A small guide to working with D/deaf/F people
Many of our Sound of Bronze trainees and facilitators came together in the interest of creating a resource on working with D/deaf/F communities. One of our facilitators, Katie Maloney, has brought their contributions togther into a small guide.
In the interest of wanting to expand the different groups of people we work with musically, here’s some things we learnt recently that we wished we knew before!
Different models of D/deaf/Fness
What they are:
Deaf - cultural model, celebration of Deaf culture, (Deafhood) Deaf consciousness, intrinsic language and culture.
deaf* - medical model, has the most dominance in society, (treatment, cure, manage).
DeaF - empowering, challenges institutional and social ‘norms’, accommodations and barrier removal, humanistic. It encompasses fluid identity with being bicultural and bimodal
*deaf (all lower case) can be an umbrella term for everyone included above but some people may prefer to see their specific identity used, given how ‘deaf’ can have connotations of the medical model.
Different people will identify themselves in different ways, and no identity is more or less right. (I would probably say that there is also no level of hearing loss that dictates how any deaf person would identify themselves).
Communication
There are a lot of different ways that D/deaf/F people communicate - again, there is no one right way - different people will have different preferences.
Some people use BSL
BSL has been a language in the UK since 2003
There are many different sign languages from different countries and there is some regional variation within BSL (as you would expect from a language!)
Sign language has often been looked down upon as well as being overlooked. The event with potentially the largest negative impact was the Milan Conference of 1880: a declaration was made that oral education was better than sign education, resulting in sign language in schools for the Deaf being banned.
While sign language does not face as much negativity currently, there is still ignorance in the overlooking of the language. A recent example being the lack of a BSL interpreter for the key COVID update briefings from Downing Street.
Some people lip read
Things to consider with lip reading are ensuring you have good lights, keeping your hands off your face, and either removing face masks or have a clear D/deaf/F friendly mask or screen.
Deaf people can also use hearing assisting technology such as hearing aids, cochlear implants or Bone Anchored Hearing Aids (BAHA’s). General deaf awareness such as good lighting, don’t stand in front of the window so as to cast a shadow on your face, make sure your mouth isn’t covered, gesture/write things down if needed, and even the use of google images can help with communication.
How can we be more genuinely inclusive in our practice?
Ask questions, research, inform ourselves.
Remember, it’s not any D/deaf/F person’s job to inform you - be careful to balance the need for getting information from those with lived experience, with the need to respect that some D/deaf/F people may not want to be treated as the fount of all knowledge on all matters D/deaf/F!
BUT there are plenty of people with lived experience who can (and will want to) help/advise.
A REMINDER
> Each person is individual and will have different preferences on terminology, communication - it is ok to check/ask.
> If you get something wrong (and we all will!) have humility, apologise, learn and try again!
D/deaf/F musicians we admire:
Ruth Montgomery - ruthmontgomery.co.uk
Ruth is a professional flautist, music educator/facilitator and visionary artist, who is profoundly deaf. She has a degree in Flute Performance from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and has performed professionally as a soloist, for example with the Royal Philharmonic at Cadogan Hall, and the Russian National Orchestra in Moscow and St Petersburg. Ruth is also the founder of the Audiovisability project (audiovisability.com), which champions the deaf perspective, celebrating creativity through instrumental performance, visual arts, sign language, captioning, technology and music education. Here is a really interesting conversation between Ruth and deaf composer Ailís Ní Ríain: britishmusiccollection.org.uk
Christine Sun Kim christinesunkim.com
Christine is an American sound artist based in Berlin. Working predominantly in drawing, performance, and video, Kim's practice considers how sound operates in society. Musical notation, written language, American Sign Language (ASL), and the use of the body are all recurring elements in her work. Her work has been exhibited in major cultural institutions internationally, including in the Museum of Modern Art's first exhibition about sound in 2013 and the Whitney Biennial in 2019. She was named a TED Fellow in both 2013 and 2015, a Director's Fellow at MIT Media Lab in 2015, and a Ford Foundation Disability Futures Fellow in 2020.
Sonia Allori
Sonia is a composer, performer, researcher and community music therapist; she was one of Drake Music’s Artists in Residence for 2020/21. Alongside the wonderful product of the music she writes (soundcloud.com/ultraviolet101-1) her description of her inspiration as a composer is really beautiful and is outlined here in a talk with Drake Music (drakemusic.org). Sonia holds a PhD in composition, a lot of her work centers around text, writing works that combine sound and words, and working with artists across other disciplines. Currently, Sonia is researching D/deaf performance at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. In this interview, Sonia talks about her experience as a deaf musician and some of her recent work pressandjournal.co.uk
Danny lane
Danny is a pianist and is artistic director of Music and the Deaf (charity) has done lots of projects with music for deaf youth wellcomecollection.org is an article written by him, basics of his life and about the charity and about struggles deaf people face in music britishmusiccollection.org.uk has an interview with him
Sean Chandler. @thingwoidaraes
Yorkshire based trumpeter, teacher of the Deaf, mentor and a freelance workshop leader. His work within the D/deaf/F communities have been the main source of inspiration to the members of the Sound of Bronze Project. If you or your organisation are interested in any training in this area, we can highly recommend getting in touch with Sean
Helpful Links
https://www.signworldlearn.com/
https://actiondeafness.org.uk/
https://www.signsolutions.uk.com/
https://www.interpreterslive.co.uk/Live!customers/
https://www.facebook.com/performanceinterpreting
Ladd, Paddy. 2003. Understanding deaf culture: in search of deafhood. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.