Percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie talks about hearing loss and performance
Deaf people need vibration because they need sound says the percussionist
Last updated 16th Dec 2020
Percussionist Evelyn Glennie was diagnosed deaf when she was eight years old. Undeterred by medical diagnosis she continued with her practice, quickly securing a world-wide reputation for performance, education, and advocacy.
We spoke to Evelyn about her experiences as a deaf musician and asked her to reflect on how she thinks it helps her relate to Beethoven and his music.
How do you think your experience of hearing loss helps you relate to Beethoven?
I started losing my hearing from the age of eight. At that age your body is still quite elastic and your way of thinking is very elastic. So the body has a chance to develop, I think, in a way, that perhaps is a little more seamlessly. In my situation we had much more technology at hand with hearing aids for example; Beethoven didn't have that. So we're talking about two different scenarios of hearing loss experience.
Nevertheless, I think the way I can relate to Beethoven's situation is the emergence of the signs of hearing disappearing. In my case, a lot of the highest signs are disappearing much more quickly than some of the other signs. So it just means that all sorts of things are affected by that in how you relate to your instruments, how you play your instruments, it's not necessarily good or bad, but you know that the body has to adapt.
I think, with Beethoven, where we saw over the course of several years, he really almost wanted to be inside of the piano, he was finding ways to connect himself physically connect himself to the piano. When I play the snare drum, I'm often just putting my tummy against the rim of the drum. I'm using a sense of touch, it's that kind of connection. And that's something that you can't share with anybody else. It has to be yourself with that instrument. The experience of performance becomes much more of a personal thing.
What do you learn about Beethoven and his hearing loss from his music, do you think?
I get emotion from music when I'm actually making it myself. That isn't an egotistical thing. I don't mean it like that. It is simply because you're getting that response from the instrument physically. That is a wonderful thing. It can be a surprising thing at times. That's why we didn't see any less emotion from Beethoven's writing that actually became more and more augmented and the extremes became much more to the forefront such that as listeners we would aware of those extremes, the dynamic extremes of spaces, the so-called silences in his writing. Because when you are deaf, in your mind, that doesn't stop you from listening, not if you've had that experience of saying before. Your imagination will think of a whisper, but it will think of one hundred ways to whisper.
Tell us about your memory of being diagnosed deaf
When I was growing up - when I was kitted out with hearing aids and diagnosed medically, I was told by an audiologist "I think you should go to a school for the deaf." Now, I said, "No, because I'm already playing music, and I can't see how things can be different from, you know, an hour ago, from walking into the audiology room to thereafter." Why suddenly, can things be so different? I can play an instrument before and then suddenly, I shouldn't be playing an instrument?
I think as the years have gone by education, the music industry, and the whole environment that is dealing with deafness realised that there were important questions to be asked. What is sound? What is deafness? What is hearing? What is listening? They've realized that one needs the other. So, deafness does not mean complete and utter silence. Silence doesn't always mean music. We have been able, over the years, thankfully, to come to the realization that deaf people must have music, because in their everyday lives are dealing with sound. And music is sound. Music is something that can be physically felt. So sound is my vibration. And deaf people more than anything can relate to vibration.
Dame Evelyn Glennie is President of Help Musicians UK. Discover how the charity has supported musicians during the pandemic on the Help Musicians UK website.