Ethan Loch was just 18 months old when he first went up to a grand piano and stood by it silently.

Blind from birth, he couldn't see the sweeping curve of its lid, or the sharp black and white contrast of its keys, but he could feel it. And, when he gently pushed down the keys with his small fingers, he could hear it.

It was almost, the toddler's watchful mother Larinda thought, as if the keys where whispering back.

"He'd stand there for hours," she says, "pushing keys and having conversations with himself that only he could understand".

By the age of two, Ethan was picking out nursery rhymes with one hand playing them in all keys, transposing them in his mind.

Aged three-and-a-half he'd worked through the entire first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.

"It just kept progressing from there," says Larinda, from the family's home in Bonnybridge near Falkirk.

"It was a daily occurrence," she says. "Outdoors, he loved playgrounds, swings and roundabouts, but when we were inside he was straight at the piano."

"He was so engaged with it," she adds. "His speech development was unusual. He wasn't speaking in sentences, he was speaking through the piano."

Then Ethan developed a fascination with sounds. He liked the noise the trains made when they left the platform, the steady whirling thump of a washing machine and the high-pitched thrum of a hairdryer.

He would record them on Dictaphones, then he'd then go to the piano. Thanks to having perfect pitch, he would recreate them musically.

"Just recently psychologists have said they think that maybe English isn't even his first language, music is," says his mother.

"It is interesting. Yes, he's always loved music but his mind is fascinated by sound in general. He match pitches the sounds around him."

Ethan's mind works in such an intricate way, doctors and professors from several international universities have met him to observe his abilities.

After a childhood spent learning the piano and winning an elite spot at St Mary's Music School in Edinburgh, the first blind pupil to be offered a place, he has also been able to share his gift with others.

In November this year, Larinda got to see just how talented her 12-year-old son had become when the musical prodigy was invited to the Vatican City to perform.

Ethan was being granted the Giuseppe Sciacca Award, a prestigious prize sponsored by the Vatican in recognition of his outstanding musical abilities and inspirational commitment to his craft.

"It just made his world so much bigger," says Larinda.

Before he got to the stage to perform music by Grieg and Debussy, Ethan stood by one of the fountains in the Vatican gardens and gave his mother another insight into his wonderful mind.

"There was a fountain there which had one large central figure and four smaller ones," says Larinda.

"I asked him what sound the fountain made and asked him to match its pitch. He told me it didn't have one sound, it had at least five."

Ethan wasn't hearing just one note. To him, the five spouted fountain had an entire chorus. To him, the entire fountain ensemble was singing.

"He pitched them all and sang it," says his astonished mother. "He sang the fountain."

In a way, Ethan can "see with sound", however, he seems apparently unaware of just how talented he is.

A dedicated composer, with his own pieces of music already well received by the public, he is not overly keen on stardom.

When offered the opportunity to perform with singing star Birdy on the BBC, he turned it down.

"I gave him the choice," says Larinda. "He said he'd rather not go.

" An hour later he walked by me and said 'fame is a fickle friend' which I laugh about now. But I think maybe there is a wisdom in that."

On another occasion, when performing in a class competition, he was encouraged to change the beat of his music to perhaps ensure a winning performance.

"Mum, I'm not changing what the pace should be, it's how the music should be," he said.

For Ethan, who uses a form of echolocation to get around, music is a significant part of his life, but no one, not even his mother, is sure where it will take him.

"There are professors who want to study his mind because they've not seen anything like it before," she says.

"I hear what people say when they hear him play and I know he has a gift.

"Raising a blind child, it's difficult. There are so many things stacked against you.

"But at the end of the day, I'm his mum and, like all my children, all I want is for him to find something in life that he's happy doing."

"Music is many things to Ethan. A way of expression and communication," Larinda adds.

"I think it will always be that way for him. I think our home would have a very empty feel to it if the music were to stop."