Klarinet Archive - Posting 000191.txt from 1995/08

From: list Babs I King <babs@-----.COM>
Subj: Why involve the hearing impared in music???
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 1995 10:30:43 -0400

I am not a professional in such things as hearing impared and music.
Not a professional at anything really except being a wife, mom and
homemaker. But I do have some hearing impared friends who really enjoy
music. One of them lost her hearing in childhood and still remembers
enjoying listening to music. the other one lost hearing verry early
childhood, maybe in the first year and has no memory of ever hearing
anything and still loves music. They feel it. Like playing jazz. You
have to feel it. Not just with your ears but we all feel it all over
our bodies. Now i could understand wondering why to envolve the totaly
blind person in looking at paintings that cannot be touched. unless of
corse someone was there discribing in detail, but music is a total
being experience. Pardon my lack of recall of names, but which famous
classical composer was it who wrote much music and was deaf himself?
We hearing , can benefit and enjoy music on a different level just by
watching an experienced music signer in preformance. I do think that
your idea of passing out tightly inflated balloons is a good idea, and
you might look into the idea of finding some very low or high pitched
sounds that are out of range for most human ears to demonstrate what it
is like to feel the sounds without hearing them :-) my ideas may not
be worth much but thats my offering to you. Good Luck. It looks like
you will be setting a high standard for later students to follow.

Babs@-----.com