Last night at the Academy Awards, a silent film won best picture. Michel Hazanavicius's The Artist, a movie about silent film star George Valentin, is itself a classic silent film—for the most part, it has no sound effects or dialogue, just music and on-screen action.

Music isn't a visual art-form, and many amazing musicians, from Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles to Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Roul Midón have created incredible sounds despite (or possibly even enhanced by) their inability to see.