Early vision loss leads to keener hearing.

It is no coincidence that so many piano-tuners are blind. Folklore says their lack of sight gives them acute hearing, ideally suited to the task. Now neuroscientists in Canada have shown that the sightless really do hear notes more precisely if they went blind when they were very young.

The idea that blindness can aid musical development is an old one, says Robert Zatorre of McGill University in Montreal, a member of the study team. Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, who both lost their sight at an early age, were among the twentieth century's most influential musicians. [continued]