Bass
Bass players: Robbie Shakespeare - Doug Wimbish - Cecil McBee - Miroslav Vitous - Leroy Sibbles - Ron Baker - Bill Laswell - Bootsy Collins - Jah Wobble
Definition
Bass Guitar refers to electric and acoustic basses - stringed instruments similar in design to the guitar, but with longer scale and tuned lower in pitch. The evolution of the instrument was influenced by both the double bass (a cousin of the violin and viola da gamba) and the guitar. It shares things in common with a range of bass instruments. Bass guitars may be fretless, although fretted is more common.
The bass guitar is played while being held horizontally across the body and may be played with the fingers (and sometimes the thumb) or a plectrum (pick).
In electric bass guitars, as with the electric guitar, vibrations of metal strings create electrical signals in electromagnetic sensors called pickups. The signals are then amplified and played through a speaker. Various electronic components, and the configuration of the amplifier and speaker, can be used to alter the basic sound of the instrument.
The electric bass is the standard bass instrument in many musical genres, including country, jazz, many flavors of rock and roll, soul, funk, and modern orchestral music. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bass_guitar [Jun 2005]