Jammin' with a blind guy

I am fairly new to music and haven't really had the opportunity to play with alot of musicians, but I have recently reconnected with a former high school friend who has played guitar for 20 plus years! He bacame blind 17 years ago after a horrible accident with a shotgun while high on PCP, anyway the guy has really got some seriously bluesy music he has written and I am looking forward to playing with him. I would be curious to know if anybody on here has any experience with playing with a blind musician!

Close your eyes and listen, that's what he will be doing I imagine.

Good idea: Take his cues.

Bad idea: Give him cues.

I have a feeling this thread is going to make me laugh for ALL the wrong reasons...

I played a circuit of shows with a well known crooner here in NZ a few years back, he is blind.

His ear was very sharp and he was able to direct the band amazingly well. His on stage performance was top notch.

We always had to make sure there were no cables lying around on stage or other obstacles, as he often moved around the stage during a show.

It was good fun.

There's a guy here in the islands who is totally blind, but plays guitar, ukulele, keyboards and...get this....drums! And not just simple beats. This guy wails on the drumset. It's amazing. He is guided to the throne, then feels where each drum and cymbal is, then starts going. Every now and then, he will re-check where everything is.

Amazing!

there's a blind jazz drummer in houston that's fantastic

Think of all the pranks you could pull off.

Much easier to jam with a blind guy than a deaf one.

...anybody remember Jeff Healey this guy is that good, and can sing too, I can see where it would be drag from a gigging standpoint. I mean you would have to do all the driving and all the setup and teardown, but I am ready to get some experience with some other musicians. Anytime I've ever played with anyone my learning curve shoots up exponentially!

I'm sure we have all done some seriuosly stupid {censored} in our lifetime that could have turned out tragically! The dude was a 17 year old kid and the accident probably saved his life in the long run.

I play with my eyes closed a lot when I'm groovin'. Between that and sweat in my eyes, I'm blind most of the time I'm playing

my advice: have fun!

I heard Jeff Healy was a bad driver:lol:

At least he didn't hurt someone else. Self inflicted injuries are excusable, inflicting injuries on others.... not so.

Sounds like it would be fun to catch up with him though, let us know how your jam goes!

I played a few gigs w/ a bad that had a blind keyboard player (sang too) , they had a "helper" for the dude who was also the trumpet player , that guy had his hands full but made every gig work. An acquaintance of mine did a few sit in gigs and in the end got all bitchy about the various extra work , then spent weeks feeling like an asshole for bitching about his problems to a blind musician and the band that had been doing it for years.

Shotgun and PCP? That's like right out of an after school special. Heavy.

grew up in Louisville a few blocks down from the American Printinghouse (and a school for the blind)

so yeah, there was a cluster of blind people in the area

It's actually kind of neat - one thing you can't really do is rely on silent gestures (a nod, cutting a fermata, etc) so you have to imply that (cues) aurally in the phrasing - it's not that different than building a rapport with a sighted musician except you don't have the gestural crutch, so it kind of magnifies that

sight reading is, of course, out - but I take it that the type of music you are doing isn't so heavy on that anyway.

BUT it's also kind of neat b/c blind guys get used to using memory so that's not a problem and you might find yourself (verbally) "charting" ( the basic outline - the changes, say, without extended harmony - and for expedience it's not like you can't discuss extended harmony) and then filling the rest aurally [at performance time, depending on style]

It sounds like you guys are looking at blues - which is nice in that it has a pretty well defined trad form, but is loose "on the top" (has lots of room for improvisation/interpretation without tripping over tight voice leading and such)

I heard Jeff Healy was a bad driver:lol:

i heard jeff healey was dead. that's worse than blind.

I've played with a couple of blind keyboard players. The only thing is you can't do hand signals and make eye contact etc. But I can really see no downside. Go for it and have some fun.