The place to read all about bass

All about that Bass

Marith, Simon, Wietske, Loes, and Nynke

Bass is musics youngest element, only around for about 4 centuries, but
has become the foundation of a piece of music. The bass line is the root of
the music and present in practically every part you hear.

Bass and Music

When hearing the word bass, most

people probably think of sounds

with a low pitch. But what is it
exactly? Where does it come from,

and how is it applied in music?

Bass instruments

Bass instruments
cover a wide range

of different musical roles and belong

to many different
families. For
example the Double Bass, a string

instrument wich is the biggest of the
violin family,
Bass Horns, the tuba,
the serpent or the sousaphone, and
ofcouse the Bass Guitar, probably
the best known bass instrument.

Nynke Flipse, V4C





fltr: Double Bass, Serpent, Bass Guitar

1,80
year 1
3 pages
version 1

The fact that bass describes sounds

with a low pitch is right, because
bass indeed defines the low notes. It
are sounds or tones of a low range.
The word itself actually gives away
its meaning, because bass comes
from the Italian word basso, which
means low or deep.
Bass came into existence when
people started to play the bottom
notes from a chord as an
independent bass line. Those bottom
notes are called the roots. When
there were no bass lines yet, tonality
was where Western music was based
on.
Bass tones are the lowest ones from
a musical scale. A musical scale is a
group of notes within an octave. The
notes are usually ordered by pitch. A
special type of musical scale is the
chromatic, which is a scale with
twelve consecutive semi-tones. Bass
tones are also known as tonic or
keynotes, which means they are the
first degree on a scale. Scales are
very important components of bass
lines.

Bass influences
the three different
elements of music, which are
harmony, melody and rhythm. The
fact that it influences rhythm is
obvious. Besides that, bass is the
lowest part of harmony.

Melody is influenced by it in another

way, of which an example is
contrary motion. Bass is often
applied in music as a contrary
motion, which means the tone of the
music rises in pitch,while the bass
descends. The bass thus moves in
the other direction. Normally
musical instruments and human
voices can be compared with an 8 ft.
pitch (the standard). Bass
instruments are lower of course, that
means they have at least a 16 ft.
pitch. One of the first bass
instruments was the organ, which
can have pitches even lower than 16
ft. As time went by, people
developed other bass instruments
too, like the double bass, the bass
guitar and the serpent. Bass lines
emerge the most in music styles like
electro, dubstep, blues and jazz.
There are different types of bass
lines, of which one is the walking
bass. This is a seductive bass line,
and it emerges often in jazz music.
So bass is a very essential part of
music, since it often supports
melodies by contrary motion, and it
is an important component of several
music styles. It makes music sound
prettier, and it gives it more value.
Without bass, music would be much
more flat and boring.

Marith Messing, V4C

1

All about that Bass

Bass in HipHop

Hip Hop is quite a new music stream. It

originated in the 70s and it was mainly
performed by black people. Hip Hop is
recognisable through the bass which is
very important
in hip hop. The bass in
hip hop is build up from different sorts
of bass. The most important part of the
bass is the kick bass, this is almost

always the basis of a hiphop song. The
bass stays the same in the different
stanzas, but it changes a bit when the
chorus comes.
This is done to keep the
beat interesting to listen to. Most hip
a bpm (beats per
hop songs have
minute) in between 90 and 120. This is

done so the beat isnt too fast to actual
rap on.

Most rap songs can be recognised by

lyrics about how things in life go, and
what the artists have been gone
through. Hip hop is one of the biggest
music styles in which self-reflection is
done by the artists themselve. Hip Hop
can also be about how much money
you have, what youve accomplished in
your life or some crazy stuff they
thought about when they were high.
Drugs are a very common theme in Hip
Hop, the artists have experienced the
effects of drugs themselves since the
rappers mostly originate from the bad
neighbourhoods in big cities. In those
cities were also a lot of different gangs,
these gangs fought on the streets,

but eventually these fights were fought

lyrically through hip hop. A good
example of such a fight is the fight
between Tupac and Biggie Smalls.
They both were in rivaling gangs and
they fought their fights by using hip
hop. Unfortunately they both died due
to the consequences of gang violence.
Most rappers are black, although the
person whos considered the best
rapper now is white (Eminem).
Eminem doesnt rap about how much
money he has, he raps about what he
wants to be different in the world and
what he experienced in his youth as a
small white boy in the rap world which
was dominated by the big black guys.
Simon Bezemer, V4C

Bass in dance

Dance does not require music, however
dance is most often related
to music.

Theyre combined in a choreography,
a set of dance moves conceived for a
particular song. Bass plays a very
important part in this because it
indicates the speed the dancers are
expected to dance in. This is easily
seen at the dance styles hip-hop and
popping. These particular
dance styles

are clearly inspired by bass, this is
visible at the angular and jerky way of
moving.

Very often the clearer the bass is
present the angular and
jerky the
movements are and how more hidden
the bass is the softer and smoother the
movements are, this also appeals to the
loudness of the music.
An example of
this are the dance styles bounce and
ballet.

Theres a clear link between the

standards and acceptance of things and
the way in which people dance and
therefore the presence of the bass.
During the 15th century, when ballet
was invented, people were expected to
behave polite and cover themselves
neatly. The dancing style was reticent
and elegant, just like the music: without
loud basses or screamingly singing.
The music is on average louder now
and the dancing is faster and more
respect less and revealing so to speak.
The bass isnt only present to indicate a
certain rhythm, but even becomes the
most important aspect in a song.

But what comes first, the chicken or the

egg? Does our dance influence our
music, or the other way around? One
thing is certain, theyre related.
You could argue that the music came
first because, for instance, classical
music was invented in the 11th century
and ballet in the 15th, so dance is here
clearly based on the music.
But in many other cases, like hip-hop
dance and music (1970s), they were
formed in the same period. So they
probably influenced each other, but
most important: they were influenced by
the events, norms and values of a certain
period of time. Rap, for instance,
developed at the beginning of the 80s
through slaves coming to America.
They were used to communicate
throughout music and to find partners
throughout dance. This makes the music
almost a conversation and the dance less
conservative than before. This explains
our dance and music preference, we like
to party on it and we like it to be like
our lives; fast and loud. This makes the
bass our number one.
Wietske Schreuder, V4C
2

All about that Bass

The importance of bass

Bass is the youngest part of music, but

we cannot imagine
music without it
anymore. This is very normal to us, but

dont you wonder
how bass existed?
Why it is so important? Well, you are
you are now going to
lucky, because
find out.

There was a time that bass didnt exist,
but tonality did. When people started to
recognize this as something
independent, they started to look
closely at the tonality and developed it.
They discovered
a new musical

component; bass. people started
experimenting
with this new aspect of
music. They started to play the roots
independently.
As it developed, it
became to have a great impact on
western music.
It changed the shape of
the music completely. Suddenly there
were many new
possibilities

concerning the composition of music.

People were extremely enthusiastic and

bass became more and more important
over the years, and had influenced the
style of music completely; by the time
of the baroque period, it was the only
thing apart from the tune composers
bothered to write down while
composing a musical piece. The only
disturbing thing was that the only
instrument that could really play at a
deep pitch was the organ, which was
only used in church. People admired
the deep sound so much that they tried
to invent instruments with a deep pitch
for outside the church. They succeeded
and new instruments that are still very
important today, maybe even more
important, were created. In the years
that followed, more aspects of bass,
like the contrary motion and the
seductive bass line, were discovered
and used. It again gave more depth to
the already enormous amount of
possibilities in music. Because there
were now so many more possibilities.

In the composition of music, there was

also a lot of inspiration for new musical
styles like jazz.
Over the years so many possibilities for
music were created because of the
discovery and development of bass,
that we now live in a world with
hundreds of different sorts of music. In
such a short period bass became so
popular that we cannot imagine music
without bass anymore. It is the
foundation of every song that we hear.
Without it, music wouldnt have the
great impact on us as it does have now.
Everybody likes music, and that is
because of the immense diversity
created by bass.

Loes van Cappelle, V4C

Crossword puzzle
Nynke Flipse, V4C

Sudoku Easy peasy lemon squeezy

Nynke Flipse, V4C

Horizontally

Vertically

1. a bass which has its

own line

2. a combination of
chords and pitches
which characterize
Western music

4. more tonics
combined
5. melody and bass
moving in opposite
direction
6. most important tone
from the chord

3. progressing by a
semitone
Answer......