History Of The Bass Guitar Through 1940s
Long before the bass guitar was hooked up to electricity and pumped through 1,000-watt amplifiers, it was called the double bass. No, it’s not the same thing which drummers use to give their calf muscles a workout. The double bass was the largest and lowest-pitched instrument used in most symphony orchestras. It was typically played with a bow, stood upright, and dated back to the 16th century. It was tuned much the same way as a standard 4-string electric bass, to the notes E, A, D, and G.
In 1935 a musician from Seattle, Washington, named Paul Tutmarc, developed the first electric bass guitar. He called it the “electronic bass fiddle” and sold it through his company catalog, Audiovox. It was solid-bodied, four-stringed, and had a 30 ½” scale length, making it easier to carry, tune, and learn to play. However, being a solid-bodied bass, it did not have the on-board electronics to allow for sound manipulation. It was equipped only with a single-coil magnetic pickup and sound modification was controlled mostly through the amplifier. Even this modification was relegated to tone, volume, and pitch. Unfortunately for Tutmarc, the music of that particular age was largely orchestral and big band so the electric bass never garnered much interest.
By the end of the 1940’s the electric bass had started to gain some interest in blues and jazz clubs in the south. It’s ease of tuning and easy transportability made it convenient for musicians travelling from nightclub to nightclub. It also provided for a much louder sound. This allowed bassists of that particular era to match volumes with their 6-string electric counterparts. In 1951, Leo Fender, with the help of his friend and long-time employee, George Fullerton, developed the Fender Precision Bass, often referred to as the “P-Bass.” The Precision was designed as a counterpart to the Fender Telecaster electric guitar. It was the first mass-produced bass guitar and, to this day, is one the best-selling electric basses of all time.
