However in certain genres of music such as jazz fusion and Latin it often acts as a solo instrument.Įlectric bass guitars are most popular. Typically the bass guitar acts as part of the rhythm section in most contexts. You can hear the bass guitar on almost all pop, rock, country, blues, metal and funk releases since it became popular. The electric bass guitar has been common in popular music since the 1960s and is used in many different styles of music. They have a longer scale length to accommodate for the lower tuning.Standard bass guitars only have four strings, tuned one octave lower than the lowest four strings on a guitar.The bass guitar is a similar looking instrument to the guitar, but there are several characteristics that make it a completely different instrument.