Listening with the Eyes
April 12, 2021 11:43 AM Subscribe
Making Music Visible: Singing in Sign "...that when you do hear, not hearing may seem to separate us. But what is your relationship to music, to dance, to beauty? What do you see that I may learn from? These are conversations people need to get accustomed to having.” The article begins with Brandon Kazen-Maddox's 10-song series of American Sign Language covers of seminal works by Black female artists. And then examines other signing music projects from around the world.
"A good A.S.L. performance prioritizes dynamics, phrasing and flow. The parameters of sign language — hand shape, movement, location, palm orientation and facial expression — can be combined with elements of visual vernacular, a body of codified gestures, allowing a skilled A.S.L. speaker to engage in the kind of sound painting that composers use to enrich a text."
The Leipzig Ensemble SING&SIGN demonstrate in German sign language a partial performance of Bach's St John's Passion. The signing not only makes the music more accessible to hearing-impaired audience, the balletic signing movements add an additional layer of understanding for hearing audiences.
"A good A.S.L. performance prioritizes dynamics, phrasing and flow. The parameters of sign language — hand shape, movement, location, palm orientation and facial expression — can be combined with elements of visual vernacular, a body of codified gestures, allowing a skilled A.S.L. speaker to engage in the kind of sound painting that composers use to enrich a text."
The Leipzig Ensemble SING&SIGN demonstrate in German sign language a partial performance of Bach's St John's Passion. The signing not only makes the music more accessible to hearing-impaired audience, the balletic signing movements add an additional layer of understanding for hearing audiences.
So we happened to watch The Bélier Family yesterday, a French movie about the speaking daughter of a Deaf farming family finding her talent for singing, and its final scene is an almost too poignant example of what signing can bring to a song...
posted by progosk at 4:09 PM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by progosk at 4:09 PM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
(Kind of) related: There was an item on the radio yesterday here in the Uk about a shepherd who'd trained a very old and very deaf sheepdog to understand and act on hand signals instead of the usual whistles. The dog's back at work now and enjoying it immensely.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:32 AM on April 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Paul Slade at 12:32 AM on April 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
Kino - Khochu peremen! (Wikipedia) with Russian Sign Language (credits sequence from the movie Pyl').
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 3:16 AM on April 13, 2021
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 3:16 AM on April 13, 2021
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