Have you heard of Evelyn Glennie? She’s amazing.
She was born with “normal” hearing, but by the age of 12 she lost almost all of her hearing and then became legally deaf.
And yet, guess what she does … she is a magnificent, extraordinary, professional percussionist. Yes, a percussionist. And yes, she’s deaf.
Can you be deaf and be a musician? You sure can. Sound isn’t sensed just with ears alone. Notice in the photo above that she’s not wearing shoes. Stay tuned and I’ll tell you more. 🙂
Dame Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie, CH, DBE, is a percussionist from Scotland. She’s world renowned. She was selected as one of two laureates for the international Polar Music Prize of 2015. She has been given so many awards and prizes and accolades throughout her life that the list is too long to share with you here. The letters DBE stand for Dame of the British Empire and hold equal rank to KBE or Knight of the British Empire.
Just FYI … here is a list of a few other notable people to receive knighthood (KBE) or damehood (DBE) from The Queen:
- Sir David Attenborough
- Dame Agatha Christie
- Dame Jane Goodall
- Sir Winston Churchill
- Dame Judi Dench
- Dame P.D. James
- Dame Vivienne Westwood
- Dame Maggie Smith
- Sir Paul McCartney
- Dame Shirley Bassey
- Dame Daphne Du Maurier
- Dame Olivia de Havilland, born in Japan
A good introduction to Evelyn Glennie and her childhood and her musical training is here … https://www.ted.com/speakers/evelyn_glennie. That website is mostly text, although it has a number of links to other information about Evelyn, including one link to a TED talk. If you’d like to go straight to the TED talk and not wade through the text and other links, here’s the link directly to her TED talk … if you watch/listen to only one thing from the bunch of stuff available from that website, probably the best is this TED talk.
If the video above “hangs” at about 3:57, just click on the sound line at that same point or just a second or two past and it will continue playing.
I’ve been listening to Evelyn’s music online for quite a while now. I attended a concert of hers in Tacoma, WA, several years ago with friends who follow this blog. During that concert, she played the Timpani, the Marimba, snare drums, and all manner of other percussion instruments. She was a wizard. The music was beautiful.
Frankly, I don’t understand how anyone can play so many notes while holding four sticks, two in each hand, and be able to control exactly where the sticks hit on the Marimba (plus a few other percussion instruments at the same time!), and how hard or softly they hit.
I have a CD that I keep in my big white truck. It’s one of my favorite CD’s to play while cruising up the highway with my travel trailer hitched up along behind. Here are two of my favorite tunes from that CD … please turn your sound on before you play these.
A Little Prayer
Now let me stir things up a bit. I’ll end this blog post with a fun tune … a busy busy bee tune!
The Flight of the Bumble Bee.
How can she play so many notes so fast?!?!?
