Bass Guitar
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50 free Bass Guitar trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The bass guitar is the instrument most listeners feel before they notice it. It sits between the drums and the melody, and a song usually falls apart without it. This quiz is for anyone who has ever argued about whether a famous riff was played on a bass or on a guitar, and for players who want to test what they know about their own instrument. The questions cover how a bass differs from a guitar, how it is tuned and built, and the amplifiers and models that shaped its sound. They also cover the people: the session players behind classic soul and pop records, the frontmen who sing while they play, and the bassists whose lines were later sampled into hip-hop hits. Some questions are easy for any music fan, and a few are aimed at people who own a bass and know its history. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn the story behind each one as you go.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The bass-like riff of which White Stripes song is really a guitar fed through a pitch-shifting pedal?
Seven Nation Army
Seven Nation Army has no bass on it at all: Jack White played a semi-acoustic guitar through a DigiTech Whammy pedal to drop its pitch.
Q 02Which musician's Höfner violin bass, stolen from a van in 1972, was finally returned to him in 2024?
Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney got the bass back after a volunteer search called the Lost Bass Project traced it to an attic on the south coast of England.
Q 03Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby is built on the sampled bassline of which earlier hit single?
Under Pressure
Under Pressure, by Queen and David Bowie, earned its writers no credit or royalties for the sample until the rap single had already become a hit.
Q 04Composer Jonathan Wolff built the theme tune of which NBC sitcom from edited samples of slap bass?
Seinfeld
Seinfeld's theme was never one fixed recording: Wolff reworked the sampled bass for each episode so it fitted around the timing of the dialogue.
Q 05Which Nirvana member threw his bass in the air at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards and failed to catch it?
Krist Novoselic
Krist Novoselic misjudged the height of his bass toss at the end of Lithium, and Queen guitarist Brian May ran over to check he was unhurt.
Q 06Michael Balzary, the Melbourne-born bassist of Red Hot Chili Peppers, is better known by which stage name?
Flea
Flea earned the nickname as a restless teenager who could not sit still, and his first love was the trumpet, not the bass.
Q 07A bass guitar's strings sound lower than the matching strings of a regular guitar by which interval?
One octave
One octave lower calls for longer, heavier strings, which is why a standard bass has a 34-inch scale and a far longer neck than a guitar.
Q 08Which jazz bassist and singer beat Justin Bieber and Drake to the Best New Artist Grammy in 2011?
Esperanza Spalding
Esperanza Spalding won after her album Chamber Music Society; she had played oboe and clarinet before discovering the double bass in high school.
Q 09Sting, the singing bassist of The Police, took his stage name from which item of clothing?
A striped sweater
A striped sweater in black and yellow made young Gordon Sumner look like a wasp, a jazz bandleader joked, and the name Sting stuck.
Q 10Which member of Kiss, known on stage as the Demon, plays a bass shaped like an axe?
Gene Simmons
Gene Simmons's Axe bass is now museum-worthy: the Smithsonian accepted a signed one into its American history collection in 2013.
Q 11Which four notes, from lowest to highest, are the open strings of a standard four-string bass guitar?
E-A-D-G
E-A-D-G are also the four lowest strings of a guitar, so a guitarist who picks up a bass finds every note in a familiar place.
Q 12In a typical band, the bassist and the drummer together form the core of which group of players?
The rhythm section
The rhythm section supplies a song's pulse and groove, and in reggae or funk a whole tune may be centred on what the bass is playing.
Q 13Which 1960s British rock trio teamed bassist Jack Bruce with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker?
Cream
Cream made its bassist the frontman: the three agreed early on that Jack Bruce would sing lead, and the band is widely called rock's first supergroup.
Q 21Which Weather Report bassist played a fretless Fender Jazz Bass that he called the Bass of Doom?
Jaco Pastorius
Jaco Pastorius got the bass when he was 21, and its bare fingerboard gave him the singing tone of his solos, chords and harmonics.
Q 22Which Sly and the Family Stone bassist is credited with inventing the slap technique?
Larry Graham
Larry Graham began thumping the strings to stand in for the drummer his mother dropped from her band, and he is the uncle of the rapper Drake.
Q 23Which member of The Who, nicknamed the Ox, played one of rock's first bass solos on My Generation?
John Entwistle
John Entwistle wanted a Danelectro for the solo, but its thin strings kept breaking, so he switched to his Fender and had to simplify the part.
Q 14Which punk figure replaced Glen Matlock as the bassist of the Sex Pistols?
Sid Vicious
Sid Vicious had no bass experience when he joined, so guitarist Steve Jones played most of the bass parts on the band's debut album.
Q 15Aston 'Family Man' Barrett was the bass-playing bandleader behind which Jamaican reggae star?
Bob Marley
Bob Marley left the song arrangements to Barrett, whose nickname came before he had any children; he is reported to have fathered 41.
Q 16John McVie's bass break in which Fleetwood Mac song became the BBC's Formula One theme tune?
The Chain
The Chain was pieced together from rejected fragments, and it is the only song credited to all five members of the Rumours line-up.
Q 17Louis Johnson tried every bass he owned before recording the bassline of which Michael Jackson hit?
Billie Jean
Billie Jean was finally cut on a Yamaha bass, even though the record's producer disliked the bassline and wanted the long introduction trimmed.
Q 18Roger Waters wrote the lopsided bass riff in 7/4 time that drives which Pink Floyd song?
Money
Money got its odd count because Waters felt it suited a bluesy feel, and the track opens with a loop of clinking coins and a ringing cash register.
Q 19Fender's first mass-produced electric bass guitar, launched in 1951, carries which model name?
Precision
The Precision was aimed at big-band players, yet it only took off once rock and roll and Motown arrived and guitarists found it easy to switch to.
Q 20Which member of Led Zeppelin played bass and keyboards after years as a London session arranger?
John Paul Jones
John Paul Jones had played on hundreds of recording sessions from 1964, and learned piano from his father, a big-band pianist and arranger.
Q 24Which Motown session bassist plucked nearly everything with one index finger, nicknamed the Hook?
James Jamerson
James Jamerson carried the one-finger habit over from the upright bass, and his playing on the label's hits went uncredited for most of his career.
Q 25Which Los Angeles session player took up bass in 1963 when a bassist missed a Capitol Records date?
Carol Kaye
Carol Kaye, until then a jazz guitarist, went on to play on an estimated 10,000 recordings as part of the studio circle known as the Wrecking Crew.
Q 26Which American maker built the 4001 bass played by Chris Squire of Yes and Lemmy of Motörhead?
Rickenbacker
Rickenbacker launched the 4001 in 1961 as a deluxe version of its earlier 4000 bass, whose neck ran the whole length of the body.
Q 27Which Music Man bass of 1976, co-designed by Leo Fender, came with an active preamp built in?
StingRay
The StingRay's circuit was drawn up by engineer Tom Walker to suit Leo Fender's own tastes, and it boosted an oversized humbucking pickup.
Q 28Which amp maker launched the 300-watt SVT bass head when few amps went beyond 100 watts?
Ampeg
Ampeg advised running the SVT through two cabinets of eight ten-inch speakers each, because a single cabinet could not take the power.
Q 29Which adjustable steel part, hidden inside the neck of a bass, counters the pull of the strings?
Truss rod
A truss rod keeps the neck straight as string tension and the weather try to bend it; a Gibson employee applied for the first patent in 1921.
Q 30Ned Steinberger's 1979 basses, moulded from graphite and carbon fibre, did away with which usual part?
The headstock
The headstock was dropped to shed unbalanced weight, so the tuners moved to the other end, mounted on a tailpiece on the face of the body.