I recently experienced a medical event that resulted in loosing a small part of my vision in one eye. It made me wonder if I would be able to continue playing/learning should my vision become more limited. Does anyone know of blind bass players or have limited vision themselves. If so - how does one proceed with playing and learning?
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I had serious vision problems a few years back…legally blind.
Bought an led strip from FretFX…a real lifesaver.
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Don’t know much about him but BassTHeWorld’s YT channel regularily features a blind bassist - Johann Bonitz.
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That is very cool. I think it might just help those of us that are also just fret board challenged.
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Last February I had my vision seriously impaired that lasted about 6 months till I mostly recovered. I was not able to use both my eyes in a proper manner, reading and focusing was really bad for music. While I was not adding any new songs to the setlist it I was able to practice and resume my gigs. I just don’t look at the fingerboard while playing.
My listening skills were off the chart when the other sense was taken away. You should focus on that for now and going forward.
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These came in the mail today. I don’t focus on the board but it can’t hurt to give them a try. They were still glowing over an hour later. Ali Express had some guitars with LED fretboards which looked cool but it is not something I would pursue.
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I think I would work on my ear. You can fairly easily learn your way around the bass without vision, but is sounds like learning new music from tab or standard notation might become impossible in the future. So I would work on your ear now, try learning new pieces just by listening to them.
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Some great info. Thanks. I checked out Johann Bonitz playing. Nothing is impossible. I like the idea of hearing more acutely. Going through the course for the second time, I realize there are things I may never accomplish due to brain and body age 
. I have decided to focus a bit more on playing by ear as part of the exercises. I know a few bar band bass players play more by ear than reading and they seem to do it well.
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I tried glow in the dark nail polish but that was too chunky-I used the glow in the dark dots or tape also-mostly because I occasionally play in the dark or around a fire.
Not always needed but good to have.
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Where did you get those from? I just put these on my ibanez. Not a very clean application but they work well. No doubles on 12. Sharpie will fix that. Hmm, cannot post pics.
Glow dots are available on Amazon.
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