Deaf and Depressed

Evelyn Glennie draws rhythm from pretty much anything she can find. She goes into an abandoned factory and beautiful sounds emerge. With a single snare drum, she can freeze commuters in a busy train station. Her childhood farm holds rusty pipes and tubs which, under her percussive hand, ring out their age and texture in rhythm.

Evelyn Glennie is one of the world's most impressive percussionists. She jams with other masters like KODO and Fred Frith, and the outcome is breathtaking. The question that comes to mind upon watching director Thomas Riedelsheimer's masterful documentary Touch the Sound, is would I be this amazed if she wasn't also deaf?

The back cover of the DVD announces her hearing impairment, and I'm sure it was a significant factor in the marketing because obviously a brilliant percussionist is so much more interesting if she can't hear. On the other hand, the musical moments in this film would floor me whether I knew she was deaf or not.

It was interesting to watch this film for the first time this morning, in the middle of a fight with my own disability, a major depressive disorder. Last night, I had an impulse to write the single most tragic piece I ever conceived, to mourn the temporary losses of faith and hope that accompany the stronger waves that move through me. Like most depressed artists, I despaired of ever being able to communicate the soul of the story, and didn't even start, opting to lounge on my couch and watch an old movie instead.

The thing about Glennie's story is that her deafness is not an obstacle to her gift. It's a doorway. When she lost her hearing as a child, she began to discover that she could feel sound in a new way. She could trace its movements through her hand, into her arm, and around her body. She could sense textures, rhythms, and echoes not available to her when she relied too heavily on her ears.

So as to whether or not her music would be as impressive were she not deaf, I say "no." I do not say this because of the novelty of a deaf musician. I say this because her failing ears opened her up to new channels of experiencing sound which transformed her music. So whether or not you are even aware of her deafness, Glennie's music benefits from its fact. She understands sound in a way that no hearing person can.

So as someone who loses his sense of balance sometimes, who can't grip hope like any normal person, who cannot feel joy in these times, how can I feel and connect with beauty? How can I perceive and convey joy beyond what comes naturally to me? How can I sense truth beyond the dead nerves in my heart?

So woven through all my diseases and irrational flaws and fears and hungers, maybe there's a sense that reaches beyond what I'd experience otherwise.

Seeing Glennie play her drums, and watching her teach a younger, deaf student how to feel the rhythm she plays, I get a new sense of discovery and a new desire to write, which led specifically to the creation of this blog, which does not do much in the way of making any objective claims about the quality of any artistic expression, but takes it subjectively and digests and integrates it into my own story, which I think is what artists want us to do with their work anyway.