BASS

The upright bass was the only bass available for hundreds of years and not being very portable nor affordable did not feature much in the roots of early blues music. Hence most early blues recordings consist only of guitars and/or harmonicas. Often mistaken as a copy of the upright is the washtub or broom handle bass, this was a home made instrument and came to feature more in blues and folk music. The origins of the broom handle bass lie in Africa and the West Indies where it originated from a hunting snare that was set under a tree, later becoming a traditional African folk instrument it inevitably made its way to America in the days of slavery.

The first electric bass was created by Leo Fender who logically decided to apply the electric guitar format to create an electric bass. It is known for people with too much time on their hands to object to the use of the term electric guitar as they say the bass is not technically a guitar. Common sense says it is as much, if not more, like a guitar than an upright bass. Because it was also the first fretted bass it was known as the precision bass as the notes were precisely tuned when the frets were hit. Fretless electric bass guitars are now commonly available too.