Dialogue sound with hearing impaired Understand how harmony and vibration work, and Suddenly you will look at your life like one big music class.
finish a training course with a group of people with hearing loss. The cycle of four meetings, it was proposed to reflect on communication and relationships within organizational contexts, using the metaphor of dialogue
sound with percussion. The drums, in particular, with their deep vibration, concrete, were the preferred instruments of an unpublished work for me, a wonderful opportunity to learn a few things very clear on the sound, listening, on the meeting, on language.
I could communicate with them, as well as with music, thanks to very good and sensitive interpreter. The Lis (
Sign Language) is a fascinating and mysterious to me. The attention and commitment with which the interpreter represent my verbal language was an experience in itself surprising. And fruitful.
The project, undertaken with the
Adecco Foundation for equal opportunities and with the '
ENS Milan, provides for intervention by my dialogue with the sound, an in-depth orientation to work, mock interviews and a customized training in the company. Will be completed in recent months, and hope that will be a real working opportunity for the participants at the end of my cycle to work, I share some notes in the blog.
Sound vibrations Deaf people have a very special relationship with sound. It is an obvious paradox. For them, l’ascolto si sviluppa con modalità del tutto particolari. Non avendo possibilità di sviluppare il tradizionale ascolto con l’udito, sviluppano una sensibilità molto chiara verso la
vibrazione sonora . Vibrazione che è, lo ricordo, sia un procedimento meccanico che energetico (in fisica le due cose vanno sempre insieme). La vibrazione sonora è
relazione , si muove nello spazio e crea collegamenti tra corpi distanti tra loro. La convibrazione avvicina quel che è lontano, unisce quel che è simile ma diverso (corpi diversi che vibrano alla stessa lunghezza d’onda).
Per gli ipoacusici, questa esperienza è naturale . È più difficile rappresentare e far deeply understand this reality to hearing people, who are accustomed to experience the sound above all through the hearing and unwary to receive signals in the body. The drums, with their vibration and deep rooting, allow to quickly tune the group of deaf people at a very high level of activation, joyful, shared. It is surprising to see the joy that moves from person to person during an improvisation collective (and you will return below).
A curiosity. A comment they allowed me to reflect on the quality of sound perceived through the vibration. I was told that in fact the vibrations produced by my playing the most experienced and precise than their (Intuitive, exploratory, less refined) are more clear and defined. A qualitative aspect of the vibrations that we tend to underestimate.
Non-verbal communication Deaf
listen with your eyes. To be able to play the same rhythm of a drum, two people with hearing loss should see their hands, the pace of the movement of the blow on the skin. The vibration is less definite and precise rhythmic characteristics with respect to the sound in your ears. The visual observation then allows them to retrieve important information.
In everyday life, we know, listen to lip reading, and intuitively attach more importance to mimic and posture. This attitude is especially evident if you find yourself talking to hearing people who work daily with the deaf. Their gestures and their facial expression in normal communication is enhanced, rich. Nothing to do with the famous (or notorious) mimic excesses of Italians.
There is something poetic, theatrical and lively in that emphasis delicate. The training with music therapy is characterized in this case, even more than in others, as an intervention
syncretic and synaesthetic .
Meet other on a theme I have talked several times during the workshop. In the meeting with the other, hearing person, the difficulties of communication are equally divided. As always, that is, the comparison with the disability, or the limits of a person, cross each other. Let me explain. In everyday life, it is certain that the dull lives of the difficulty of not being able to listen to the words that a deaf use to communicate. There is therefore a major frustration resulting from an extreme case, a lack objective that reduces the natural range of expressive possibilities. On the other hand,
the deaf over the years have learned and developed techniques and strategies to overcome this limit . This is one of the richest and most beautiful properties all limits, or act as its stimulus to overcome, to grow. Opportunity. People with hearing loss so they try (and often are) a new balance of communication and relationship built with the experience, practice and creativity, where a mix of elements converged to transform the resource limit: the LIS, the non-verbal, the vibration, writing, etc.. What is missing
the deaf, often, is the awareness of the difficulties that limit their poses to hearing people they encounter on their journey. I have lived and experienced firsthand during these meetings. Among them, the participants communicated without problems while I was excluded,
illiterate and poor. Paradoxically, the
deaf is prepared to deal with a situation that captures the hearing person completely by surprise , discovering it in embarrassment and surprise. It is an essential point for the deaf that must enter into any organization, remember that he must first commit to helping others overcome their common difficulties of communication. To do this, the first step is to drop the victim dell'incompreso typical attitude, so common (often with good reason, do not forget, but rarely useful) among the hearing impaired. I'm deaf but able-bodied. The others did not accept me for the real potential I have. And so on. We can see here a great idea responsibilities on
personale , sull’apertura all’altro e all’ignoto. Una lezione che la pratica con il dialogo sonoro permette di mettere in atto molto chiaramente, offrendo un valido contributo alla comprensione. L’improvvisazione con strumenti non familiari come i tamburi, in situazioni non familiari, cercando di esprimere sensazioni e
contenuti non familiari, … è un’occasione efficace per ripercorrere insieme un pezzo della strada che le persone ipoacusiche, nell’affrontare il loro limite, hanno fatto negli anni. L’ignoto del dialogo sonoro si pone come metafora dell’ignoto che i sordi hanno dovuto affrontare nel trovare un linguaggio inedito (inaudito!) per comunicare con gli altri. Once again, it then presents the opportunity to develop a new awareness of themselves and their way of life.
The sound is participation and joy The last remark concerns the participation and involvement. I admit that common sense and lack of knowledge of the many possibilities of sound and music therapy may give rise to serious doubts about the potential of working with people with hearing loss on communication through the use of musical improvisation. On the other hand, it is known that the sound experience of the sound vibrations are an integral part of many educational approaches, and development of language (and the ability relazionali) per i sordi, in particolare in età evolutiva. Impossibile non citare in questa sede lo straordinario lavoro di
Trovesi Cremaschi con l’uso del pianoforte coi bambini sordi.
Il laboratorio appena concluso mi è arrivato come una confortante conferma, sia in merito alla ricchezza espressiva dei sordi, sia sulla forza del suono come esperienza viva dell’essere umano. Suonare i tamburi in improvvisazioni collettive (dodici persone in tutto), in sottogruppi, in dialoghi a due, ecc. genera immediatamente partecipazione e gioia.
Sono emozioni che hanno a che fare con il gioco, certo, con la creatività, ma che trovano radice in quella che è l’esperienza primaria del corpo (e della mente) a contatto con le vibrazioni sonore . Dove c’è vita c’è suono, c’è vibrazione. Nella vita intrauterina, prima ancora che si sviluppi l’organo dell’udito, il feto è già immerso nelle vibrazioni sonore (del battito cardiaco, della respirazione, dei movimenti intestinali, della voce della madre) e c’è già l’esperienza dell’appartenenza a una relazione con l’altro veicolata dalla vibrazione. Nella fusione pre-natale, quindi, la vibrazione è già parte strutturante ed essenziale.
Il massaggio sonoro in gravidanza si appoggia proprio su questo potenziale per sviluppare la sua efficacia, che è sia emozionale, che profondamente corporea. The deaf
behaves in this report with the sound vibration, in a totally human
, with the added advantage of developing selective attention and direct knowledge of sound-vibration that is much deeper than in hearing people .
that specific, unique energy that is the sound (and music, organized and structured in its evolution), so familiar and yet mysterious, for the deaf is also a great joy and vitality. Maintains its full potential communicative, expressive, playful, invigorating, vital,
... Here are some photos, with a heartfelt thanks to the participants.
