The sense ensemble; An approach to music composition for deaf and hearing alike

Abstract

Effective music composition approaches for the deaf are investigated. After a review of existing methods for deaf musical engagement, the reasons for music being popularly regarded as an auditory-centred experience are presented. These include a neuroscientific argument for issues around multisensory awareness, the influence of audio-centric language on musical experience and a new study which explores extending a subject?s vibrotactile awareness of music under clinical conditions. Three more studies and a series of workshops with deaf and hearing participants are presented which investigate multisensory compositional techniques for deaf and hearing audiences in both clinical and performance settings. Results demonstrate a number of successful approaches, which the researcher codifies as crossmodal harmonic technique. Moreover, it is shown that all individuals, whether hearing or deaf, can be alerted to the multimodal phenomena using these same techniques. It is concluded that music is a sense ensemble: a whole-body, crossmodal and intersubjective experience.