Music translated?

Music is abstract. Music is emotional. Music is divine. Music is a lot of things. But is it translatable?

Concerts are an uncomparable experience. They can touch us deeply. Or make us jump with joy. Carry us away. Or just let us enter a completely different world. The world looks different when you are listening to music. Colours become brighter. Rain becomes romantic. Trees become living creatures. Now imagine you do not live in the world of the hearing. And there is no sound at all. Interpreters for the deaf community until now were only making a sign for „Music is being played“, which not even partly delivers the content music has. The hearing world is only recently becoming aware of the huge gap the lack of music causes in the world of experiences of people with hearing loss.

There is a group of sign language interpreters who are working on translations of music for the deaf community. The deaf community comprises a very diverse group of people who have a wide range of residual hearing frequencies from 125 hz up to 8,000 hz. Thus, some can only hear very low tones like base, others can hear high notes like in singing. For the rhythm, hard of hearing people can feel the beats in the vibration of the floor. That’s how deaf dancing groups manage to be unbelievably synchronized with the music they are dancing to.

But how to reproduce the whole musical experience for the deaf community? The first and probably most important question is: what does music consist of? What provokes these strong emotions we have, when we hear it?

First of all, the rhythm of the music moves us. We can feel it with our body and it defines the mood of a musical piece. As stated earlier, if there are strong beats, the hard of hearing people will be able to feel the rhythm. But sometimes, the rhythm lies in the melody played by, let’s say, violins. In that case it’s necessary for the interpreter to „feel“ the music and not only indicate the „form“ of the melody in his gestures, for example with wave-like movements, but also indicate the length of the tones. If a singer holds a tone for half a minute with a crescendo (becoming louder) and a sudden break, the intensity of the moment will not be delivered in simply making one short movement for a long tone. With his whole body posture and tension in the movements, the interpreter must replicate the character of the tone.

Another aspect, if we are dealing with a song, is the text. The text is represented with sign language. Songs often include puns, which can be represented with a combination of more than one sign in one movement.

The height of tone is also one of the aspects of music that can provoke goosebumps. This is an aspect that can be presented well with facial expressions. With guitar sounds, for example, we tend to contract facial muscles when miming high notes. Heavy, low tones, are rather symbolized with blown-up cheeks.

The challenge for the interpreter when „translating“ music for the world of the people with hearing loss, is to „act out“ music, to feel it with the whole body and mind and reflect its impact. Also, ideas are expressed completely differently in sign language than in our spoken/written languages. For example the phrase „Hungry like a wolf“ expressed in sign language would not have the meaning intended in the song. For a music interpreter for the deaf community it is, thus, crucial to prepare the translation of the words in advance of a concert.

One of the most popular interpreters for the deaf community is Amber Galloway Gallego, who has interpreted concerts for popular names like Kendrick Lamar and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Interpreters like her drew a lot of attention to interpretation for the deaf community and made it a popular issue. Nevertheless, there are interpreters that are deaf themselves and believe that there are disadvantages of the „popularization“ of the issue as well. Increasingly, hearing interpreters are hired for music translation. In the eyes of Shawn Vriezen, who suffers from severe hearing loss himself, the bridge built between the hearing world and the deaf community can never be as strong if the bridge builder is from the other side.

Whether hearing or deaf, it is – as with so many other things – the presence of the interpreter that enables or disables the delivery of a musical experience from the world of tones to the world of silence. If he does not involve his whole being in the process, if he misses out on details like intensity and length of a tone (e.g. legato, smooth and connected, and staccato, short tones) or the change of rhythm and character in the music, the gates of the enchanting world of music will remain closed for the non-hearing individual.