The Hearing Essay

I chose to write my first blog on the "Hearing Essay" by Evelyn Glennie, a notable virtuoso percussionist, who also happens to be profoundly deaf. In the essay, Glennie explains how it is that she is able to hear and play music at such a high skill level. She states that hearing is basically a specialized form of touch and that she is able to feel music, rather than just hear it, through sound vibrations being converted into electric signals that are then sent to the brain. She then goes on to talk about sound frequencies and different vibrations in which she can hear and/or feel.
Glennie states that there is a common misunderstanding that deafness is a world of silence; however, she insists that in order to understand deafness and the nature of it, one must understand the nature of hearing, and that even someone who is totally deaf can still hear and feel sounds.,,just maybe in a different way then others.

Attached are the essay and a video of Evelyn Glennie performing and arranging a concerto by Vivaldi on a vibraphone.

https://www.evelyn.co.uk/hearing-essay/


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMZeBJJ5JJc