How do I teach a blind kid to play bass?

[Deedeevicious]

Two sessions with Adam so far. He was super excited when I came upstairs and put the bass in his hands.

My bass is way too big for him for me to teach him any technique. But I taught him all the features of the instrument: volume knob, tone knob, etc. He knows where they are and can reach for them himself so he can alter the sound as he chooses

He just likes to sit with the bass on its side in his lap and pull on the strings making crazy sounds. He can do that for hours. Thats fine by me, im happy he has another outlet.

[gorskkr]

Originally Posted by Deedeevicious

Hey everybody,

How do I go about teaching him? What is the first thing I should teach him? Any advice or help is appreciated.

Thanks! I think this might be the best thing I will ever do in my life. This kid has more musical talent in his finger than I have in my entire body.

I'm just learning the bass and I found this site to be incredibly helpful: studybass.com

I've played guitar forever, and similar to you, had little to no music theory knowledge. I've learned a lot from this site about bass playing and music theory, and it explains it in a very user friendly way.

So to answer your question, go to that site and look through the lessons and then teach that boy. I have a feeling that boy is gonna love the bass even more considering def people hear those low notes very well. So go to that site, learn, and teach and have a lot of positive karma come back your way my friend.

[lowdown3]

You would think if he is blind his ears are tuned that much better that mine or yours...Being that he plays Piano and its the same note as a guitar / Bass he should be able to here the notes.I had a 8th grade teacher that was blind since birth and he played Jazz on guitar and ripped it up..I asked him one time how he did it and he said that his ears are tuned alot different that mine.

[msaone]

If he's 7-8 and good at piano, just give him the bass to screw around with. He'll figure it out.