"How Can They Dance If They Can't Hear the Music?"

 

How Can They Dance If They Can’t Hear The Music?

This was one of the few “How Can They” questions I didn’t get growing up.  After I got my wedding (first marriage, 1985) proofs, I proudly showed them around. Some people who knew my parents were Deaf but weren’t really close with me would see the picture of my father and me dancing to “Daddy’s Little Girl” and ask, “How can they dance if they can’t hear the music?”

When I was a koda (kid of Deaf Adults), I would inwardly roll my eyes. Dumb question. As an adult, though, I realized the question wasn’t dumb, but the asker was ignorant about being Deaf. Here was an opportunity to provide useful information.

Some Deaf people, like my mother, can’t hear a thing. They “hear” music with vibrations, either using their hands on a stereo or musical instrument, or through their feet when a loud band is playing.  Deaf people have rhythm too and can pick up the beat through the vibrations and dance. My mom was never a fan of music if she had to “hear” it through hand touch on a stereo player. She did love to dance with my dad when a band was playing.

My dad had some residual hearing. He wasn’t profoundly Deaf; his was a severe loss. He could detect a call for him if the name “Pete” or “Peter” was sung out loudly. He could hear a few words over the phone: yes, no, and OK. A conversation might go like this:

Dad: Did you get home safely?

Me: Yes

Dad: Good. How is the cat?

Me: OK

Dad: Ok, bye

Me: OK

Dad could hear music when the sound was turned up. As a teenager, I was the only one listening to 60s-70s rock whose parent would encourage “Turn it up, turn it up!” I remember that Dad especially enjoyed the Scott McKenzie song, “San Francisco”.  He asked if I could write the words for him, and I wrote the lyrics out as best as I could understand them. I knew the song was about hippies, Haight-Asbury, a concert there and wondered what he’d think of that, but he never commented on it.

We had a radio in the living room, and he’d turn on the station I listened to and wait for the song. Many times, I would walk by because I heard the song playing, and I would see him sitting on a chair with his hand cupping one ear and the other hand holding the paper so he could read the lyrics.  I bought a 45 of the song because I knew it wouldn’t play on the radio forever and gave it to him so he could play it whenever he wanted.

I remember one Christmas, my brother wanted a drum set.  He wanted to learn to play the drum solo from the song “Wipe Out”.  He nearly tumbled down the stairs Christmas morning after spotting the drum set. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t get one. He got right on it and began this slow practice, tap tap with one hand and then tap tap with the other.

“That doesn’t sound like ‘Wipeout’,” I teased him.

“You have to learn how to do it first,” he explained.

The following day, I heard the drums going and they sounded awesome considering how slow my brother had been the day before. So, I came downstairs to complement him and nearly rolled down myself. My father was sitting there, playing the drums. I was totally amazed.

“You play drums?”

My father laughed at the expression on my face. “Yes, I play in high school,” he told me. He added he played in the band! Not the drums, though, he played the French horn.

And I found myself asking the dumb question. “But how?”

“I can hear little,” he explained. He added the band teacher acted as a sort of metronome for the band members, showing the beat and when the sound was supposed to be louder or faster.  Most of the band members had some residual hearing so they were able to enjoy making music. How cool, I thought. Dad also went on to explain how it was that Deaf people enjoyed dancing.

As he aged, Dad lost most of his residual hearing. He couldn’t hear us on the phone anymore but, by then, we all had TDDs (telecommunication devices for the Deaf) and could have nice long conversations with each other. He never lost his appreciation for music and had a few noise complaint visits from the police because he’d turned the music up so loud.

I think he’s got normal hearing in Heaven. Either that, or there’s a vast Deaf community of angels up there playing electrified loud harps.