[QUOTE=The Sonoran Lizard King]
Roy Orbison?
And ummm… Tommy?
[/QUOTE]
Roy Orbison had poor eyesight, but he wasn’t blind.
[QUOTE=KayElCee]
Roy Orbison had poor eyesight, but he wasn’t blind.
[/QUOTE]
Ignorance (mine) fought. Thank you.
:smack:
I suppose next someone’s going to tell me Tommy was a Pinball Wizard, not a Rock Star.
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus]
(BTW having played both guitar and piano, I have always found guitar substantially easier to play without using my eyes, but that’s probably just me.)
[/QUOTE]
I can play piano with my eyes closed and only occasionally looking, but on guitar I need to look at it frequently. I mean when playing complex leads and stuff, not strumming basic chords, I don’t need to look at those.
[QUOTE=pool]
I think you are just uninformed, the tradition of blind musicians goes back hundreds of years. A good example is in the Ukraine with its blind bandura players. Blind musicians - Wikipedia
[/QUOTE]
Good point, but even then I think the “limited options” theory comes into play. Blind people don’t have a lot of good choices for gainful employment. It’s true today, and it was certainly true in the Middle Ages.
[QUOTE=mack]
And to state the blindingly obvious, being an accomplished classical musician requires the ability to read music.
[/QUOTE]
Andrea Vocelli’s pretty accomplished, although not as an instrumentalist.
There was a heart-warming story on the Today show a year or two ago about a blind, autistic classical piano prodigy, so your statement isn’t exactly absolute.
[QUOTE=mack]
And to state the blindingly obvious, being an accomplished classical musician requires the ability to read music.
[/QUOTE]
Thomas Wiggins (1849-1908), born a slave, had a vocabulary of about 100 words. Billed as “Blind Tom,” he also had a unique ability. If he heard a piece of classical music played once, he could reproduce it perfectly at the piano.
[QUOTE=Johanna]
Thomas Wiggins (1849-1908), born a slave, had a vocabulary of about 100 words. Billed as “Blind Tom,” he also had a unique ability. If he heard a piece of classical music played once, he could reproduce it perfectly at the piano.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, that’s nice, I’ll bet you eleventy billion dollars US he couldn’t.
[QUOTE=Operation Ripper]
Yeah, that’s nice, I’ll bet you eleventy billion dollars US he couldn’t.
[/QUOTE]
We’re talking Rain Man-type brilliance, so bets should be limited to about a hundred dollars.
I was going to guess that it was because all the blind race car drivers and jet pilots were killed off somehow…
Yeah I completely agree, if you read the article I linked to it mentions the same thing.
Ask Mark Twain, who heard Blind Tom play and wrote about it in 1869. Mark Twain - "Crown Prince of Timbuctoo"
[QUOTE=Krokodil]
There was a heart-warming story on the Today show a year or two ago about a blind, autistic classical piano prodigy, so your statement isn’t exactly absolute.
[/QUOTE]
She’s certainly a rare case, though. (This might not be the same girl you’re thinking of, but I’m guessing it is.)
[QUOTE=Marley23]
She’s certainly a rare case, though. (This might not be the same girl you’re thinking of, but I’m guessing it is.)
[/QUOTE]
And I just assumed that Krokodil was talking about this guy.