Many people are suprised to see an upright bass being bowed. They ask, "Is that a cello?" But contrabass, like cello, viola and violin, is designed for the bow. Contrabass strings are about the same thickness and are tuned to the same pitch as bass guitar strings. However, the contrabass bridge-to-nut scale is longer than that of bass guitar. This makes contrabass strings higher tension than bass guitar strings and thus makes them easier to bow.

Early in the recording era, especially before the 1920's, if upright bass was heard at all, it was being bowed. The thump-thump of pizzicato playing was not tonally distinct enough when captured by early acoustic-mechanical recording equipment.

Early jazz players bowed extensively, notably Jimmy Blanton, one of the primary originators of jazz upright bass style. As recording techniques improved and jazz style solidified, the insistence of the bowed-bass sound yielded to the smoothness of an increasingly sophisticated pizzicato technique.

Bowed cello appears often in post-jazz-era pop, but not much bowed bass.

Bowed bass can add a lot to pop arrangements. In pop/jazz performance, try bowing at every opportunity to add depth to the arragement thereby.

I started off bowing bass in the underhand-grip German/Butler style. A mixture of peer pressure and curiousity sent me off on a overhand-grip French-style bowing experiment for three years, but when recently my two French bows both needed some work and the archetier was out of town on business, I went with the flow, grabbed my German bow and kept practicing.

German is such a confortable grip and feels so natural.  I feel like I'm home.