Maybe this is just a sign of working in a technical field for too long, but my mind always jumps to counterexamples first. So I was surprised they didn't even acknowledge the existence of blind musicians.
Classical musicians need to sightread, so that pretty much excludes the blind.
Pop is a different field. Bands are more manageable because the individuals all have separate lines and are supposed to be listening to each other. Which is how blind musicians like Stevie Wonder signal changes through their playing rather than through eye contact.
In an orchestra you have entire sections of somewhere-between-6-and-24-more-or-less people all trying to play the same lines while facing in the same direction, while another section plays something else next to them and/or behind them.
Classical musicians need to sightread, so that pretty much excludes the blind.
Yes and no. I agree that it's very difficult for classical musicians who are completely blind, but there are talented musicians who are legally blind and make use of assistive technology. I know an oboist who plays very well in orchestra despite only being able to see two or three bars of sheet music at a time.
Bands are more manageable because the individuals all have separate lines and are supposed to be listening to each other.
I think the issue is the other way around really. Yes, the musicians in a band all have separate lines, but it's all very coherent -- a melody and some harmony. In symphonic music you might have 24 violinists all playing the same notes, but that's the easy part -- the hard part (and where you really need a conductor) is when one melody is bouncing between the 1st and 2nd violins (with supporting harmonies in the lower strings) while a counter melody is being played by the clarinets and French horns and the trumpets are furiously counting 57 bars of rest before they interrupt in 3/4 time.
When I directed the local univeristy basketball team's pep band for a time we had a blind musician. All he needed was a recording of his part done on any instrument (which took me under 5 minutes to prepare per song) to participate fully. He was even able to take auditory cues for things like signaling an early cutoff. I don't remember him carrying over once.
Pop is a different field. Bands are more manageable because the individuals all have separate lines and are supposed to be listening to each other. Which is how blind musicians like Stevie Wonder signal changes through their playing rather than through eye contact.
In an orchestra you have entire sections of somewhere-between-6-and-24-more-or-less people all trying to play the same lines while facing in the same direction, while another section plays something else next to them and/or behind them.
Keeping everyone together is a harder problem.