A life-long love of low frequencies has brought me much enjoyment in a variety of ways. I've always had a penchant for the bass guitar. This fondness has stayed with me for the better part of the last 33 years, believe it or not. Just think of it: I've loved the bass guitar longer than most of you have been alive.
Within my life, the 5-string bass has been developed/invented and grown in popularity. In the earlier part of my life, the 5-string would have been impractical. There was little or no sound equipment that could render its tones well, as the tonal range of the time was somewhat narrower. The open B on the 5-string vibrates at 30.87 hz, whereas the open E, 4th string on this and most other bass guitars, vibrates at 41.20 hz. The frequency response of older stereo/hi-fi systems would have most likely rendered anything as low as 30.87 as distortion, or at least the stereo equipment I used would have. Audiophiles of the time may have had better experiences.
The human ear can distinguish sounds generally in the 20hz-20khz range, so the 5-string is well within that range, but does tend toward the lower limits. Sounds below 20hz are called infrasound.
Infrasound is a cool phenomenon. Sounds in the upper infrasound range most often cannot be heard, but can often be felt. Since they are unheard, the sound waves that are felt are sometimes attributed to other things, very often to supernatural events, believe it or not. Infrasound can create feelings of unease, nervousness, fear or awe in the unsuspecting. Infrasound has been used in some film soundtracks to create such feelings intentionally. Infrasound can also have physiological effects, too, in some cases causing breathing difficulty or digestive problems. Then there is also the fabled "brown note", which is supposedly a frequency which creates a resonance that can cause a person to have an involuntary bowel movement. Recent research has more or less proven the "brown note" notion to be mythical, not factual.
Low frequencies can do a number on a fellow, though, even within the hearable spectrum. I was at a concert once, on the floor not too far from the stage. The bass player of this particular band would play a particular note on this one song over several measures. This note created a resonance in this venue that was transferred to my insides. The feeling, one of a very noticeable pressure on my guts, was super freaky weird. Yet I still didn't experience the feeling that my body was out of control. Thankfully.
A love of lower frequencies does not make me a universal appreciator, though. When some bozo pulls up next to me at a stoplight, and his subwoofers are pumping unwelcome sound waves out of his car and into mine, I am inspired to perform violent acts, not to appreciate his offering. In the old days, people my age would try to do this but would only succeed in creating an unbearably loud noise with their stereos, almost all of it grossly distorted. Technical advances in stereo design have both blessings and curses, I suppose.
For a while, I had in my possession a Rickenbacker 4003 bass guitar, a Mesa Boogie Buster 200 watt amp, and a Mesa Boogie Diesel 2-10 speaker cabinet. When a friend of mine would come over and we would be playing, I noticed that when I played an F (first fret on the E-string), even at normal volumes, it would create a resonance in the room that would cause things to shake and fall off of shelves. It was awesome.
To me, the best application of the bass in music is this: it must be heard and felt.
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