With early versions appearing in the 1930s, the modern bass guitar was invented by Leo Fender and marketed beginning in 1951 as a cheaper, more portable, and louder alternative for double bassists playing in dance bands.
The bass guitar comes in two variants: the solid-body electric bass guitar and the hollow-body acoustic bass guitar. Both are traditionally tuned like a double bass, with the same four lowest strings (E’-A’-D-G) as a guitar, but an octave lower.While the electric bass guitar is always amplified outside of personal practice settings, confusingly, the acoustic bass guitar can also be amplified electronically via pickups, usually in performance settings. The acoustic bass guitar is “acoustic” because its main amplification is its resonant, hollow body.Both the electric and acoustic bass guitars originally and typically have fretted fingerboards, which enable ease of intonation. Fretless bass guitars enable swooping glissandi, which can approximate the sound of the double bass