Music for Deaf Persons
By Bruno Cruz Petit (reprinted from Esperanza)
The title of this article could be ironic or a joke for some, including deaf persons. That is what happened to a friend, a music teacher, at arriving at a school for the deaf and being told that he was hired to teach music. Music for deaf people? How are we to explain the evolution of music from Bach to the Beatles to someone who cannot hear their works?
The first thing that came to his mind was the case of Beethoven. This famous composer began to lose hearing at the age of thirty and even thought of committing suicide. Instead, with the aid of his "inner ear" he composed his well known symphonies. Not a bad topic to demonstrate to students with disabilities about what can be achieved through will power and personal effort.
But, even this case was not really appropriate since Beethoven experienced sound for many years and had developed musical thinking afterwards. The teacher had problems gathering a concrete biography, notwithstanding the large amount of anecdotes.
So he started to do research and consulted with an expert in logopedics ( specialists in phonetics and language disorders) at the educational center. Then he was told that deaf persons like to dance at discos. They feel the vibrations with their bodies, and capture the rhythm like no other, and without the effects of loud noise, only resisted by those familiar with "house" or the "drum & bass".
Of the two main elements of music, melody and rhythm they could perfectly understand the second, in other words, they could have access to 50% of music and, if we consider that in some cultures rhythm in itself is an artistic expression, there is a large field for doing music work with deaf students.
Later our new teacher found out that the students had some devices that help them listen to beats and variations in volume, that they could feel the vocal chord vibrations (a principle in logopedics) and that they even like to play with these elements. So, he began the work with rhythm, drums and tambourines, and other membrane activating instruments, that let the students feel the vibrations with their hands.
He also experimented with body expression with the purpose of reinforcing the rhythm experience. Later they presented an African poly-rhythmic work, which had not been possible in other occasions with "hearing" students.
The important element of this experience is that everyone saw that there are always creative alternatives to our limitations, as was the case of Beethoven, as with these deaf students who are able to feel the music.
"Lack of hope is founded upon what we know, which is nothing, and hope is based upon what we ignore, which is everything" --Maurice Maeterlinck.
|
