Hidden Passion

Howdy!

When I first started to get involved with Deaf culture and distance myself from the hearing world, one of my most initial thoughts was that I couldn’t be Deaf and still hold onto my beloved passion. It became this secret that I would try to hide whenever there was a Deaf person, interpreter, or hearing/signing person around. It was like this secret addiction that I couldn’t talk about because of a fear of being prosecuted.

Slowly, I began to open up about this life altering need of mine. I started to feel comfortable enough to let those that I love and trust know about it’s importance in my life. I was finally able to express that I am indeed a Deaf person with a passion for music. Soon I came to discover others with this same love and I realized that it was nothing to be ashamed of.

I have spent hours, days even, of my life learning how to interpret vibrations as music. I trained myself to discern pitch from the way it feels. I have sat in my audiologists office for more appointments than I would like to count trying to program my hearing aids to maximize my ability to understand music in an auditory sense. All the while feeling like a traitor.

I watched as the Deaf world and the music world started to collide for me. I started to discover, and enjoy, interpreted music and I was able to understand the lyrics to sounds. However, music is more to be than lyrics. It is tactile, visual, and auditory. I can break it apart and only touch it, only see it, or only hear it. Music is this vast three dimensional world that I lose myself in.

I am not sure how many hearing people can truly value music for all of it’s layers. Being Deaf actually brings more to the music and makes it an experience that I feel more connected to than ever before. This guilty pleasure of mine goes beyond that of most peoples,. It embraces me and has become a defining part of who I am. I am a Deaf musician and I am proud of that.

I no longer conceal my MP3 player, cease taping out a rhythm on a hard surface, avoid concerts, and act like music is the tool of the devil. Music is in my blood, my heart, my soul, and every other part of me where it can hide. If somehow that makes someone think of me as any “less Deaf’ I would like to challenge them. Show me how music makes me more hearing than Deaf. Show me why music cannot belong to the Deaf world too.

Jenny