Arizona deaf children get to feel music

From the Arizona Daily Sun:

When Ludwig von Beethoven could no longer hear his music, he felt it.

Local children who also live with hearing loss were offered a chance to do the same.

On March 4, Mary Nebel and Amy McGinn (pictured), cello players with the Flagstaff Symphony Orchestra, brought their instruments to the DeMiguel Elementary preschool classroom just for hearing-impaired children to give the kids a real hands-on lesson in "feeling" music.

The musicians gave a brief performance, the music altered slightly to play lower notes for the benefit of the students -- deeper notes created more vibrations for the children to feel.

While the kids were polite when hearing the music from a distance, they connected immediately when allowed to touch the instruments as they were being played.

The large cello, which plays lower notes than the smaller, more sprightly-sounding violin, was a perfect vessel for sound waves to travel to curious fingers pressed against glossy wood and delicate, methodically moving strings.

Shayleigh Dent, a third-grader invited to take in the presentation with the younger children, was small sitting against a full-sized cello. But she had the longest arms to wrap around the instrument to help with a demonstration. When she slid a bow across the strings, the younger children gathered around her, eager to touch the sounds she was creating.

"Put your hand right here, so you can feel," Nebel said, guiding tiny hands to the cello's curvy, hollow body. "This is a great thing."

Nebel, who is also an assistant superintendent for Coconino County Schools, said an FSO board member wanted to come up with a way to share music with children, and "Beethoven Week" was born.

Local musicians have brought Beethoven into the classroom before with Keeping Score, a program that integrates classical music with seemingly unrelated core academic subjects. (Conceived and funded mostly by the San Francisco Symphony, Keeping Score is in only a handful of cities across the country, Flagstaff among them.)

Children in all grades recently wrote letters to Beethoven asking him about his life and music. The famous composer's hearing loss, juxtaposed with his genius, has been part of the lessons. He was known to have chopped the legs off his piano and rest it against the floor so he could feel the waves.

"He couldn't hear any, but he kept on writing music," Shayleigh said.

Beethoven started losing his hearing at around age 30, and would eventually become profoundly deaf. After miring in woe at the loss of his hearing, Beethoven then wrote some of his most enduring pieces, including the famous "Fifth" Symphony.

The DeMiguel event was sponsored by the FSO, Keeping Score, and the Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind. A similar activity will take place on Monday at Flagstaff High School.

The children are also invited to attend FSO's dress rehearsal next Wednesday. They will listen to FSO Conductor Elizabeth Schulze speak about Beethoven and sit on stage as the musicians play the Fifth, and are invited to attend the full performance on March 12 with their parents, compliments of the house. The concert also includes Mozart's "Magic Flute Overture" and Hummel's "Trumpet Concerto in E."

The DeMiguel students, as young as 3, seemed to enjoy the sensory stimulation Thursday, regardless of whether they "got" the physics of sound waves or the artistic merits of classical music. And they, too, learned a little about Beethoven himself and his perhaps familiar battles with being different.

"Even at preschool, it's really cool to have a sense of your deafness and identify with a successful deaf person," said teacher Lisa Ring.

Some of the children had partial hearing and could speak clearly, while others were profoundly deaf. All could sign their appreciation for their guests by patting their hearts and tummies, and wiggling their fingers in applause.

"Thank you very much," Nebel told the children, her bow at her side. "We had fun."