The creation of the electric bass, or an electric guitar envisioned double bass, has revolutionized the way music is both written and performed and will continue to be a driving force behind virtually every genre of music. Even though the electric bass* can be seen as a necessary creation in order to match the ever-increasing volume of live music, especially rock, it can also be viewed as a breath of fresh air and new outlook on acoustic instruments. The electric bass has both physically and functionally had an interesting development since its birth, but one thing for certain is that even trailing behind the electric guitar at first, this instrument has stepped away and cemented its place into music. Electric basses share some of the basic physical aspects of their acoustic brethren, the upright double bass, but also have their own defining characteristics that make the electric bass what it is. Generally speaking, an electric bass is composed of three major parts on which it is further subdivided: “You can divide the bass into three sections: The neck, the body, and the innards. The different parts of the neck and the body are easy to see, while the innards aren’t so obvious” (Pfeiffer, Patrick). Looking to the neck, one can see that there is actually at least four other important parts, those being: the headstock, tuning machines, nut, and fretboard. Their functions, respectively, are: to provide a spot to which the tuning machines can reside; tunes the strings up or down to achieve a particular pitch; keeps the strings held off of the fretboard and spaced evenly; the place in which you fret notes to be played. The body of the bass is where most of the resonation will come from and the tonewood will dictate the overall char... ... middle of paper ... ...layer and teacher based in Seattle, Washington” who set up the company Audiovox and produced the Model 736 Bass Fiddle around 1936. Its design consisted of “…a roughly guitar-shape walnut body, a single pickup and control knob on a pearloid pickguard, a neck with 16 frets, and a cord emerging from a jack on the upper side of the body” (Bacon 8-9). Tutmarc was the first to get almost everything right in designing an electric bass, but did not meet with good commercial sales. Then, in 1951 Leo Fender would set the standard for electric basses by introducing his Precision Bass to the world. Works Cited Bacon, Tony, and Barry Moorhouse. The Bass Book. New York: Backbeat, 1995. Print. Jeans, Sir James. Science & Music. Cambridge: University Press, 1953. Print. Pfeiffer, Patrick. Bass Guitar for Dummies. Indianapolis, Indiana: Wiley Publishing Inc, 2003. Print.
Rock ‘n’ Roll Rock ‘n’ roll was a controversial yet fashionable genre of popular music that emerged in the early 1950s (America in the World, 1776 to the Present : A Supplement to the Dictionary of American History: Mâ€'Z, Index. 2016, p896-899.). Its origin is also started from the revolution of bourgeois. The younger generation had gone through the Second World War, though, the older generation had treated kids. Two generations that had each world war had divided. A lot of the pain and anger felt by the younger generation made them to resist against the social establishment. As a result, the war had created a gulf between generations but further reduced the gap between blacks and whites. The youth of the 1950s felt unconnected to their society and began looking at the world more globally, and also began looking for new role models who reflected their ideas and beliefs. They knew that ideas of old generation would no longer work in a modern society. Thus several young leaders stood out and took center stage that setting the pace for the direction of society and its music form that point on. At this time, technical innovations had emerged such as electric guitar and electric bass. This is the impetus of creation of music including rock ‘n’
bottom of the neck and the bottom of the bridge. The purpose of a pickup is to
During the 1950s, many rhythm and blues (R&B) artists, who were of African American descent, used the piano as their main choice of instrument,such as Little Richard. His music had that rock 'n' roll exuberance, soulful voice, and in your face shouting that is a common ingredient in rock today (“History of Rock & Roll-The 1950s”). An example, is the sound of his energetic piano riffs from “Tutti Frutti” . However, when Chuck Berry translated those “boogie woogie” riffs from the piano to the electric guitar, it just set the standard to how rock and roll should sound (“History of Rock & Roll-The 1950s”). The electric guitar riffs that Chuck Berry played, just sounded more upbeat and moving than anything that can be done on a piano. It was his guitar playing that ultimately left a large influence in the coming
This book provides a very detailed outline on how and where rock and roll originated. It places much emphasis on the transition from Black to White rock artists and how society reacted to this change. Szatmary also presents sufficient information on the many aspects of rock and roll, ranging from what the lyrics are about, to the beginnings of rock and roll and new age rock.
ground in terms of the exposure of the bass as a solo instrument and its unique role
The most common type of bass guitar is an electric bass guitar. Electric basses have solid bodies. An electric bass needs to plug into a amplifier to be heard over other instruments. A bass amplifier or amp, is pretty much a powered speaker. If you get an electric bass, you will also need a bass amp. An example of a electric bass would be the one I played in the WNE. The electric bass was the only bass that the school could provide for the band but we also felt it had the right sound for the job.
Before we explore The Birth of rock ‘n’ Roll, we must first reflect on other sounds that influence this genre of music. Sounds from blues, country, jazz, and gospel music all played a huge role in the birth of rock ‘n’ roll. The creation of different genres of music mixed together created a loud, fast, liberating sound that primarily a...
The theremin made its way to America in 1928, where it gained more popularity. In 1929, RCA bought the rights to manufacture the instrument. Leon Theremin stayed in America, where he met Clara Rockmore, the theremin's first virtuoso. Theremin worked on many variations of his original instrument including the Terpsitone (controlled by the entire body), an electric cello, and a theremin controlled only by the eyes.
Before you can understand the physics of playing the guitar, you must first know the brief history of it. The guitars’ history can be traced back to over 4,000 years ago. This ancient instrument has many theories on how it came to be. The theory with the most evidence states that the guitar was a development from a Greek 4-stringed instrument, and then altered by the Romans to be called the cithara. Soon after, this cithara was then brought to Portugal and Spain where it was changed yet again to an instrument named the Oud. After this, it was combined with the vihuela. Throughout time, insignificant alterations where made to the vihuela. It was not until the end of the 1800’s that a man named Antonio Torres Jurado created what we known as the guitar. To start, he increased the size of the body and neck. He raised the neck and improved the fingerboard with ebony or rosewood. He replaced the tuning pegs with more efficient machine tuners. As a result, he made the guitar louder, more efficient, and he overall improved the sound (History of the Acoustic Guitar) (Guy).
This freshwater fish is most commonly known as a game fish. “The largemouth bass is America’s favorite game fish” (The Behavior and Habits of Largemouth Bass). Originally it was found only East of the Mississippi river and South of the Great Lakes. It is recognizable by the olive green coloring accompanied by a dark stripe on each side. Their upper jaw does not stretch nearly as far as their lower jaw, which is the most distinguishing characteristic between them and the smallmouth bass. They average anywhere from three to ten pounds but can get up to twenty-two pounds. This water bound creature is known as the largemouth bass. This fish is a popular game fish because of its vicious strike on prey or lures. They strike just about anything that moves which is why there are so many lures for fishing including jigs, spinners, spoons, crank baits, soft plastics and more. As the season changes, the large mouth bass changes as well in its activities such as feeding and breeding. A threat to the large mouth population is LMBV, which stands for largemouth bass virus. Given that the largemouth bass is coldblooded, water temperature is a major concept between life and death. The effect of temperature on the largemouth bass varies depending on the different weather patterns of each season.
Rock music is a term that should be familiar. Originally dubbed “rock and roll” in the 1940’s and 1950’s, rock and roll is almost always fronted by an electrical guitar and heavily influenced by blues, R&B, and even country music. By the late 1960’s and early 1970’s rock and roll began to be shortened to just “rock music”, and the entire style starting branching out into other sub-genres such as punk rock, heavy metal, garage rock, hard rock, among others. The sub-genre in question however is Alternative Rock, which is generally defined as despite following the fundamentals of rock music, it strays away from what is considered “mainstream” at the time by using concepts such as extensive underground music association, muddied or distorted guitars, more prominent use of power chords, and even a sort of rebellious or defiant attitude in lyrics and sound.
Aptly named the Rock & Roll Generation, the 1950's saw the birth and rise to prominence of rock-n-roll and rockabilly (an early style of rock-n-roll). However, this musical revolution would never have been possible without the invention of the electric guitar by Les Paul in 1952 (1). The solid-body electric guitar produced a distinct sound unlike any other instrument during that time; as a result, it was this unique sound that rock-n-roll music developed its entire foundation upon. Today, Les Paul’s guitar (now owned by the popular guitar company Gibson) remains one of the most famous electric guitars not just in the America, but also in the world, along with the Fender Stratocaster and Telecaster. With the advent of the electric guitar, Carl Perkins was a pioneer in the establishment of rock music, and his particular ...
Leo Fender, in the 1950s, with some help from his employee, George Fullerton, managed to develop the first mass produced bass guitar. The Fender P bass, or Precision Bass guitar, was introduced in 1951. It became a widely copied standard in the industry. The Fender Bass Guitar was a new instrument that was easily transportable to a gig. It can be amplified to about any volume without having to worry about feedback. Elvis Presley started using the Fender Precision Bass around 1957. Following Fender in 1953, Gibson introduced the first short scale violin-shaped electric bass with an extendable end pin, which allows the instrument to be played upright or horizontally. Gibson renamed this in 1958 to the EB-1. Other small companies began introducing the Electric Bass during the 1950s like Kay in 1952 and Danelectro in 1956. The distinctive Violin Bass was made using the violin construction techniques. It was introduced in 1956 by a man named Walter Hofner. This instrument is mostly known as the “Beatle Bass” since Sir Paul McCartney made it famous.
This new bass had the shape of a guitar, which was a big deal to Bass players. Bass players could now travel much easier with their guitar rather than a bulky Double Bass. The new design also introduced more sophisticated electronics, pick-ups, and a encouraged better amplifiers. This new bass meant that the whole band wouldn’t muffle out its sound, like the barely audible Upright. It also meant that a whole new type of strings would have to be made. Squier tackled this job and made the all new flat-wound strings exclusively for the bass. As rivaling companies saw the creation of the Bass guitar, it wouldn’t be long after until they made models of their own. These new models all follow the styles of music, from looks to their unique
I personally have always enjoyed the different and unique sounds of the instruments that the musicians in rock & roll bands could make using the synthesizer, their electric guitars, th...