Why do bass guitars even exist?

Why do bass guitars even exist? Why not just use an electric guitar and just use the lowest four notes?

This has been answered pretty well on Quora but I wanted to add my two cents.

A while ago, a friend was kind enough to loan me (thanks Chuck!) a Schecter Diamond Series (pictured here) electric bass.

I have been playing guitar for most of my life but this thing is just magical. You have to listen so much more closely when playing bass than guitar, I think partly because of all the frequencies under your hand. It seems like so much more is available than on a guitar string, typically.

You’ll hear “start with the 1 and 5” and that works fine but if you listen to a bassist who really knows the neck, they carve up chords like a horn player. You could spend a LOT of time getting this under control. It’s really only nominally a guitar if you think about it, in the same way that a ukulele is, imho.

I hope this is helpful and I highly recommend, if you’re a guitar player, putting your hands on a bass guitar if you get the chance. Or even if you’re not a guitar player!