“I can feel the rhythm, and it is somehow nice”: Deafness challenging the hierarchy of senses in music education

Abstract

In this article, we explore how deafness challenges the hierarchy of senses in music education. As part of a larger three-year research project focusing on memories of Finnish state schools for the d/Deaf, “Voices of a Silent People—Renovated Bodies,” this article concentrates on experiences of music education. The methodological starting point of the research project is sign history, with a focus on d/Deaf people’s signed memories. The interview data for the whole research project (N = 116) were collected by interviewing d/Deaf people in group discussions and individual interviews. There were 61 participants who produced the transcribed interview data related to the third substudy on music education (n = 61). Our critique of the hierarchy of senses in music education is based on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological thought and, more specifically, the criticism of the mind–body, self–other, and subject–object dichotomies in the listening process. The results suggest that d/Deaf people can feel sound with their bodies. Sound is experienced holistically through different channels: body, touch, vision, and for some, through hearing or feeling bass frequencies. Sound is not categorized into perceptions of one sense. To conclude, four dimensions that make it possible to formulate more inclusive and multisensory music education are presented.