some skinny strings, and climb that Stairway to Heaven.
If you find that you do need an electric bass guitar playerist to fill in the low end on that song, there will still be a few folks here glad to help you get the job done. :eyebrow:
 
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#176
BooDoggie said:
If a bass is a guitar, then an apple must be an orange... Both a bass and a guitar have strings and both an apple and an orange are fruits. There are 4 string guitars and there are 6 string basses. To me it's like the guy that points to a truck and says I have my car... I guess that if you play both an upright or double bass and an electric bass then you are a bass player. But if you only play electric bass then you are a bass guitar player right?
Click to expand...

It's more that citron, oranges, lemons, and grapefruits are all citrus. Of course they're different species from each other, look and taste different; but they're still of the same genus. It's not a perfect parallel because the citron, which was the oldest and, once, most widespread species of the genus gave the name, but is no longer the most popular or best known species. Whereas, as I posted before, the Spanish guitar became so overwhelmingly widespread that we default to just calling it a "guitar" while bass, tenor, and baritone guitars require qualifiers. But saying a bass guitar can't be a guitar because it's not a (Spanish) guitar is like saying an orange can't be a citrus because it's not a citron.

The player doesn't define the instrument. That's the whole point of multi-instrumentalists. If you're the guy in Lake Street Dive that plays both guitar and trumpet, that doesn't make trumpet and guitar the same instrument family. Nor would it if you played both tuba and double bass, even though they both fill the same frequency range in the music; nor double bass and bass guitar. The "bass" in their names just indicates where in the range they fit.
 
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#177
A bass guitar is a guitar. I usually always call it a bass guitar. An electric bass to me is an upright electric bass. The latter better emulates an upright than the former for a lot of reasons. I play both as the situation requires. While they overlap, there are things performed on each, that can't be performed on the other.
 
#178
Old Garage-Bander said:
Are we just trying to talk ourselves into being something we are not by disassociating ourselves from the very thing that will give us what we seek? Is that why we are so afraid of the G-word? Maybe anyone who is truly bothered by the name of the instrument they are playing, is just playing the wrong instrument.
Click to expand...
Yes. This. Thank you. I've been discussing or at least touching upon this very point a number of times here, myself:
www.talkbass.com/posts/17500060/
www.talkbass.com/posts/17769686/
www.talkbass.com/posts/18836869/
www.talkbass.com/posts/19789233/
www.talkbass.com/posts/18157411/
 

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