People enjoyed my guitar virtuoso series where I touched on the 6, and 12 string varieties. Now I thought they might enjoy a series on its 4 string deep voiced cousin.

The bass guitar is regularly the foundation of most music that involve guitars. In some cases it may be the only guitar. It may not even be a bass since it got its start in the Cello, Double Bass (aka contrabass), and the OctoBass. (If you are new to this instrument Bass is not pronounced like the name of a fish it is pronounced Base)

Double Bass/Contrabass

This instrument is also sometimes called the standup bass, upright bass, or even acoustic bass. The modern variants are similar to instruments that go all the way back to the 15th century. Prior to the 20th century there were many cases where the Double Bass only had three strings. As of the 20th century the standard became four strings.

You will commonly see the Double Bass in old big band, and jazz acts. It also would feature as an instrument in a lot of early rock and roll and blues. Don't let this stop you from recalling that it got it's start in Classical music of the 15th century. I will show you a few examples of the Classical style of the Double Bass though the focus of this post is intended to be on the bass guitar.

Guy D. Tuneh

Born 1977 in Tel-Aviv.
Is renowned as a solo bassist for classical, opera, and other such styles.

Gary Karr

Born 1942 in Los Angeles, California.
As with Guy D. Tuneh he also tends to focus in the classical music genre.

ENTER: The Bass Guitar

The electric bass guitar was invented in the 1930s by musician and inventor Paul Tutamarc from Seattle, Washington.

Source: wikipedia.org

The first mass production bass did not appear until 1951 when Leo Fender and George Fullerton introduced the Fender Precision Bass which is still a very popular version of the instrument even to this day.

Source: wikipedia.org

To assist with the up coming musicians performing on these instruments: Unlike a common guitar the strings are much thicker on a bass guitar and they tend to be a little higher off of the neck (known as action) though this can be adjusted. You have to push harder on a bass guitar string than you do a regular guitar and there is also typically more distance between the strings. This makes some things you take for granted on a regular guitar quite a bit more difficult to pull off on a bass guitar.

James Jamerson

Born in 1936 and died in 1983.
James Jamerson is a big name in the Motown scene which produced a lot of music.

John Entwistle

Born in 1944 and dies in 2002.
He is best known as the original bass player in the rock band The Who. Some people claim he did for the bass guitar what Jimi Hendrix did for the electric guitar.

Jaco Pastorius

Born in 1951 and died in 1987.
If you talk to a lot of bass players the name Jaco Pastorius will often be mentioned with reverence. He is best known for playing with the band Weather Report but he did many other things. He did Latin influenced Funk, fretless bass solos that are described by some as lyrical, chords, and new approaches to use of harmonics.

Cliff Burton

Born in 1962 and died in 1986.
Cliff Burton was in a few smaller bands, but he has his shining moments in the band Metallica until he was tragically killed in 1986 when the tour bus slid, he was thrown from a window where he slept in a bunk, and the bus rolled over top of him. He was an amazing performer and played with some styling and passion that no one had ever seen before. To many of us he was the heart of Metallica. He inspired a lot of people to pick up the bass guitar. He also inspired existing bass guitarists to take a second look at what their instrument was capable of. I made an extensive blog post about Cliff Burton a couple of weeks ago in two parts. PART 1 | PART 2

Greg Lake

Born in 1947.
Has been a bass player in King Crimson and also a bassist, guitarist, and singer for Emerson, Lake & Palmer. King Crimson is known for being Progressive Rock and people in Prog bands tend to try really hard to push their instruments to new levels.

Scott Thunes

Born in 1960.
Scott has performed on many albums that were primarily with Frank Zappa's band.

Justin Chancellor

Born in 1971.
Justin has been in the band Peach but he is best known as the bassist for the band Tool which often has some very interesting bass lines.

Tony Levin

Born in 1946.
Tony was a bass player for King Crimson, and Peter Gabriel, but he has performed with an extremely large amount of people. I first encountered him as the bassist for the first Liquid Tension Experiment album. He is well respected in the world of bass and his name comes up a lot. He also has a very unique approach to playing slap bass which I show you in the second video.

Billy Sheehan

Born in 1953.
He is best known for working with Steve Vai, David Lee Roth, Mr. Big, Niacin, and The Winery Dogs. "...he has won the "Best Rock Bass Player" readers' poll from Guitar Player Magazine five times..." - (wikipedia)

Stuart Hamm

Born in 1960.
I first encountered Stu Hamm when he played with Joe Satriani. He is known for doing some pretty wild bass solos that are rather different from the norm. I've seen one of these front row and I can say that can be an understatement. This solo is pretty awesome and is a variation on what I witnessed live myself. He doesn't even need any other band members to back him on this one.

Michael Manring

Born in 1960.
I believe Michael is primarily a solo performer. I heard about him from some bass playing friends that were always trying to find the next crazy person to learn from. Michael's name has come up more than once. His music is written to be just performed by him on his bass. It is definitely unique and cool. In this video he is doing a lot of the stuff like I've seen Adrian Legg do on guitar.

Fernando Petry

Born?
I honestly don't know much about this guy. He seems to be active in the contemporary (current) bass scene, but I know very little about him. I thought I better include him as he may deserve a spot among these other greats. It seems like he is a very active youtuber with his own channel. And yes... he is damn good.

Carol Kaye

Born in 1935.
Wikipedia reports she is known "as one of the most prolific and widely heard bass guitarists, playing on an estimated 10,000 recordings". I'd expect her to be quite skilled with that amount of recording under her belt.

Geddy Lee

Born in 1953.
As the bassist, keyboardist, and vocalist on the Progressive Rock band Rush, Geddy has often taken the bass to some pretty interesting places. The instrumental YYZ for some modern bass players is kind of like their equivalent to learning to play Stairway to Heaven. (Inside Joke: Guitarists often play Stairway to Heaven, or Smoke on the Water)

Victor Wooten

Born in 1964.
The name Victor Wooten comes up A LOT when you speak of bass guitar. He has won many awards, had a solo career, and performed with a number of bands and famous artists. He is quite skilled.

Flea

Born Michael Peter Balzary in 1962.
Flea is the bassist for Red Hot Chili Peppers but he has collaborated with many many other bands. He is a quite energetic, interesting, and skilled bass player. I am certain the Chili Peppers would never have seen the fame they achieved without having Flea as a member.

Martin Mendez

Born in 1978
Martin is the bass player for the Progressive Rock, Progressive Metal, Death Metal, Psychedelia band Opeth. While the band never focuses on a bass solo per say he is all over the place with some interesting bass playing in many songs. He is quite skilled and even though I am a fan it is not me who decided to add him. I found him recommended by others and it just reinforced my opinion of him. I did a choose your own musical adventure on Opeth earlier.

Robert Trujillo

Born in 1964
Robert Trujillo was first known as the bassist for Suicidal Tendencies followed by the Funk Metal spin off Infectious Grooves. He is now the current bassist for Metallica.

John Myung

Born in 1967
John is one of the founding members of the Progressive Rock/Metal power house Dream Threater. He is known for massive practicing and honing of his skills. He has also performed with many other acts. And yes, this is a 6 string bass in the video. :) I did a choose your own adventure blog on Dream Theater earlier.

Les Claypool

Born in 1963
Les Claypool is unique. His quirky personality is infectious in his music. He is the bassist and vocalist for the band Primus and while there are those technically on par or perhaps even better than Les Claypool, if they are better it is subjective and just by a hair. One thing those people don't have is his wild and crazy style. He is truly quite the unique bassist. He tried out for Metallica after Cliff Burton. I would like to visit that alternate universe where he got that gig and see what that ended up sounding like. I am going to close down this post with quite a few videos of Les Claypool and/or Primus as he is just really entertaining and funny to watch.

Closing

If you liked this post please up vote it. I am a music fanatic and interest in these posts is what inspires me to make more of them as I do research and find musicians and bands I knew nothing about. I spend some time trying to give a wide variety of information and styles.

Image Sources: Starting Collage Image Built from (1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ),