Just an Auditory Experience? What Music Means to Hearing-Impaired Individuals
What would music mean to someone if they could not hear? As hearing individuals, it may be hard to imagine how we could possibly interact with music without being able to hear any sounds. As someone who sings solo and in choir, I imagine that it would be difficult for me to follow cues from a piano accompanist and also difficult to know if I am off pitch or rhythm as I would not be able to know for sure without hearing. I would have thought that music would not mean much to those who are deaf or have some level of hearing impairment, as listening is the main way to engage with music. However, there are several other aspects to music than just the sound of it that draws hearing-impaired individuals to it. How do hearing-impaired individuals perceive music through senses other than sound? How might they interpret musical expressions? What benefits are there for hearing-impaired individuals who engage in musical activities?
When I say “hearing-impaired,” I am including those with minor difficulty of hearing to those who are completely deaf. They include those who use sign language, those who communicate orally, and those who may use some sort of hearing aid, or not. Dr. Jessica Holmes categorizes those who are hearing-impaired as d/Deaf in her 2017 article published in the Journal of the American Musicological Society. She uses Deaf with the uppercase “D” to those who use the traditional linguistic customs– sign language and deaf with the lowercase “d” to those who still use spoken language and may use hearing aids or cochlear implants to hear in order to communicate with others orally. I will be referring to some findings by Holmes (2017), but will primarily use the term “hearing-impaired” to avoid confusion and to include everyone in the spectrum of hearing-impairment.
As the sense of hearing is diminished or completely absent in hearing-impaired individuals, senses like vision and touch, as well as body movement can be ways to perceive music. Jessica Holmes discussed in her 2017 article that the other senses are “heightened” to compensate for the lack of or absence of hearing, which is a phenomenon known as cross-modal plasticity. Holmes mentions tactile sensations of music as some Deaf people have stated that they feel the vibrations of the music in the floor at concerts, which enables them to respond to rhythm.
Another Deaf individual in Holmes’ (2017) article, sound artist Christine Sun Kim, tries to understand the sounds of music by encoding qualities of sounds like loudness by notating her own interpretation of it in visual symbols. This shows that even though they may not be able to hear, they can still enjoy music as a stimuli with other senses that can perceive its structure. I have included videos of Kim’s TedTalk and performance below to those who are interested in seeing her work.
The sound of music and lyrics can be translated into sign language, which hearing-impaired individuals can resonate with. A study done by Mangelsdorf et al. (2021) explored how music expressed in sign language is perceived by hearing-impaired individuals. The study consisted of several signed songs in which the quality of the music was described in sign language and in facial expressions by a Deaf person named Jason Listman who listened to the original music using hearing aids. Listman also translated the lyrics of songs from English to ASL (American Sign Language) without describing the quality of music in these sets of songs. Each song used in this study had a separate signed song performance and a signed lyric performance. An example of a signed song performance vs. a signed lyric performance by Jason Listman for Bruno Mars’ “Marry You” are in the respective videos:
The hearing-impaired participants of this study watched 8 signed songs and 8 signed lyrics for a total of 16 video performances at a random order and rated each performance for its musicality, with consideration of factors like emotion, from a scale of 0–100. The results showed that overall, the hearing-impaired participants rated the signed songs to be more musical than the signed lyrics. Interestingly, a control group of hearing participants who also viewed these videos found the signed songs and signed lyrics to be equally musical. This could be because the hearing participants did not understand certain meanings of the signed gestures made by Listman in the videos that the hearing-impaired participants were more sensitive to. The hearing participants may have overlooked certain facial expressions that the hearing-impaired participants may have been more inclined to notice.
Aside from sensory perception, interacting with music can also be beneficial to hearing-impaired individuals. Musical training for the hearing-impaired, particularly in children, may improve their executive functions, which include memory and judgment. Mason et al. ‘s (2021) study observed the effects of musical training on deaf children from ages 7 to 11 by having them do rhythm exercises on percussion instruments and then assessing their executive functions with tasks like the spatial span which assess working memory. Results showed that their working memory improved after having done the rhythm exercises. Executive function development is crucial as it helps to regulate social and emotional control. Music is one in many ways for development in children and the same goes to hearing-impaired children. They can still learn valuable skills from practicing music without needing to hear it.
Music is more complicated than just sound and it is shown in the sensory perception of senses other than auditory, emotional interpretation, as well as it being a tool to improve mental processes. An impairment of a sense cannot completely prevent the experience of something that primarily uses that sense and this has been shown in the studies I discussed about on hearing-impaired individuals and music.
I would like to end this post with my favorite adaptation of Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Symphony №5. I learned in my music literature class recently that this particular symphony is thought to be Beethoven’s artistic interpretation of him coping with his deafness. Despite him going deaf, he continued to compose music as that was his greatest passion and enjoyment in life. I hope you can feel the emotions of despair and triumph he felt from this masterpiece.
References
Holmes, J. A. (2017). Expert Listening beyond the Limits of Hearing: Music and Deafness. Journal of the American Musicological Society, 70(1), 171–220. https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2017.70.1.171
Mangelsdorf, H. H., Listman, J., & Maler, A. (2021). Perception of musicality and emotion in signed songs. Music Perception, 39(2), 160–180. https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2021.39.2.160
Mason, K., Marshall, C. R., & Morgan, G. (2021). Executive function training for deaf children: impact of a music intervention. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 26(4), 490–500. https://doi.org/10.1093/deafed/enab026
