Tom Hunt tells us about the inspiration behind creating a Deaf-friendly Beginners Guitar course (BSL)

Hi everyone, I’m Tom and I’m a music tutor and composer. I am also the Dad of a severe-profoundly Deaf boy who loves music – his favourite band is currently The Beatles and so he loves the classics!

For the last 6 years I have been offering guitar lessons to Deaf students using BSL, visualisers, sign song and adapted forms of notation.

I first started learning BSL just over 10 years ago and thought it was a fascinating and beautiful language. Soon after, I became interested in combining this skill with Deaf music tuition.

I approached Heathlands School for Deaf Children and they were very welcoming and allowed me to offer some trial guitar lessons. Fortunately, several students signed up and began learning with me.

I’ve learnt a lot teaching in this school over the years, but especially through listening to students’ views on which methods they felt worked best.

As a hearing person, it’s needed to be a collaborative approach and I’ve had to adapt my methods regularly – testing what works and making sure approaches are as clear and visual as possible.

Tailoring to the individual has been really important too – every Deaf student is different.

A few years into my time working at Heathlands, my son was born Deaf. We had no known family history of Deafness and so it was an incredible coincidence that I had been somehow preparing and practising my BSL for him all along! Helping him access and enjoy music has definitely given my work more meaning too.

A year or two ago, I came up with the idea of creating a Deaf-friendly BSL beginner’s guitar course. There didn’t seem to be anything like this available at the time and so I wanted to provide a fun and accessible way for Deaf students to start playing guitar.

I’d seen how much my in-person Heathlands students could enjoy and progress on the instrument and so wanted to provide a solid introduction for anyone learning online as well.

Fortunately, I also had a fantastic BSL tutor (Zahra from @DeafSigns) to help me refine the videos and improve my signing skills. She has made some great suggestions and is a brilliant teacher!

The course is now finished and called ‘Six String Signs’. It’s available for free on my website: https://tomhunt.co.uk/six-string-signs-beginners-guitar-course-for-deaf-students-music/

I hope it inspires some Deaf-music lovers to pick up a guitar and enjoy learning!

For anyone keen to find out more about Tom please visit: www.tomhunt.co.uk 

Tom also offers in-person lessons from his home studio in Grundisburgh, near Ipswich, Suffolk.