I was inspired by Shel's recent comment about music in my last post. Several months ago I mentioned how Evelyn Glennie, a deaf percussionist had motivated me to learn the djembe. Here is her intriguing explanation of how she perceives music.http://www.evelyn.co.uk/live/hearing_essay.htm
She considers hearing just another type of touch.
Most hearing people don't understand that. Being deaf, I totally get it. Years ago I had a flash epiphany. This happened probably at my lowest point of hearing loss when I realized I could no longer hear any music but the base guitar and drums in most of my favorite oldies. I think I've mentioned I have a guardian spirit before? (Yeah yeah-- I know y'all probably think I'm a total flake now.) So I was feeling really low and suddenly she pointed out how I could feel the vibration in my steering wheel and gas pedal. After that I understood I would never lose music completely. Later, at an SWC event we all used balloons to feel music. COOL!! I still listen to the radio in my car with the volume turned all the way up. People turn around and look at stop lights because my entire car is vibrating.
Even though music doesn't sound the way it used to, I love it-- as long as there's a good base. Over the years, my taste in music has changed. For example, I used to be into classical in a big way, but I find that unless there's a good base drum part and lots of cello, classical doesn't really appeal anymore. Flutes and violin solos are out. At the opera I'm much more moved by good with baritone voices than sopranos who get all the attention from everyone else. But I don't go to opera for the musical experience anymore. It's just a social thing for me. I love the stage and the fact that it's always subtitled.
Generally I prefer music with a loud beat and base guitar. Rap is cool! I can't hear the awful lyrics most hearing parents complain about. I love country, rock, indie, blues -- really ALL kinds of music because of my good low tones and ability to feel it.
Above is a picture of my djembe with (the d is silent). I've posted it before so you might have seen this pic already. It was handmade in Indonesia.
22 comments:
It's the greatest tragedy of deafness. No longer able to hear music was much worse to me than anything else. I was a part-time musician despite going deaf, I had immense satisfaction and made many friends doing it. All that vanished overnight when my hearing went. Unable to then follow music at all, I had to sell my instruments, my radios, my Hi-Fi and stuff, there was no point in keeping them, it was like losing a child. I don't bother to do a Beethoven with my ear to the vibration, that ISN'T music to me, it would just make the hurt more. Music includes the voice, and the distinctiveness and differences of it,that is not an option to the deaf, it suits some to 'listen' to drums/percussion it would not suit me. All or nothing, I would just get frustrated and depressed about it.
There are THREE DIMENSIONS to MUSIC: RHYTHM, MELODY, and HARMONY.
The FIRST is perfectly ACCESABLE to Deaf people. No matter what your hearing "Loss." Deaf people can always feel the BEAT.
MELODY is the next HARDEST. You have to have SOME Hearing in order to understand Melody.
HARMONY is the HARDEST for Deaf People to understand. It's the INTERACTION of NOTES. If you can't hear the individual NOTES, you can't hear how they INTERPLAY TOGETHER, which is the THIRD DIMENSION of Sound.
On the other Hand, Most HEARING PEOPLE don't understand How VISUAL GRAMMAR gives ASL many DIMENSIONS of MEANING BEYOND LINEAR LANGUAGE.
Anonymous, this is new information for me... But re: ASL, yes I completely agree.
ASL poetry for me is a thing of beauty... it is like music to my eyes.
Shelley
MM, I can understand why it's a tragedy to YOU, a musician, as you lost your hearing... suddenly?
To me being deaf is not a tragedy. It simply is part of who I am. I don't obsess about the lack of hearing. No offense to you guys who lost yours.
Kim, speaking of feeling music in touch in steering wheels... and yeah I can relate to the car thing LOL. I don't need music in the van, but my KODA boys do love it, so I turn it on to what I THOUGHT was the proper volume.
One morning, a coworker who pulled up to park beside me informed me she could HEAR my van... it's loud like a teen's car. OOPS.
Shelley
I am not convinced it si enough to 'gfeel the beat', you miss the medlody despite the claims you don'ty,. you miss the tone and quality of the voice, and, if there are instrumentals and riffs, you miss that too.
I've no doubt you can 'move tothe beat', but the beat isn't all there is to music. Opera and other forms of singing are just not accessible to deaf a,d music with 'captions' is pretty pointless to my view !
LIke you said you don't miss what you never had, but I am talking froma perspective where I DID have it, and inetrected with it,there is no comparisons, I am not knocking those deaf who go via vibrtaion, there's nothing else they CAN follow, personally that isn't all there is to music for me, once sampled the entire aspect of what music is, I could never settle for 'second best'. Even Glennie is a percussionist, she couldn't be a singer could she ? She would have difficulty with bouncing off other music artists too, via different instruments, ebacsue she can't hear them, that is why she is mainly a SOLOIST.
All the deaf 'music' I have seen has been drums and Bass. To not be able to enjoy the marvellous singing VOICE of some people is the real tragedy to me. Good luck to those who settle for less....
I understand your point, MM, having heard the entire spectrum of music, and having been a musician yourself. But not all musicians choose the same instruments. Some like bass/percussion instruments. others like wind instruments, etc. You get my point.
I enjoy the beat, but it does not mean I'm settling for less.
I just have a different perspective, having NEVER heard before.
Shelley
Dear MM:
I read your comments with great interest. You yourself may be interested in knowing that there's an organization called AAMHL - Association of Adult Musicians with Hearing Loss. Some of us have cochlear implants/hearing aids and others do not. Our goal is to help each other integrate hearing loss into our musical lives in a way we are comfortable in doing so.
AAMHL's web site is at http://www.aamhl.org
Good luck,
Wendy
Bilateral CI user
Viola student, amateur violinist and occasional dabbler in cello
I take whatever hearing I have for granted. I don't know what it's like to be deaf and I don't know what it's like to be hearing.
I have always enjoyed all kinds of music and have over the years managed to tune in to my listening skills where I can actually decide what I really want to pick up. Yup, I can tune in and tune out if I wanted to!
And, perhaps it's why I'm into many genre that you even brought up.
~Candy
Regarding classical music - check out the Bach organ music. The pedal notes (loow tones) have enough feel that different notes really feel different. You can follow a melody (maybe - what about it, hearies?).
David
It is my greatest loss! I was a musician in school. Bought every form and type of CD all my life. I lost music in September.
My son is a guitar virtuoso and I want to hear him so bad.
One day!
I have to agree with MM on the rhythmn part. I am a pianist since the age 7. I play mostly ragtime, novelty piano, and early jazz when I can. In ragtime, for example, it plays rhythmn called syncopated rhythmn, where the right hand or upper octave piano (as an instrument example) plays that syncopation in Maple Leaf Rag which cannot really be felt but the left hand playing the lower notes has that distinct "oopmph pah oompgh pah" beat to it. You can observe my left hand playing the keys that have that rhythmn beat in my video blog of me playing ragtime while my right hand plays the syncopated rhythmn.
In other words, "rhythmn" is not always felt. Since playing the higher octave notes on the piano it becomes harder to "feel" the rhythmn.
Playing other instruments can either be harder or easier to feel the rhythmn.
You have to hear music to understand what you're missing. It's like Deaf people tell a blind person that he needs to see in order to understand and appreciate the visual beauty in life. Same for hearing and music.
The link to my Ragtime piano didn't work. Trying again...
Click here for my example on syncopated rhythmn of me playing Maple Leaf Rag
Umm, have you tried the music at churches?? They are real loud, and I could hear them without any hearing aid. Concerts, yeah, with the speakers..! Perhaps not even close to them. You could hear the music without hearing aid... They have to be inside in order to hear anything. Something with echo, or with the walls..
Thanks, deafk
Mike--That was GREAT! :-) I miss playing the piano. I played from the time I was little, and I played for an hour or two every day until about my late thirties, when my hearing finally got to the point I couldn't hear the high notes very well.
If you can imagine. . .I'd be playing and knew I was hitting the right keys, but they would sound flat and in some cases all I heard was a click. I had a few people in to look at the piano because I was sure it was out of tune. I even moved it because it had been on a wall that faced the outside, and being an older piano I thought the colder wall was affecting the strings. Anyway, turned out the piano was fine. It's my hearing. I no longer play, but I miss it so much. I think only another person who plays piano can understand. It's what I used to do to relax. I played more classical than anything else.
So after a few years of being depresssed, I met this guy at the opera who used to be a drummer and we got to talking about my hearing loss and he was the one who suggested a djembe, along with the fact Evelyn Glennie plays one. Gives me a musical outlet, that's all. It's not like playing the piano though.
MM, I htink the point is that it's your tragedy (and I'm sorry for it, it seems like a hard thing to lose). But it is not my tragedy, and while I understand that I miss aspects of music that a hearing person gets, I rather suspect there's some aspects to music I "get" that hearing people don't.
Myself, there's got to be rhythm. After that, if I can figure out where the lyrics go (as they generally have to fit in the beat).
By the way, not all people who do not understand melody/harmony (per Anonymous' breakdown) are deaf. There are hearing people who are completely indifferent to tonal changes that can make other hearing people literally cry with emotion. There's more to all that than hearing it.
Hello, am Deaf, my favorite music groups are, Grand Funk Railroad, Prince, Blondie and any easy beat to follow (HINT: DISCO) Ha! also I teach hearing Boy Scout order of the arrow conclave native american pow wow dance team. In my time, my Deaf pow wow dance team won first place for 8 years in a row. Am the drummer and my dance team, all Deaf beat hearing team for a long time till about 1980's, team disband cuz we won too many. Now we do individual dance such as fancy dance, traditional dance, straight dance and grass dance. so Deaf can follow drum beat easily. You have a great day. Enjoying reading your blog.
Do you turn the music in your car so loud with or without your hearing aids/CIs?
With hearing aids, John. I can hear more than drums, but most of what I hear well is around middle C (on the piano keyboard) or below WITH aids. Without aids I only hear below middle C well unless its highly amplified. Most instruments actually fall in the mid to low pitches so I do well with those, but some wind instruments and the viola fall into high pitches.
Wow, you got lots of hearing to hear all of that music without your hearing aids!
If I placed my better ear next to the speaker of my cd player with a volume that's considerable loud, but too loud, (when I have my hearing aids on), I can just make out the beat and the rhythm of this particular Coldplay song that I was using at the time.
I couldn't imagine just how loud the volume in my car would be if I didn't have my hearing aids. I may get pulled over for noise pollution.
Hi Jonathan,
I do have lots of good residual hearing in the low tones, which is why I only qualify for the hybrid CI, instead of the regular CI. Because of my musical background I can fill in harmony too-- especially when it's a familiar song. I LOVE music. :-)
It was a very sensitive article for me when I reading it. I nave have think about that how deaf peoples are enjoy with music. This article is direct me to think of new path about deaf people. Actually this is a valuable posting for public to think new way and opening to music to deaf people.
Two things:
1. I no longer play or listen to the music that I know and love, because I'm afraid that my brain will overwrite what I remember with the garbage that I now hear.
2. I could never have imagined before I lost my ability to hear music how unique that stimulation is to the brain and how critical to the survival of my imagination.
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