I position the neck much the same - so that the first few notes are out of sight. I've found that helps with vibrato given I have short arms. As for tuning - look as much as you need, IMO. I still look at the dots on my electric basses, and that's after 20 years of playing those The attitude of 'Real men don't need dots' is bull. Maybe it's true - or maybe real men just don't play some of the same, horrible sounding rooms I do, with the noisiest, bass-heavy, ham-fisted piano players.
Visual references are great, IMO -and then after a while you'll develop a physical relation to notes with your fingers: ie, if A is under your first finger, then A# must be under your middle finger and B must be under your pinkie.