25th International Summer School For Semiotic And Structural Studies Challenge of the Disabled: Sounds and Signs of Difference Imatra – June 11, 2013
BEYOND THE PARADOX: THE DEAF MUSICAL EXPERIENCE Sylvain Brétéché Aix-Marseille Université
CLEMM [ Créations et Langage en Musiques et Musicologie ] LESA [ Laboratoire d’études en Sciences des Arts ]
[email protected]
Introduction Deaf Musical Experience: singular musical reality. - Deaf Musical Experience involves excessive use of the body. Body is privileged space for experiencing music.
- the ordinary musical experience becomes de-normalized and re-evaluated. subjective, social and cultural consideration.
The music is in the heart of the human experience : - It seems to take the body as place of concretization. - the musical experience as an existential expression of a point of view. The Deaf Musical Experience is singular from an anthropological point of view (social and cultural) where music exists with reference to another experience.
« Being Deaf » Deafness alone induces and engages a unique experience. - Deafness is a handicap. - Deafness is an important anthropological context. “being deaf”, it is : - an extraordinary situation. - a different world determination. - to approach the world in a non-normalized way.
being deaf means living in the world, in a particular place, inaccessible to those who do not share the required state to understand the world from this point of view.
Deafness(es) exists a multitude of states of deafness : - Deafness is an individual life experience in a particular situation. - The classification of levels of deafness evaluates situations according to hearing standards. Above all, deafness is a life situation : - deaf person's experience is basically a world experience. - the condition of deafness needs to be considered as an individual and cultural reality. Deaf people constitute a multitude of social categories : - The amount of deficiency influences the attachment to the “standard”. - the linguistic choice determines the relationship with the ordinary community. - the deaf community is a linguistic and cultural minority. Deafness is a cohesive state of affiliation with extraordinary sets of representation and creation within which music is experienced in various manners.
Deafness and musical realities Music exists in the Deaf community : - meeting and cultural exchange area with the hearing community. - space for the creation of specific music. Investigation: “Music and deafness” (51 questions / 200 respondents). GENERALITIES - 50% hear no sound with their ears / 55% not hear music. MUSICAL PRACTICE - 70% listen to music. - 38% practice music. - 39% of the non-practitioners wish to practice music. - For 71%, music occupies a particular place in their everyday life. BODY PERCEPTION: - 63% corporally feel sound. - 65% perceive music in their bodies. - 58% sight helps them perceive sounds.
MUSIC PERCEPTION - 84% make no distinction between music notes. - 52% do not differentiate rhythms. - 67% do not recognize a musical style. - 77% do not differentiate musical instruments. MUSICAL BODILY ZONES
corporal types for sound perception (Maïté Le Moël, 1996): - cutaneous perception (hands, arms, face,…) - bone perception (hands, feet, legs, skull,…) - visceral perception (belly, the heart, the lungs)
Deafness and musical realities Investigation: “Music and deafness” (51 questions / 200 respondents). GENERALITIES - 50% hear no sound with their ears / 55% not hear music. MUSICAL PRACTICE - 70% listen to music. - 38% practice music. - 39% of the non-practitioners wish to practice music. - For 71%, music occupies a particular place in their everyday life.
MODALITIES OF SOUND PERCEPTION : “pressure which comes from outside”, “tickles”, “stirrings” and “buzzes”, or “triggers”,…
MODALITIES OF SOUND PERCEPTION : “pressure which comes from outside”, “tickles”, “stirrings” and “buzzes”, or “triggers”,…
MUSIC PERCEPTION - 84% make no distinction between music notes. - 52% do not differentiate rhythms. - 67% do not recognize a musical style. - 77% do not differentiate musical instruments. MUSICAL BODILY ZONES
Maïté Le Moël and corporal types for sound perception : - cutaneous perception (hands, arms, face,…) - bone perception (hands, feet, legs, skull,…) - visceral perception (belly, the heart, the lungs)
"WHAT IS A MUSICAL SOUND FOR YOU?" - “soft volume”, a “shiver” / “musical sound is difficult to describe, it is music.” - " music expresses a certain harmony that all the body accepts and feeds from.”
Deafness and musical realities “This relationship of deaf people with music reminds us that it is much more than a sensory experience, it is a social and cultural fact where the ear does not necessarily play a role. With regard to the direct music experience, since it is only vibrations, deafness, even profound, [...], does not prohibit the sound contact but it shifts the privileged area from the ear to the body. ” (Pierre, Schmitt, « De la musique et des sourds. Approche ethnographique du rapport à la musique de jeunes sourds européens », in Talia Bachir-Loopuyt, Sara Iglesias, Anna Langenbruch, et Gesa zur Nieden (éds.), Musik – Kontext – Wissenschaft. Interdisziplinäre Forschung zu Musik / Musiques – contextes – savoirs. Perspectives interdisciplinaires sur la musique, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, p. 221)
« Deaf music » Deaf music represents: - a cultural space. - a place of esthetic creation. - a bridge between the deaf and hearing cultures. Evelyn Glennie: “integreted” musician - British percussionist. - profoundly deaf since she was 7 years old. - example: Libertango (A. Piazzola)
Mandy Harvey (Jazz singer)
Janine Roebuck (lyric singer)
« Deaf music » Sign language: source of cultural and artistic opening. example : Paul McCartney, My Valentine Sign Language is rather considered here from a poetic point of view which wishes to be an opening of the hearing community to Deaf people. Sign-singing: the song of deaf. “choreographed Sign language that is abstract and poetic.” (P. Schmitt, p.222). example : Jesers feat Adamo Sayad, Les mots deaf musical stage. Signmark, Finnish sign-singer . Breaking the rules (CD +DVD) [ Warner Music ]
« Deaf music » “Electro-deaf ”: particular artistic and cultural scene “contemporary networks of young dynamic and mobile deaf persons, protagonists of a kind of underground deaf culture.” (222) - visual and musical events : “Signs and Vibrations”, “Laser Sign”, “deafraves”. Viscore (sign-singer, DJ and Vusician).
The Vusic describes a deaf person's musical reality: simultaneous images and vibrations, two constitutive elements of a singular esthetic object. An other musical place: « Mur du Son ». - This musical project synthesizes this deaf music, culturally anchored in another esthetic standard. - French Sign Language is exploited in all its expressive and musical possibilities.
Conclusion
The body as a privileged realization support for the Deaf Musical Experience, the body being both a perception element and a significant place for the musical event.
“If the claiming of a particular musical experience […] represents a contemporary expression of this shared culture resulting from deafness, it also imposes the assessment of a plural deaf culture, where the limits between the deaf and hearing worlds are permeable. Therefore, these worlds seem like categories to be deconstructed. ” (P. Schmitt, p.232)
