Sound – Not Just Heard?

With all the discussion on the importance of sound, I began to wonder what a member of the deaf community could contribute to the discussion. My sister, Caroline, is 13 and has been profoundly deaf since birth. This means that she can hear almost nothing of the things we take for granted unaided. She can, however, hear some of the lower frequency sounds around us, such as motorbike exhausts and the beat of loudly played music. But that is the hearing side. More important to her is the tactile aspect of sounds. We have to note that sound is vibration; the variation in small patterns of compression in the medium it passes through (be it air, water etc). You’ve probably noticed that your throat seems to vibrate when you talk; this is due to your larynx vibrating to create sound. So with this in mind, it is sounds tactility that appeals to Caroline most. It is in the reverberation in the floor, the tremble of the table top and even in the perceptible air currents coming from the sound system that she finds appreciation in music and sound. This inherent tactility of sound has led her to take up bass guitar – an instrument with one of the lowest frequencies and has meant that she can still enjoy the affordances of the medium.

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