# Blind Classical Musicians?



## NoCoPilot

There are a number of blind jazz and blues and pop musicians, but one rarely hears about blind classical musicians. Are braille scores unheard of?


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## Krummhorn

Several in the organ world: Helmut Walcha, Jean Langlais. 

Indeed there are Braille Music scores. The usual process is to learn/memorize short sections, first with the right hand, then the left, if an organist there is also the pedalboard to learn (large keys played by each foot). Oddly enough this is also a good way for a sighted person to learn a new work ... well, it was the way I was taught back in the 60's. 

Repetition comes into play as well ... Blind musicians can also pick up tunes by ear and memorize by listening over and over again. Interestingly this is also the same manner that is used by sighted musicians! 

Then, it's practice, practice, practice, then more practice, lots of practice, and when you think you are done practicing, then practice some more. 

Amateur musicians keep practicing until they get all the notes right ... Professional musicians practice until they can't get all the notes wrong!


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## Enthalpy

I learned the flute (as my 4th instrument) without any notes, despite seeing well. I just played the music I heard or had in mind. So seeing isn't necessary to learn the instrument. Playing by ear is just an ability that you train. You memorize the music faster too if you don't have the notes under the eyes.

Being blind would be difficult in an orchestra, where musicians must play the score at first sight. Scores use to be extremely easy technically, so no-one has nor takes time to practice a piece. All time goes into playing together as the conductor wants. Also, individual voices are often inaudible in an orchestral piece, so a blind musician couldn't learn a piece by hearing it, and he would need someone to play the notes for him, or some (presently imperfect) software. Learning by memory would also take long to a blind musician while his colleagues just play the notes immediately. So the economic model isn't working to my opinion.

Though, jazz big bands in the 40's to 60's had many musicians who didn't know to read the notes, so somehow it's possible. Same for Gipsy orchestras some time ago, but they used to play a more limited repertoire, and always by memory.

As a soloist, no worry.


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## mbhaub

Intererestingly, Braille himself was an organist! And there were lots of other blind organists: from Wikipedia.

There is a long tradition of blind organists, including Louis Braille himself. In the 20th century some of the greatest organists were blind, including the great German Bach scholar and teacher Helmut Walcha (1907–1991), and a number of prominent French organists and composers for the organ including Louis Vierne (1870–1937), Andre Marchal (1894–1980), Gaston Litaize (1909–1991), and Jean Langlais (1907–1991), as well as one of the current organists at Notre Dame de Paris, Jean-Pierre Leguay (b. 1939). England has also produced brilliant blind organists in the 19th and 20th centuries, including Alfred Hollins (1865–1942) and David A. Liddle (b. 1960), who was a student of Marchal and who currently enjoys an international performing career. Yet it is a tradition which goes back centuries: 14th-century Italian Francesco Landini (?–1397), Spanish baroque master Antonio de Cabezon (1510–1566) and the Englishmen John Stanley (1712–1786) are prominent examples, and one could argue that even Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frederic Handel, who lost their sight late in life but presumably continued to play and compose, should be included in this discussion, along with the great American popular organist George Wright (1920–1998), who likewise lost his sight late in life but continued to present concerts and make sound recordings until his death. Blind composer Frances McCollin (1892–1960) won the Clemson Prize from the American Guild of Organists in 1918. She studied organ with another blind musician, David Duffield Wood (1838–1910), the organist at Philadelphia's St. Stephen's Episcopal Church for many years.[12]

The Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo was blind. Not a musician, but my mathematical hero was also blind: Leonard Euler.


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## RICK RIEKERT

Blind English lutenist Matthew Wadsworth received the London Student of the Year award in 1997, in recognition of his work on the development of Braille lute tablature.

Other blind lute players from earlier times who must have relied on dictation to an amanuensis include Conrad Paumann, Giacomo Gorzanis, Jehan Ferrandes, and Jehan de Cordoval.


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## marlow

*Arthur Emil Helmut Walcha* (27 October 1907 – 11 August 1991) was a German organist, harpsichordist, music teacher and composer who specialized in the works of the Dutch and German baroque masters.
Blind since his teenage years, from reaction to a smallpox vaccination, he is known for his recordings of the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach, entirely played by memory.


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## Enthalpy

Not only organists. If you check paintings from the Renaissance and before, many musicians were blind. This was one profession accessible without seeing. More so because music was less written then.


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## Tero

While Rachel Flowers can memorize enormous Keith Emerson keyboard parts, she has gone as you can using computers to sort out the music.
Sample of the Emerson music




Rachel movie trailer


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## Tero

She plays a variety of instruments. I don't know how they arrange for her. She records music from the keyboard, including a percussion program, the only kind of instrument she does not play.





Close to classical sound. Sorry for the poor recording sound.


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## marlow

Bernard d’Ascoli is a blind concert pianist who competed at Leeds


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## marlow

Helmet Walcha on Bach






played the whole of Bach’s organ works unsighted!


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## Ludwig Schon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Ó_Raifteiri


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## NoCoPilot

Tero said:


> Close to classical sound. Sorry for the poor recording sound.


Remarkable. Despite the poor camerawork (mobile phone?), despite the poor recording, Rachel's unbridled love for Keith's music is heartwarming.


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## Rogerx

Andrea Bocelli made a fortune with it......


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## CnC Bartok

Delius was, I believe, fully blind for the last few years of his life? Rodrigo went blind when he was a really young boy.


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