The Music of Silence

I teach two classes at Front Range Community College in Westminster, Colorado. I teach a Sound Design class on Tuesday nights and I teach a Music Technology/Production class on Fridays. So the interesting thing is that in the Friday class I have both a profoundly deaf student and a ADHD student. I’m actually reveling in the challenge of trying to impart some some musical knowledge to the deaf student, who says that she is extremely interested in music.

So I found a little speaker for iPods that has a 1/8″ stereo jack on a cable and two small speakers in a box. I cut off the grill so that the deaf student can rest her fingers on the speaker cones and sense the vibration of the music.
I also have a t-shirt that came from ThinkGeek.com that shows sound on a luminescent display on the shirt . I debated whether wearing the shirt and looking somewhat silly, was a good idea. First, the shirt is not as sensitive as I want it to be and secondly I was worried that by wearing the shirt, I would be taking the student’s attention away from the assistive signers in the class. But after asking what she thought, the student said that we should give the t-shirt a try.
I did a little research and found that there are indeed some deaf musicians.. The most famous being the percussionist Evelyn Glennie. And on a somewhat related note when I used to race cars in the SCCA, we had a program where we gave the blind the opportunity to drive on a course that we laid out in a large parking lot.
I think that this is one of the more rewarding of teaching experiences that I’ve had. I do hope it works out.