Tharā Gabriel: “That’s the wrong note!” said the hard of hearing guitarist

Looking at the title of this article you might think that it’s a phrase that’s always directed at Deaf and Hard of Hearing musicians, singers or band members; well I’m here to debunk that myth.

There is an uncanny phenomenon (which I have yet to find an explanation for) whereby deaf people who are unable to hear the regular cadences of day-to-day conversation, can “hear” music perfectly fine. I am one of those anomalies.

In my attempt to understand how this can even be possible, I’ve realised that it can be attributed to a couple things. First of them being my father.

The average person listens to music for the melody, the lyrics or a combination of both. In my case, before I even picked up an instrument for the first time, my father ‘taught’ me how to listen to music. Sounds strange right? My fellow musicians will probably understand.

Generally when someone hears a song they like, they listen to it on repeat for a while, waiting for that chorus or bridge that they can sing along to. Barring the collectively recognized ‘classics’, after a while, the novelty wears off and they’d probably only vaguely remember bits of the lyrics a couple years down the line. This is not the case for me.

I have been listening to the same menagerie of songs for over a decade without ever becoming tired of it. For me, one song can give me 5 different experiences depending on what I choose to listen to at that particular time. Confused? Let me explain.

Growing up my father exposed us to a plethora, I repeat, a plethora of musical genres. He travelled the world for work and each time he’d return with music samples from the countries he visited.

While everyone would tune into the local radio stations playing mainstream music on their way to school, I’d be singing along with my father (pinch of salt…it was more like mumbling what sounded like “Sportuglish” – Spanish, Portuguese and English) to Exaltasamba, The Suspects, Juan Luis Guerra, Sting, Putomayo World Music, MaxBitU, Yellow Jackets, Mungal Patasar, Andre Tanker, Arturo Maia or of course, Bob Marley to name a few.

If I were with my mother, she’d be blasting Nat King Cole, Sam Cooke, Carole King, Shania Twain or Michael Jackson. Most of you have probably never heard of some of those artists I mentioned which was surely the reason my friends could never relate to the music I listened to.

But let’s get back to it.

Being ‘taught’ to listen to music by my father meant dissecting each song and zoning in to listen to each individual instrument. As a drummer, composer and all round musician, he was all about the rhythms and how they came together.

So sometimes I’d listen to a song just for the bass, then again for the guitar riffs or chord progression, then again for the drums, then the piano, then the congas, or maybe just the vocals. After that I’d listen again for the point where they’re each introduced into the rhythm, and then one more time to hear them altogether. Each instrument tells a story, gives insight and a different experience.

I can’t convey how much I enjoy this but you would probably understand if you ever saw me listening to music; it really is sort of a meditative, transcendent high. So if you ever hear me listening to one song on repeat for a week and you wonder “aren’t you fed-up of hearing that song?” Sorry, but the answer is no.

People also often ask me how I can listen to music and sing along word-for-word if I’m hard of hearing. Don’t be fooled, I can’t actually hear the lyrics in a song unless I painstakingly take to the internet and search for the lyrics of every single song I like. Then I read the lyrics while listening and only then can I differentiate when one word ends and another begins.

(Let me just insert a heartfelt thank you to all those who subtitle their music videos, create lyric videos or post lyrics online – you are truly appreciated by the deaf community!)

I mentioned before that I started losing my hearing around age 11; I actually started fiddling with the guitar at age 12. My mother often spoke about one of her older brothers with severe hearing loss who played guitar and I was always jointly confused and fascinated by this albeit being a bit disbelieving. She claimed that he could not hear someone right behind him calling his name, but if a guitar was out of tune you bet he’d hear that!

Cut to 20 years later, the same is true for me. Trust and believe I’d visibly cringe if my guitar is out of tune or someone sings off-key.

My hearing loss is often described as being treble deaf; which means I can’t hear sounds on a higher frequency. For example, this is why it’s easier to interact with men due to their lower voice registers.

For me, another phenomenon of listening to music as a hard of hearing person is not being able to hear all the notes made by the instruments or the singers vocals , and yet knowing exactly what they should be. This can partially be the result of sound memories from my hearing life, but personally I think it’s attributed to the fact that I play an instrument. The progression of notes along the guitar fretboard gives me an idea of note sequencing so after a while I can automatically discern which notes come, or could come next.

The same can be said for my ability to randomly harmonize to mostly any song, although this might also have a lot to do with growing up singing in church choirs…oh how we love ah lil harmony!  So while I may listen to Céline Dion or Claude Debussy, it doesn’t mean I can hear everything she sings, or he plays but I know what it sounds like. It’s almost as if I can hear phantom notes; strange right?

Within the last decade I had the amazing opportunity to play with my family band siebenMenagerie. The name represented our iconic number 7, and both the eclectic and eccentric nature of the members, as well as the myriad genres which we covered.

Reminiscing on stories my father told me about his drumming journey from age 14, I am truly grateful having been able to play live with him before he passed away. I know for a fact he was also extremely proud of what we created as he listened to the live concert recordings almost everyday, mementos which are now priceless to me.

You’re probably trying to understand how a deaf person could play in a band, something that requires real time collaboration with the other musicians. Well actually I wasn’t even the only one; on occasion my youngest sister also played the violin in our band. What I’ve realised is that love for music transcends any inhibitions or scepticism which may exist, and this goes both ways.

I was fortunate enough to have Samuel (Uncle Sam) and Mark Peters (Marky) in our band. Between Uncle Sam tuning my guitars before every band rehearsal or performance, teaching me tricky bar chords and progressions, and Marky writing out chords and giving me visual cues and reminders from behind his keyboard while performing, playing with a band was an amazingly holistic and prejudice-free experience for me.

Then there’s the singing. Generally I play rhythm guitar in our band but I’d also sing the songs in French Creole or sometimes Portuguese. This speaks to my language preferences yes, but also to the fact that songs in these languages are in lower tones; which means they’re easier for me to hear, understand and repeat.

Another reason would be the fact the the lead singers; my hearing sisters Ayanna, Asha and Amirah (who all sing in multiple languages) often jokingly and deliberately butcher the French Creole lyrics just to torment me. French being my first love and favourite language, I will not tolerate this so I sing it myself.

My father’s choice to expose us to world music from a young age also meant exposure to languages and cultures, which ultimately translated into my love for languages and choice to pursue International Relations academically. I will always be grateful to him for this.

My dream has always been to be fluent in several languages and so I took advantage of extra language courses while at university. But being fluent in a language means conquering all four aspects: speaking, reading, writing and last but not at all least, listening. As much as I love languages, this is where it gets tricky for us hard of hearing folk.

While hearing persons may have difficulty learning a new language for all the usual reasons, there are additional barriers for the hard of hearing. This hasn’t stopped me from trying though. I’ll tell you all about it in my next article “The HoH Linguaphile”. Stay tuned.

Till next time!

T.G.

Tharā Gabriel is a Creative Communications and Administrative Professional from Trinidad and Tobago living with genetic, progressive Sensorineural Hearing Loss. She sings in her family band and plays guitar-even though she can’t hear all the notes! Ultimately she loves shattering stereotypes about the way deaf people should look and behave.