The Sound of Music

"The Sound Of Music"

[Evelyn Glennie Listens to Sound without Hearing it]

​​​​​​​      Rush hour crowds jostle for position on the underground train platform. A slight girl, looking younger than her 17 years, was nervous yet excited as she felt the vibrations of the approaching train. It was her first day it the prestigious Royal Academy of Music in London and daunting enough for any teenager fresh from a Scottish farm. But this aspiring musician faced a bigger challenge then most: she was profoundly deaf.

      Evelyn Glennie's loss of hearing had been ​​​​​​gradual. her mother remember noticing something was wrong when the 8 years old everyone was a waiting to play the piano.  They called her name and she didn't move. I suddenly realised she hadn't heard,​​​ says Isabel Glennie. For quite a while Evelyn managed to conceal her growing deafness from friends and teachers. But by the time she was eleven her marks had deteriorated and her headmistress urged her parents to take  her to a specialist. It was then discovered that her hearing was severely in impaired as a result of gradual nerve damage. They were advised that she should be fitted with hearing aids and sent to a school for the deaf. "Everything suddenly looked black‚" says Evelyn.

     But Evelyn was not going to give up. She was​​​​ determined to lead a normal life and pursue her interest in music. One day she notice playing a girl playing xylophone and decided that she wanted to play is it too. Most of the teachers discouraged her but percussionist Ron Forbes spotted her potential. he be can buy turning to large in drum sir to different notes. "Don't listen through your ears," he would say, "try to sence it some other way." Says Evelyn, "Suddenly I realised I could feel the higher drum from the waist up and the lower ​​​​​​one from the waist down." Forbes repeated the exercise, and soon Evelyn discovered that she should certain notes in different parts of her body. "I had learnt to open my mind and body to sounds and vibrations." The rest was sheer determination and hard work.

    She never looked back from that point onwords. She tourned the United Kingdom with a youth orchestra and by the time was a sixteen(16),  she had decided to make music her life. She auditioned for the Royal Academy of Music and scored one of the highest marks in the history of the Academy. She gradually from orchestral work to solo performances. At the end of her 3 year course, she had a captured most of the top awards. 

      And for all this, Evelyn won't accept any hint of a heroic achievement. "If you work hard and no where you are going, you'll get there." And she got right to the top, the world's most sought-after multipercussionist with a mastery of some thousand instruments, and hectic international schedule.

     It is intriguing to Shivling functions of effortlessly without hearing. In our two-hour discussion she never missed a word. "Men with bushy beards give me trouble," she loughed "It is not just watching the lips it's