Including+deaf+students+in+music+classes

[] is the website of Evelyn Glennie, who has been deaf since the age of 12, but went on to become the first person in the Western classical tradition to make a career as a full time solo percussionist. In an essay on hearing (1993), she explains that "hearing is basically a specialized form of touch". When a heavy truck drives past we feel the vibrations of the soundwaves through our whole body. This is the case with low pitched sounds (or the lower frequencies of sounds). When we hear higher pitched sounds our brains focus on information provided by the air vibrating in our ears. She provides some ideas that could be used to include students of any age who are deaf or have hearing impairments in music classes.

Glennie spent a lot of time with her high school percussion teacher refining her ability to distinguish different sounds. The teacher would play a timpani, a large kettle drum that produces a lot of vibrations over a wide range of frequencies, and Glennie learnt to associate different pitches with different parts of the body: "The low sounds I feel mainly in my legs and feet and high sounds might be particular places on my face, neck and chest" (Glennie 1993).

Have students take off their shoes to better feel the vibrations.

Glennie (n.d.) provides an example of a child lying under her marimba while she played it, so that he could feel the vibrations better. Amplification could be used to similar effect: some drummers sit on a drum seat with a built in monitor speaker through which they can feel the kick drum.

Playing music isn't just about hearing: we see a stick hit a drum, or a bow move across the strings of a violin, or a hand pluck the string of a double bass, or the keys of a piano move. These visual cues provide information to our brains that contribute to what we hear. Make sure the student can clearly see you and/or some of the other students playing movements.

There is a video of Evelyn Glennie here: [] It contains a wealth of ideas about music and hearing that are worth reflecting on particularly with regard to including students who are deaf or have hearing disabilities in music classes.

Research shows that the involving students in the arts improves their academic performance. Music, for example, has been linked to improved performance in maths (Sinclair, Jeanneret & O'Toole 2009, p.5). This makes it even more important to include all students in arts activities.

__References__:

Glennie, Evelyn (1993) //Hearing Essay//. Retrieved on 25 July 2011 from [] Glennie, Evelyn (n.d.) //Disability Essay//. Retrieved on 25 July 2011 from [] Sinclair, Christine, Jeanneret, Neryl & O'Toole, John (2009 ﻿) //Education in the arts: teaching and learning in the contemporary curriculum//. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.