Before anybody jumps all over me, I’m not trying to be a dick.
At last night’s symphony, they had a signer translating the opening remarks to the audience. I don’t understand. Do deaf people attend the symphony? Am I missing something? I understand that there are degrees of deafness, but if one can hear a musical instrument, can’t one also hear an amplified voice?
As a side note, the orchestra played Beethoven’s 8th and NOBODY clapped between movements! Amazing! The standing O just before intermission was annoying, though.
Well, I’ll just give you my own personal experience. I’m not deaf, but I am hard of hearing. Music, no problem. In fact, I’m a musician, with pretty great pitch if I may say so myself. But speaking is a totally different. In concert halls especially, a spoken voice can be very difficult to impossible to understand, especially if it’s someone not trained in speaking. It doesn’t matter if it’s amplified, in fact, the amplification sometimes seems to distort (echos and such).
I don’t know sign language, but I intend to learn eventually. Something like that would make it much easier to figure out why everyone laughed I usually just zone out during the talking unless it’s very clear, otherwise it’s very frustrating. So that would put me in the category of varying degrees of hearing issues.
Now, considering I can feel the bass in my chest in a classical concert, I imagine a fully deaf person could certainly get enjoyment out of a concert, just in a different way. Music reverberates through the body and I feel that our bodies vibrate to music in a sympathetic way…which may have some explanation of why we feel music so deeply. I would imagine for the deaf, they may feel the body vibrations more sharply because they are not distracted by sound. Additionally, there is a visual element that is also appealing.
Excellent explanation by Heart On My Sleeve - I was going to post pretty much the same thing myself, except that I know of it only by second-hand information. Also, a further factor that will make speech hard to hear in many concert halls is acoustics which have specifically been designed for orchestral music, and which therefore are not at all suitable for speech, amplified or otherwise.
I’m hearing impaired and definitely agree with Heart on my Sleeve. Deaf people can feel the vibrations, and also, sometimes you can hear something but not make out individual words. You know, when someone is speaking, and you can hear that they are speaking, but you can’t quite make out what they’re saying? That’s what it’s like sometimes. Oh, also, it may be that the Deaf people in the audience had hearing aids and thus could hear the music, but feel more comfortable with American Sign Language.
I saw a deaf man at a rock concert once. He was in a wheelchair, and the woman he was with brought a large pink balloon. He kept one hand on the balloon and through it, he felt the vibrations of the songs. A friend once told me about a similar concertgoer who could tell every song that was being played in this manner.
Years ago there was a brilliant movie version of La Traviata out and we took a deaf friend. It was great because she could feel the vibrations (and I think maybe hear the very low notes) and read the English subtitles.
I usually just zone out during the talking unless it’s very clear, otherwise it’s very frustrating. So that would put me in the category of varying degrees of hearing issues.