Can you listen to music when you're deaf?

Have you ever heard of Evelyn Glennie? Unless you're familiar with the classical music world, you probably haven't. She is the first person in the world to have a successful career as a solo-percussionist. She is an amazing virtuoso marimba player. She has won Grammys, collaborated with Sting, Bjork and others, and has been on Letterman, Sesame Street...etc. (Funny how being on Sesame Street is a great indication of success, like Letterman.) She also has the Order of the British Empire (so she is a Dame!).

...but there is an interesting twist to her story: She is legally deaf (known as being "profoundly deaf", which is not totally deaf). This isn't mentioned in any of her promo materials.

Fascinating isn't it? When she discovered that she was going deaf during her childhood, she re-learned how to listen to music through her body. This in principle isn't hard to imagine: We feel heavy bass beats through our body in clubs, annoying neighbours, and cars that blast their music. That thumping, rumbling feeling in the stomach. What's extraordinary is that she learned how to feel all sorts of tones, and to be able to distinguish tones through her body. Amazing!

Ofcourse, the natural question to ask then, is: What is it like to "listen" to music through the body instead of your ears?

To which she responds, quite cleverly, with the question in reverse: ...What is it like to "listen" to music through your ears?

Mind blowing! It's impossible to answer this question! We just "do"! These questions cannot be answered in any straightforward manner.

However.

What this does do is question our notions of music, and listening. How much of what we experience in music is non-aural? What IS the act of listening?
Questions like this (and the work of Evelyn Glennie) have since spurred an interesting partnership between the deaf and the hearing in music enjoyment. What do I mean? Deaf people are sometimes requested to consult on the quality of newly built auditoriums/concert halls. Why? Because they have learned to pick up subtle differences through their whole body their entire lives...such that they are more sensitive to sound than many hearing people. And that's just one example of the phenomenal changes that the notion of "listening to music" is going through right now.

If you're interested in this, and Evelyn Glennie, I would highly recommend watching "Touch The Sound", a film about her experiences with music. In the meantime, here is her talk at TED, which is in many ways even better than the film. She really challenges you to reconsider what music, and listening is:



Finally, if you're in the Toronto area, you have a chance to see her perform with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for...6 bucks. That's right: 6 bucks. January 28 and 29. If you don't go, you're just being lazy. Buy Tickets Here

To read more about her experiences of listening, go to her website.
Really interesting stuff.

-- update --
There's a project that took this notion of listening and turned it into special speakers for those who are hard of hearing, or even completely deaf. For more on that, read my blog post about it here