Lights, fret dots and 'The Force'...

[dirkdabass]

I made a conscious decision a decade ago to STOP STAREING AT MY LEFT HAND. I started to practice in the dark, then, started playing with my eyes closed at gigs. I guess it worked. Now my current band mates bitch at me because they can't make eye contact with me. I'm embarassed but, in my defense, I do have good ears. I'm struggleing to gig with my eyes open and I AM getting better at it. So, fret dots? Not so much.

 

[kcole4001]

That's one reason I like the big honkin' inlays in a rosewood 'board.
If I gotta look to see where I'm going, I can see those just fine even in the dark.
Dots, not so much.

 

[Gearhead17]

I bought glow-in-the-dark fishing tape. 3 bucks for 3 strips I have yet to run out of in years, even when it does not glow, the Swiss coffee white it puts off is easy to see. When the lights go down, they glow. I rely on them in darker situations, but lately my muscle memory has been getting much better.

 

[trkelley]

My main bass is a long-scale unlined fretless 5. My hand knows where everything is just from time and muscle memory, but i take a peek if I'm hitting something above the octave dot. But when I switch over to my various short-scale basses, I do have to look, frets and all.

 

[SevenJacks]

Well after I posted this and you guys gave me some suggestions, I've been practicing without looking. I have surprised myself with how much muscle memory I have developed

 

[Gearhead17]

Well after I posted this and you guys gave me some suggestions, I've been practicing without looking. I have surprised myself with how much muscle memory I have developed

Good job! If you want to keep improving, start playing in the dark. Play a song you know and go by what your ears say. Good for ear training and for muscle memory.....I probably should go do that now!

 

[rtslinger]

We have stage lighting and lasers not to mention a fog machine so I am in sunglasses for the entire show I rely on my knowledge of the fret board and hand placement to get me through it. Not to mention when I am in the groove 99% of the time my eyes are closed anyway.
Maybe you can get hold of those glow in the dark markers or paint and paint your fret markers this may help.

 

[Gadgetjunky]

I guess if you stand in one spot, don't move around or play in one section of the neck you can play your neck without looking at it. But I move around a bunch and although I play a majority of the time not looking at the neck there are times you need to see where you are - it just happens. We have lots of lights and pyro-foggers that burst thick clouds of smoke from under us then quicly disappears. I find that the All-Red light scenes totally make my factory fret dots blend right into the fretboard.

Solution: FretFx as mentioned already in the thread. I don't even feel it, I've had them for about a year and I'm only on my second battery. I do have to put some tape over the battery or it comes out when I get really crazy. And they are not very expensive IMO.

 

[AmieLouHat]

I play fretless and I only depend on the fret dots when I've been playing 1.5 semi-tones sharp for half of the last song and realize something sounds off.

 

[Razman]

Muscle memory is great and builds with time, glow-in-the-dark dots regardless of where they came from or how they are made are OK, but after struggling to start out in front of 750+ kids in a youth conference far from home (with adrenaline pumping, excitement and all that) because their lights were erratically flashing LED bars I decided to find a solution.

While I haven't purchased them yet, as soon as the disposable income frees up to do so I'm getting FretFX for my bass.

 

[PerlNinja]

I was going to get some FretFX for the bling factor but then I took an arro...oh wait wrong meme.

I was going to get some FretFX for the bling factor but then I noticed that while their payment form might be handled over SSL (encrypted), it basically sends your CC info to them over email which is about as stupid as it gets unless they PGP encrypt these mails. I doubt it, though, so now your CC number and all it's details are floating around in plaintext. And on the guys' email app, most likely. Visa would kill em for that.

 

[mellowinman]

I am a strong proponent of learning to play by feel.

Am I perfect?

Magic Eight Ball says, "NO."

But I do all right. I can glance down and see well enough to know "even" and "odd" frets, and that's all I really need.

But I have good vision.

I will never have LED's on my neck.

Well, not on the instrument's neck, anyway.

I might try them on MY neck.

 

[Qlanq]

When I was learning/inexperienced I noticed that I was looking at my left hand a lot. The second band I was in had me doing backing vocals- that cured it a lot, doing two things at the same time didn't leave much space for hand watching.
After a year or so I got a set of bass pedals, doing three things at the same got a lot easier with practice.
But it does get easier with practice. Another thing I had to do was only ever play my bass standing up, I wouldn't be gigging sitting down and as I'm a real short-arse the bass wouldn't be in the same place with me sat down as opposed to standing.

 

[Sumtingwong]

There are times when I just can't see what the hell is going on down there in fret land. I invariably get the big, red uber-can right over my head or shoulder, and at 6'4", if I'm not getting baked, I'm getting blinded.

Usually I need to look down while playing the upper fretboard, and the lightguy chooses that exact moment to flood the stage with red. Red makes my fret dots vanish. It also doesn't help that I need reading glasses to see anything under 4 ft away.
Playing two different scale basses doesn't help much either.

 

[SevenJacks]

We went back and played the same place, last night, that precipitated this post in the first place.
I was ready for the lights and I had been practicing without looking down more and more. The only issues the whole night for me were missed notes because I had forgotten the progressions in some songs, not because I was lost on the neck. So yay!