By SongTools.ai
From Beethoven to Evelyn Glennie, Mandy Harvey, Sean Forbes, Signmark and Troi Lee, Deaf and Hard of Hearing musicians have shaped music in every era. Here are a few of their stories.
Some of the most important musicians in history were Deaf or lost their hearing. Their stories show that music lives in the body, the mind and the community, not only in the ears. Here are a few of them.
Beethoven began losing his hearing in his late twenties and was almost completely deaf by the time he wrote some of his greatest work. At the premiere of his Ninth Symphony in Vienna in 1824, he stood on stage beside the conductor, Michael Umlauf, who actually led the orchestra. The well known story is that when the music ended, Beethoven could not hear the applause, and the contralto Caroline Unger turned him around so he could see the audience cheering. Some historians question the details, but the symphony itself, including the "Ode to Joy," is one of the most famous pieces of music ever written.
Evelyn Glennie is a Scottish percussionist and the first person to build a career as a full time solo percussionist. She has been profoundly deaf since the age of 12. She often performs barefoot to feel the music through the floor, and in her "Hearing Essay" she explains that being deaf does not mean experiencing no sound. She has spent her career teaching the world to listen with the whole body.
Mandy Harvey is a singer and songwriter who lost her hearing at 18. She thought her music was over, then taught herself to sing again by taking off her shoes to feel the beat through the floor and using visual tuners to find pitch. In 2017 she sang her own song "Try" on America's Got Talent, playing ukulele, and Simon Cowell gave her the Golden Buzzer.
Sean Forbes is a Deaf hip hop artist from Detroit. As a kid he signed the lyrics of rap songs for his Deaf friends so they could enjoy them too. He co-founded D-PAN, the Deaf Professional Arts Network, which makes music more accessible to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community and has produced ASL music videos for major artists. In 2010 he signed with Web Entertainment, the company that discovered Eminem, and released "I'm Deaf."
Signmark is a Deaf rapper from Helsinki, Finland, who performs in sign language. In 2009 he signed a solo deal with Warner Music, becoming the first Deaf artist to sign with an international record company.
Troi Lee is a Deaf DJ in London who started Deaf Rave in 2003: club nights run by Deaf people for Deaf people, with music loud enough to feel through the body. What began as one event has grown into a community of Deaf DJs, MCs, sign singers and dancers who have performed at major UK festivals.
Each of these musicians found their own way into music: through vibration, through sign language, through memory and through community. None of them waited for the music world to make room. They made it.
SongTools.ai was built in the same spirit, so Deaf and Hard of Hearing people can read what any song feels like. Tools like Mood & Emotion, Describe a Song, the Lyrics Transcriber and the Spectrogram turn songs into words and pictures. Deaf and Hard of Hearing people can apply for free access.
All the tools discussed in this article are available on SongTools.ai, free to explore.