The Sight of Music

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A nearly silent, yet perceptible rhythm of communication greeted me one afternoon in May as I walked into Shiloh Baptist Church, the Greater Washington Urban League’s center for deaf and hearing-impaired seniors. I introduced myself to the group with the assistance of a sign language interpreter as AFTA drummer and percussionist John Sausser unpacked his djembe drums, tablas and rainsticks to share AFTA’s first-ever program with this senior population.

After a short account of the regional origins and symbolic uses of the instruments, John dug right in to the drumming. The seniors’ contemplation immediately gave way to a dance celebrating sound. With each strike of the goat skin djembe drum, the music’s vibration spoke. And with arms raised, hips wagging, eyes closed, and heads swaying, the seniors heard it, and dug in too.

That vision resonates in my mind. In primitive tribal societies, drumming is used for healing purposes and as a tool for social integration and restoration of harmony. The rhythm heals emotional disturbances, restores good physical health, releases tension and promotes balance and wholeness. Perhaps these correlations are rooted in one’s congenital introduction to rhythm in the mother’s womb, when the body is coddled by the sound of her heartbeat.

Despite my limited exposure to the deaf and hearing-impaired population, the unmitigated truth of my experience that day is this--the ear is a mere conduit for sound, which is only one dimension of music. Music is heard when the soul feels rhythm, and the body replies with movement. How else can I explain the sheer joy emanating from one of the seniors when she shook the rainstick, a hollowed out piece of wood filled with seeds and cactus needles, whose delicate sound was undoubtedly inaudible to her. One rattle of the rainstick seemed to unleash an intravenous hit of sound through her body.

I left Shiloh Baptist Church feeling hearing-impaired, sensing that my ears dilute the essence of sound and its innate relation to the language of the body. But what I discovered that day was a vision of sound. I heard music with my own two eyes--with the seniors’ arms raised, hips wagging, eyes closed, heads swaying--it looked even better than it sounded.

Janine Tursini, AFTA Program Director