How do I stop staring at my fretting fingers?

[Gio]

@akos

Am I supposed to “feel out” the frets with my fingertips? I can’t feel anything, especially on the E and A strings. Or just practice a lot and eventually muscle-memorize the distances?

Hail @akos!
Thanks for bringing this up.
I have to link to this, because it has Star Wars references:

Help! I can't see the strings!

@bobzak and everyone else, honestly this is one of the trickiest postural things to help with without being actually in the room with a student. If this helps at all: First of all, I don’t look at the neck super often, like @PamPurrs is working on BUT, when I do need to see all the strings for more “ambitious” playing (i.e. the kind hardly anyone ever needs to do on a gig), I do turn my head to the left and then tilt it down approx 1-2 inches. That seems to be plenty of movement for me, and my…

Some of the things that will allow you to play without looking are:
Tons of practice, so that you have as much confidence in the physical movement as you do the visual-led movement.
This happens with solid, repetitive, predictable, and logical fingering exercises, or patterns, or choices for songs and passages.
You want your musical brain and memory to eventually live in your fingers. It’s fine to use your eyes during the process, but check yourself at intervals to see if you can predict the movement without your eyes.

… which brings us to point number 2, and a big one it is (see the Yoda thing there? Back to Star Wars?):
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, and - (here’s the real secret sauce) - don’t let a mistake derail you.
When you play without looking, it’s real easy to hit the wrong stuff.
But - making mistakes is part of playing. Learning to move through mistakes and maintain confidence and calm and your place in the music might be the single most valuable survival bass skill there is.
Practicing without looking (whether you want to look at sheet music, watch a movie while noodling, make eye contact with other musicians or cute audience members, catch the eye of the sound person because they accidentally turned the terrible singer’s vocals up in your monitor, etc, etc) is a great goal.
And you’ll make mistakes.
The constant and focused physical practice will help minimize the mistakes.
BUT - when the mistakes happen, keep calm and play the next right note. That’s the big one. Don’t let the momentary mistake disrupt the flow and train wreck the whole piece!