Electric Bass Guitar

As far as types of bass guitar go there are probably more kinds of bass than there are regular guitars. There are basses with frets, there are bass guitars without frets. There are instruments with four, five or six strings. The common or garden bass guitar has frets and four strings, and that is the one you should look for if you are a beginner buying a bass guitar . . . get the full article at . . . How to Buy Your First Bass Guitar on a Budget

The Electric bass guitar has been around since the 1920's when Lloyd Loar designed the first electric double bass and has become the standard bass instrument for popular modern music, and, through all its changes in design, remains the backbone of rock.
In the 1930s Paul Tutmarc built an electric bass with a pickup which was too heavyto be practical so the guitar shaped body was born. It was a solid body bass made of walnut and strung with piano strings. Around 1940 Paul Tutmarc made a fretted bass that was played horizontal.
The Fender Precision was born in 1951 and is said by some to be the most popular bass ever. In 1957 the split pickup bass went on the market. The Fender Jazz appeared in 1960 with a slimmer neck, two pickups and a countered body design. The bass guitar was becoming very popular.
The first six string bass was created in 1959 by Danelecto and the first 5 string in 1964 by Fender. Called the Fender V, it was the first five string bass to go mainstream. The Gibson Thunderbird was first released in the early 1960's and it was perhaps Gibson's most popular bass ever. It has remained a favorite of the hard rock musicians.
The first fretless electric bass guitar was made in 1965 by Ampeg, and in 1968 the eight string bass was created by Hagstroem. Gibson Les Paul introduced in the late 60's popular with bassists for studio use.Carl Thompson is credited with building the first fretless 6 string bass in 1978. Ned Steinberger created the first headless bass in 1979. In 1987, the Guild Guitar Corporation introduced the fretless Ashbory bass which had silicone rubber strings and a piezoelectric pickup. The bass was only eighteen inches long but had that "real" double bass tone.

Another design consideration for the bass is whether or not to use frets on the fingerboard. On a fretted bass, the frets divide the fingerboard into semitone divisions, although fretless basses are also widely available. The original Fender basses had 20 frets, but modern basses may have 24 or more. The twelfth fret on each string is an octave of the string note.
Fretless basses have a distinct sound, because the absence of frets means that the string must be pressed down directly onto the wood of the fingerboard and so the string can buzz against the wood (as with the double bass). The resulting sound is sometimes described as a "mwaah" sound by bassists. The fretless bass allows players to use the expressive devices of glissando, vibrato and microtonal intonations such as quarter tones and just intonation. Some bassists use both fretted and fretless basses in performances, according to the type of material they are performing.
In How The Fender Bass Changed The World, Jim Roberts states that Bill Wyman made the first known fretless bass guitar in 1961 by converting an inexpensive Japanese fretted bass. This fretless bass can be heard on The Rolling Stones songs such as "Paint it Black". The first production fretless bass was the Ampeg AUB-1 introduced in 1966. Fender introduced a fretless version of the Precision Bass in 1970. Fusion-jazz virtuoso Jaco Pastorius created his own fretless bass by pulling the frets out of a sunburst Fender Jazz Bass, filling up the holes with wood putty and coating the fretboard with epoxy resin.
An example of a fretless bass's fingerboard.Some fretless basses have "fret lines" inlaid in the fingerboard as a guide, while others only use guide marks on the side of the neck. Strings wound with tape are sometimes used with the fretless bass so that the metal string windings will not wear down the fingerboard. Some fretless basses have fingerboards which are coated with epoxy to increase the durability of the fingerboard, enhance sustain and give a brighter tone.
Although most fretless basses have four strings, five-string and six-string fretless basses are also available. Fretless basses with additional strings are also available, but these are typically "boutique" or custom-made instruments. Fretless basses are widely used in jazz and jazz fusion music. Nonetheless, many bassists from other genres use fretless basses, such as metal bassist Steve Digiorgio and Les Claypool of Primus.

Bass Guitar Chords
Written by Ron Middlebrook. Bass guitar chord chart for bass guitar.
84 of the most popular chords for bass guitar, including: finger placement, note construction, chromatic charts and most commonly used bass scales. Also has helpful explanation of common 2-5-1 progression, and the chords in all keys.
THIS BOOK IS FANTASTIC!
"I knew I could learn the contents of this book. Very easy to understand. Learning chords is building notes of the scale. I learned that from a book called Diatonic Major and Minor Scales for Electric Bass. [...] That's patterned after the "Segovia Scales", except for electric bass! Between the two books I'll be set!"
-- Anonymous from Wisconsin, December 13, 2006
Bass Guitar Chords

. . . and for more about bass guitar music . . . The electric bass was invented to give a bass line to music made by loud instruments. Bass Guitar Music