My First Bass Guitar

Music has always been a big part of my life. I come from a fairly musical family; my mom sings and plays piano and violin, my sisters play cello and viola, my brother plays piano, and I play bass guitar. I started off in the school orchestra in third grade where I played viola. I was not enjoying it. The next year I switched to upright bass, and that was a lot more fun, however it just wasn't working. I didn't have the drive to spend time learning all of the boring music we played. It was a fun instrument, but in middle school the songs we played weren't the most exciting for a bass player; not to mention the bass rental was expensive. In 8th grade, I left the orchestra. On my birthday, my parents handed me a printout of a craigslist post. Someone was selling a bass guitar, and they were going to buy it for me. This was the beginning of it all.
I always thought those Gibson arch-top guitars were the absolute coolest thing in the world, so when this guy showed me two basses to choose from, I played them (with my minimal knowledge of the instrument I probably played "Smoke on the Water") but I had already made up my mind.

My First Bass Guitar

It's an Ibanez Artcore AFB200 hollow-body bass. I put flat wound strings on it and it has this fantastic acoustic sound. There are a few other Ibanez hollow-body basses, but from what I've seen, mine has a deeper body, and a floating bridge. I'm pretty sure all of the Artcore basses are short scale meaning from the saddle to the nut is 30" where on your average bass guitar it will be 34" and a guitar is generally 25". One of the best things about this bass is that you can play it acoustic. If you were to play it alongside other musicians unplugged, it would get lost in the mix; however, when you have an acoustic instrument, you will find yourself playing it more because there's no hassle of setting everything up; you can literally just pick it up and play. It doesn't seem like a lot, but you will get a lot more practice in if you picked it up and played it for five minutes a day, than if you were to say "I don't have time".