BASS, in music, that part of a concert which is most heard, which consists of the gravest and deepest sounds, and which is played on the largest pipes or strings of a common instrument, as of an organ, lute, &c. or on instruments larger than ordinary, for that purpose, as bass-viol, bassoons, bass-hautboys, &c. The bass is the principal part of a musical composition, and the foundation of harmony; for which reason it is a ma-
xim among musicians. That when the bass is good, the harmony is seldom bad.
Thorough-Bass is the harmony made by the bass-viol, or theorbos, continuing to play both while the voices sing, and the other instruments perform their parts, and also filling up the intervals when any of the other parts stop. It is played by cyphers marked over the notes, on the organ, spinet, harpsicord, &c. and frequently simply and without cyphers on the bass-viol and bassoon.
Counter-Bass is a second or double bass, where there are several in the same concert.
Bass, in geography, a steep rock, with an old fort, accessible only at one place, lying on the coast of E. Lothain in Scotland, at the mouth of the frith of Forth.