How someone with no vision can play like this astounds me.

I am not sure that music is just a visual exercise of notes. I think that a lot of folks play for the feeling of it, and the actual experience of the energy of the co-ordination of the notes and what not, and specially, how they co-ordinate to one's intense inner feel.

I find your comment strange ... despite knowing how many well known musicians have been blind, and still created fabulous music that we remember so well ... shall we try Ray Charles? How about Stevie Wonder? ...how many more examples do you need to know that music requires no SIGHT to be played, learned and enjoyed?

The one thing that is strange to me, and that is just a mental exercise, is how a DEAF person can create music ... and all I can come up with is that the other 4 senses pick up the percentage missing and provide a feel for it that we can not describe very well. The School for the Deaf here in Vancouver has a lot of music shows with the kids playing and dancing to it ... and I doubt that it is just the bass boom that they feel. See what I mean?

Rachel, possibly, is too young at this time to actually be able to word how she remembers and plays so much and learns so fast and so far, compared to our imaginations ... but that maybe a very simple factor of her being "blind" which cuts down a lot of things for her to do, thus allowing time and space for other things, and in her case, music, which no doubt she is an excellent listener and capable of dis-assembling it in so many parts and then come around to play it ... just remembering how the sounds came and existed, is probably a factor of memory and in learning any instrument ... we don't have that (this is my idea!) simply because we are too concerned with notes and chords, in order to concentrate on the feel of each and every note, the continuity of which is what defines "music" ... not the definition of each and every note. You created it, by humming, not playing with notes, so to speak. The humming part is way easier to remember and feel, than just speaking notes and thinking that notes dominate music. 

Dave might feel differently, but I am pretty sure he has a very good feel for the "humm" part of things, specially in experimental instruments, in creating his music.

Love her