although i think it is a bit oppurtunistic to offer music lessons to the deaf (although, a deaf percussionist does make sense. aren't most of them deaf anyway?), i saw a sight last summer that totally blew me away.
my wife (fool) participated in a triathalon. in the front group, swimming, biking and running on crutches was a man with one leg. i remember thinking 'imagine what he could do if he put that energy toward something more likely' but, he was beating 90% of the people in the race.
i have students who sight read very well who don't read music. they read like a road map and they are better at it than a lot of people i went to music school with. i would guess it is very possible for a deaf person with a good sense of rhythm and an 'instinct' could play beautifully maybe without knowing it. it may be the extreme of what we singers experience hearing something different from what everyone else hears. there are certainly enough piano students who play as if they are typing and wouldn't recognize the piece they are playing if they heard it.
imagine the deaf pianist, who has been playing for ten years, gets a new operation that allows them to hear. imagine what that would be like, to sit down at the piano and play something like 'reflets dans l'eau' (or, whatever piece blows you away). the only thing i have experienced that is close to that is arriving at a sub-alpine meadow in the canadian rockies. it was just as i hoped it would be.
mike
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