The beginning of a long profile of Mandy Harvey from
IN Denver Times:
Mandy Harvey (pictured) is a deaf jazz singer. Yes, she is deaf and sings jazz. Perfectly and beautifully in tune. In fact, she performs Thursday nights with a jazz ensemble at Jay’s Bistro in Fort Collins.
But Mandy, 21, hasn’t always been deaf. For the first 18 years of her young life, she could hear all the music she wanted. She used to be able to hear herself sing.
Now she just feels it. Her memory is incredible and provides her with more than 100 songs she can sing off the top of her head by recollecting how they sound and memorizing their lyrics, tempo and timing.
She has lost her ability to hear but has gained a selfless opportunity to share her voice. She’s gaining speed and success.
She’s thinking positive, on the bright side. But understandably, she wasn’t at first.
Mandy Harvey sings Thursdays at Jay’s Bistro, 135 W. Oak St., in Fort Collins.
After being selected as the top female vocalist her senior year at Longmont High School, she auditioned and was instantly accepted in both the University of Northern Colorado and Colorado State University music education programs. She chose CSU.
“I finally felt like I was getting to where I wanted to be, I knew what I wanted to do, where I wanted to intern,” Harvey said. “Then three months into it I felt everything slip through the cracks.”
For no apparent reason, within nine months she had completely lost her hearing (110 decibels in each ear) and was dropped from the program.
“It’s nerve damage; there are a lot of theories. But my audiologist just says its nerve damage and permanent,” Harvey said. “There’s nothing really wrong with the structure of my ears. I’ve had several surgeries since I was kid. I’ve had many, many of them. I’ve had hearing issues all my life, but I’ve always been hearing, well, minus chunks of time where my ear drums would stop vibrating or it would get blocked by something and not be able to function, but for the most part, the idea of not being able to hear never popped in my head.”
Harvey’s last performance in the program was at the Freshman Voice Studio Recital. When she finished singing, her classmates gave her deaf applause. She thought she would never sing again.
“I can’t say that it’s like dying because I’ve never died, but it’s part of who you are has been taken away,” Harvey said. “It’s something you don’t have any idea on how to deal with, and the severity of my depression, it shocked me, because I’ve never been much of a depressed person. I always try to look at half-full cups, but it pulled me to a place I’ve never been before and a place I’ll try really hard to not go back to.”
She moved back home with her parents and became very distant.
Cynthia Vaughn, her voice coach since Harvey was 15, remembers how hard it was to not be able to reach her.
“Then I remember receiving an e-mail where she said she wanted to start taking singing lessons again,” Vaughn said. “How do you respond to that? I mean, I knew she was deaf. So, I replied, asking her to come see me at my new studio.”
After about one year of not being in any choir or being involved in any music, Harvey, who has participated in music since she was 4, decided the grieving period was over.
“I think I probably got into doing music again to keep my sanity. So I picked up singing again almost in spite of everything. I was like, ‘Fine, you can take this, but I’m taking it back,’ and it’s kind of worked out,” Harvey recalled. “Really, there’s no explanation other than like the grace of God because there’s really no reason why a person can do something I’m doing. I’m not saying I’m superman, but I don’t know any other person in my situation.”
Her situation is by no means typical. She has had to find a whole new way of approaching and participating in music. Instead of audibly hearing the song, she literally feels the vibrations from the instruments or watches the pianist’s hands.
She stands next to an amplifier on the ground or leans against the piano when she performs with a jazz ensemble Thursday nights at Jay’s Bistro in Fort Collins.
“Well, first off, they never play something I haven’t already given them, and then I can tell when they change tempo because that’s the strongest part of it. That’s why I pay attention to the bass the most because it keeps me on track,” Harvey said.
Most significantly, she has a team of reputable musicians on her side able and willing to go with the flow.
“They pretty much follow me most of the songs whenever we have a part where the tempo changes. But they wouldn’t change tempo on me without me telling them to. I’m leading, and then they follow and they are just really good musicians. I lucked out big time.”
Lucking out or earning the spot? It’s evident that Harvey had an ear for music and has a passion for singing mixed with advanced musical knowledge.
“She’s an impeccable musician,” Vaughn said. “None of this would’ve happened if she hadn’t first of all been an amazing musician. She lost her hearing and she’s still a musician. So, it’s not like she lost her hearing and then said, ‘Oh, I’m going to sing, I’m going to learn to read music, I’m going to learn some jazz tunes.’ No, that was all already there.”
Her talent, passion and perseverance have earned her a spot next to acclaimed musicians, such as nationally known jazz pianist Mark Sloniker and chart-topper bassist Erik Applegate.
The beginning of a long profile of Mandy Harvey from IN Denver Times:
