History And Use Of The Bass Guitar

History And Use Of The Bass Guitar

The bass guitar has been derived from the double bass, which was used in the late 1950's. Having 4 strings, these instruments add the lower tones to a musical performance. Experimentation with the bass had started as early as the 1920's. It wasn’t until the 50's however, that a proper bass instrument was formed.

In the mid 20th century jazz became popular. As double bass's were used those days, they were often not heard due to the lack of amplification. The drums, banjos and other instruments in the band drowned out the sound of the bass. Until the 1950 when the first electric bass came into existence with modern amplification techniques.

The bass guitar is played like all guitars with the player holding it close to his body in a horizontal position. The strings are plucked with hand or with the plectrum. In the 1970's, the slapping technique became popular.

Today, the bass guitar ranges from 4 strings up to 11 strings. The 5, 6 and 7 strings providing the mid range while the 11 string starts from a lower than human hearing going up to a very high active. Electric bass guitar players use various configurations. These changes are made by using preamplifiers and speaker sets. Signal processors are also varied to provide new soundscapes.

In night clubs, combo amplifiers are used. These amplifiers are fixed with single loud speakers to make them portable and effective.

The body of the instrument can be of wood or graphite. A wide range of finishing is applied to make it look good. IT can be colored or simply clear white. The work done on the body is fine engineering and delicate balances have to be maintained.

A hot debate rages on what to call this instrument. For non musicians, the term bass guitar is common, while hard core players like to call it electric bass or simple electric bass. Slowly but surely however, this instrument has gathered a large following which likes to use its own jargon.

The electric bass is a part of modern country music, post 1970 jazz and funk. Used mainly to provide backing, it adds a depth to the music. This instrument has added a whole new color to our musical pleasure. In sole music particularly, the bass guitar is effective.

Are sound effects used? Well, yes and no. As the bass guitar sets the tone for the rest of the band, sound effects are not often used, unlike electric guitars. Modern bands however have started experimenting with distortion units to add a new flavor to the bass and low key that they provide behind the music.

As we go into a new century, electric bass's become more and more popular. All bands use it today to add a subtle background. Many groups like U2 even use it to give a haunted feeling increasing emotional attachment with the music. Newer techniques have made this instrument a crucial part of any musical group today.

BONUS : History Of Mp3

Mp3 technology was developed by a German Company Fraunhofer –Gesellshaft which now licenses the patent rights to the audio compression technology.

There are two names mostly associated with the development of the MP3. The Fraunhofer institute helped with the audio encoding buy Dieter Seitzer, a professor at the University of Erlanger. Dieter Seitzer worked on the quality transfer of music over a standard phone line. This research was being led by Karl Heinz Branden Burg who is also called the “father of MP3”. Karl Heinz was a specialist in mathematics and electronics and was involved in researching methods to compress music since 1977.

Timeline of MP3
In 1987, the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany began research code named Eureka project EU147, Digital Audio Broadcasting.
In the month of January 1988, Moving Pictures Expert Group or MPEG was established as a subcommittee of the International standards organization.
In April 1989, a German patent was received by Fraunhofer for MP3.
In the year 1992, Fraunhofer’s and Dieter Seitzer’s audio encoding algorithm was integrated into MPEG -1
In the year 1993, MPEG-1 standard was published.
In 1994, MPEG-2 was developed and published a year later.
In the month of November 1996, United States patent was issued for MP3.
In September 1998, Fraunhofer started to enforce their patent rights whereby all developers of MP3 encoders or rippers were obliged to pay a licensing fee to Fraunhofer.
In February 1999, a record company named SubPop started to distribute music tracks in MP3 format.
In the same year portable mp3 players appeared.

Power of Mp3
Mp3 stands for MPEG Audio Layer 3 and it is a standard for audio compression that makes any music file smaller with little or no loss of sound quality. MPEG sound encoding can shrink down the original sound data from a CD by a factor of 12, without losing the sound quality.

Mp3 players
In the early 1990, Fraunhofer developed the first and unsuccessful mp3 player. Later in 1997, developer Tomislav Uzelac of Advanced Multimedia products invented the AMP MP3 playback engine that was the first successful MP3 player.

For more details, log on to freedownloadmp3song.info