Bass guitars are normally made out of wood. The main pieces are the body, neck, fingerboard, frets, and strings. The body is made out of wood. A wooden neck is glued or bolted onto the body. A wooden fingerboard is then glued onto the neck. Thin metal strips called frets are glued onto the fingerboard. The frets are placed at specific placess along the fretboard, with each fret representing one half step in the Western tonal scale.