Blind to the facts

Recent research conducted by Professor Ockelford, a former Director of Education at the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and visiting research fellow at the Institute of Education, London, with Christina Matawa of the Wandsworth Visual Impairment Specialist Teaching Service, shows that young blind children – including those with learning difficulties and autism – are likely to have a greater fascination and interest in music than those with full or even partial sight. Children who have lost their sight because they were born prematurely, are around 4,000 times more likely than sighted youngsters to develop exceptional musical abilities such as perfect pitch.

What are the factors that are impeding the progress of these talented children in a field where they should excel as adults? This is the question that blind musician Baluji Shrivastav investigated when he established Inner Vision Music Company. Shrivastav was born in India, which a blind population of at least 16 million in a country with no national health service and very basic welfare provision. Although the quality of life in the UK is incomparable to that which he experienced in India as a blind person, he found there are still many barriers to overcome. Consequently Inner Vision Music Company commissioned a report called ‘Blind to the Facts’, an exploration of the needs of blind and visually impaired musicians in the UK, which was supported by The Platinum Trust and RNIB. As a result, several recommendations were made for initiatives which could support blind and visually impaired musicians.
One of these was “to organise concerts which will give visually impaired musicians the chance to play in public and to earn money”. This is the inspiration behind the Inner Vision Orchestra, a collection of musicians from different genres. Some of them are professional and some community based, and there is an emerging youth section. The idea is to focus attention on the achievements of visually impaired musicians and to create a working environment which is supportive to their needs. Inner Vision Orchestra can serve as a platform and attract more opportunities for employment.

In January, Baluji Music Foundation put on an Inner Vision concert with the support of the British Council, as part of the British Council’s UK-India Connecting Cultures initiative. The project took place over 10 days and involved 12 totally blind musicians from Kanpur. Baluji encouraged them to develop the programme themselves and also to speak out for themselves – which they did at a press conference at Kanpur Press Club. It was the first time such an event has taken place, where blind musicians in India have designed and delivered the event with minimum involvement from sighted people. Two musicians were immediately offered more work as a result of the exposure. Clips of the project are on YouTube under Baluji Music Foundation and British Council.

Blind and visually impaired musicians need opportunities to perform at well-publicised events, so that young talent can be nurtured into viable careers. If blind musicians were engaged in the infrastructure of the music industry it would create more roles for them to contribute their abilities.