Rachel Starritt and Ethan Loch are two remarkable young pianists who were born blind. Unlike sighted pianists, they can’t rely on the support and security of a printed score, let alone the ability to visualise a piano’s 88 notes. Instead, they have each developed strategies that enable them to play the piano confidently, musically and with unfailing accuracy. It’s in the nature of humans to learn from our experiences and those of others – so what, I wonder, can we learn from these two talented pianists that might benefit our own approaches to the instrument?
Here, as was explained to me by Jay Pocknall and Daisy Higman, music support officers at the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and, in their spare time, practising musicians, we need to avoid falling into the trap of stereotyping blind and partially sighted people. For example, a common misconception is that their remaining senses become superpowerful in order to compensate. They don’t, necessarily. In any case, sight loss may not be the only condition a person has while in some cases, it may originate in the brain, which controls all of our senses.
However, they agreed that, as we know, practising a skill
