Bass guitar in 1958. 1956 saw the appearance at the German trade fair "Musikmesse Frankfurt" of the distinctive Höfner 500/1 violin bass made using violin construction techniques by Walter Höfner, a second generation violin luthier. The instrument is often known as the "Beatle Bass", due to its endorsement and use by Beatles bassist Paul McCartney. In 1957 Rickenbacker introduced the model 4000 bass, the first bass to feature a neck-through-body design in which the neck is part of the body wood. The Fender and Gibson versions used bolt-on and glued-on necks. With the explosion of the popularity of rock music in the
Bass guitar tuning Bass guitar tuning Each bass guitar tuning assigns pitches to the strings of an electric bass. Because pitches are associated with notes, bass-guitar tunings assign open notes to open strings. Most bass guitars have four strings, which are tuned one octave lower than the lowest pitched four strings of an electric guitar. Thus, the bass guitar's standard tuning is E, A, D, G using the equal temperament tuning method and standard pitch. Tuning a bass in perfect fifths will render a flat octave as used in Pythagorean tuning, so it is encouraged to match each open string on the bass