Bass vs Guitar
We all know what a guitar is, and have been enjoying the divine music played by expert guitarists over the last so many decades. It is a stringed instrument that produces melodious music when its strings are plucked by either fingers or a prick. There is another instrument called bass guitar or simply bass that looks similar to a guitar and even produces the same melodious music. Why then is it called bass and what the differences between a bass and a guitar are? Let us try to find out in this article.
Guitar
Guitar is an ancient musical instrument that is played by plucking its strings with a prick or fingers. It consists of a wooden box that is attached with a long neck, and the strings are connected with both the hollow box as well as the neck. Basically there are two types of guitars called the acoustic guitars and the electric guitars, which are a recent development in comparison to acoustic ones. The strings of a guitar are made of either nylon or steel, and their vibration produces the tone that gets amplified by the hollow wooden box. Electric guitars were invented in 1930’s, and the sound is amplified electronically rather than the hollow box, and this is why these guitars have a solid body.
Bass
Bass or bass guitar is also a musical instrument that makes use of vibrations of strings that are plucked by the player. One look at the instrument, and anyone can tell that it is a variation of electric guitar. However, it has a longer neck and a smaller body, and it has to be plugged to an amplifier to produce music. This instrument has four strings though there are 5 stringed and even 6 stringed bass guitars available in the market.
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What is the difference between Bass and Guitar? • Pitch range of the two musical instruments is different, and a bass plays music in an octave lower than a guitar • In a band, bass plays a supportive role along with drummer while a guitar in a band is more in the lead role • Guitar has a higher range than bass • Despite lower range, it is unthinkable not to have a bass guitarist in the band, whereas a band can make do with a guitarist • Guitar has 6 strings while bass has 4 strings • Bass strings are thicker and require more effort to play than the strings of a guitar that are thinner.
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The difference between electric bass guitar and electric guitar is just that.
Sounds have frequencies, as some example the first notes at piano have lower frequencies and as you go foward you get keys that will play higher frequency notes, the sound is the same but the frequency is different. Humans listen to frequencies between 20 and 20000hz.
The piano has 88 unique keys and so 88 notes, they cover a huge part of 20-20000hz thing.
But some instruments (most of them) can’t have this amount of unique frequencies, to fix that, they make various versions of same instrument, each one covering a different range of the 20-20000hz thing, the electric guitar cover some range and the electric bass guitar cover a lower range.
Thats it, nothing more nothing less.
Imagine you are playing the piano, and you are forced to only use some keys of the piano, what part of piano you would pick to play? At some/many (electric guitar included) this is not some hypothetical situation, you literally have to decide that.