The Bass: An Introduction

Have you heard a kind of music that makes your head bang or a soulful one that makes you close your eyes and feel its sensation? Do you notice a powerful pop within the music that leads you to indulging to the song or a simple groove that makes you sing and remember the song after listening? Well, maybe you just heard and appreciated its BASS LINES!

What is a bass line? How does it affects every music? For us to appreciate it more, we have to go back to the basics of music. In music, we have 4 standard voices: Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass. Soprano is the highest tone while Bass is the lowest tone. As the lowest tone among the four, the Bass lifts up the other tones, giving more emphasis to them. Though you can hear and distinguish one tone to another, you'll be able to appreciate more the highest pitch a Soprano and Tenor can reach or even the "fill in's" of Altos can give with the BASS playing along. It is like a constructing a tall building: without the foundation, you cannot build one or appreciate it's highest peak if there's no deep foundation to it.

The same goes when we talk about musical instruments. Every instrument has the lowest tone so that all other tones can be heard and be appreciated. As far as the strings are concerned, the "thick" ones in our guitars (that plays the BASS) intensifies the sound of the "thinner" ones, so a compound music is produced when both strings are played. Another is the "booom-booooom" beat of the bass drum that makes our body go in sync with the song. Because the drums give the beat of the song, the beat itself will make you "feel" the song plus the emphasis that is given by the bass drum will make you go even more to that! So you find yourself shaking, grooving, and head-banging as the music is played because you tend to appreciate the other sounds that are strengthened by the BASS.

But this is the one that catches my interest about BASS Music: you can find yourself singing a song after you listened it (Last-Song Syndrome or LSS) because of the BASS! How can it be? Yes, the BASS gives more emphasis to other sounds of the song but it can also be the "catchy link" of the song.

That's where BASS LINES come into action! Bass lines are series of tones played by the bass that makes the song easy to remember by the listeners. As an example, if you listen to the song ICE ICE BABY of VANILLA ICE, you will notice the repeated series of tone played by the bass throughout the entire song. You may also consider the beat given by the bass drum and the groove that the entire song is playing. Without memorizing the entire song or even remembering it's title, any listener can remember the song by remembering the "boom-boom-boom-boo-boo-boo-rum" line of the bass. (Sorry if I can't give the exact tone of it, :-) )

You can find other songs playing the same kind of groove. From 60's down to the latest songs, in all music genres, the BASS plays an integral part of music. Next time, we'll elaborate about music genres and how bass are played in each of them. Credits to:  Google Images EricBlackmonMusicHD - YouTube