Music for Totally Deaf Children

C HILD~EN c1ass~d as totally deaf do not possess even the rudiments of music, They have had no experience with speech rhythms, thus they lack even that natural relationship of music and language which every normal child entering an elementary school has unconsciously absorbed. They have never heard musical sounds and are unequipped mentally to orientate pitches, timbre and other qualities of sound. Faced with these facts, Frederick Lewis, supervisor of the Federal Music Project at Lansing, Michigan, recently initiated experiments in cooperation with the Lansing public schools, to determine whether the completely deaf child could be brought to an appreciation of music, and, through appreciation, to a self expression in music somewhat approximating that of the normal child. These experiments were carried out in a special classroom set aside for the teaching of twelve children classified as totally deaf. While it was not the purpose of the experiments to develop hearing as such in those children, the room was equipped with hearing aid devices for the experiments. A simple microphone was augmented with an amplifying mechanism, and wires from this amplifier led into connecting "blocks" running across the tops of two tables large enough to accommodate three children on each side. Individual sets of head-phones were in turn jacked into the connecting blocks fed by the amplifier. While the experiments were with those classified as totally deaf, it was recognized that even under such a classification there would be a varying degree of sensitivity on the part of each child. For that reason, each child was provided with a volume control for regulating the strength of the signals coming through his head-phone. The head-phones were used in order that the children might have their hands free to demonstrate their individual reactions to the music. With this equipment set up, the first approach to the experiments was an attempt to acquaint the children with simple rhythm. This represented the easiest musical fundamental toward which their attention could be directed, since rhythm can be experienced by the deaf as a series of regularly recurring vibrations or pulsations that can be felt, even if they are not "heard" as the normal person hears them. A composition of march rhythm was consequently played by an orchestra, great stress being placed upon all accented beats. As these sounds poured through the head-phones and, for the first time, entered the consciousness of these children, their little faces lit up with surprise and pleasure. After each child had adjusted the volume control to suit his particular needs, the next step in the progressive development of the experiments was an attempt to get the children to give individualized reactions to the music of the orchestra. A baton was given each little listener, and he was shown how to beat time to the rhythmic pulsations coming to him through the headphones. To prevent the process from becoming visual, the orchestra was hidden from sight by a screen. Soon all twelve children were beating in exact time with the music. The possibility of the process being imitative on the part of some of the children was checked further by having each child beat time alone. From simple rhythm it was comparatively easy to progress to a correct response to duple and triple rhythm. Once this was mastered, the experimenters further checked and tested the reactions of the children by changing the rhythm to a faster or slower tempo without warning. Next, unexpected variations from