PaulWhittakerOBE

A: I rely entirely on the printed score to understand music. I cannot identify what voice is singing, what instrument is being played, melody, harmony, form - anything - but once I see it on the page, I know in my head exactly what it sounds like.

I would say this is linked to playing the piano. The piano is such a big, physical instrument with a wide pitch range; when you press a key down, you feel the hammer hit the string, the vibrations travel up your arm and every note feels different. It's easy to relate the note you depress to the one printed on the musical stave/score and therefore easy to relate what you see to what you feel.

I say "easy" as I never recall having any trouble learning music. I started playing the piano when I was 5 and, over the years, have tried playing many other instruments so I have some idea of their tone, timbre, etc.

There are some kinds of music which are harder for me to access, such as Jazz and Electronic as this cannot be written down and therefore I can't read and understand it.

B: To answer your second question, my favourite piece of music depends on what mood I'm in! I often think about what recordings I would take to that mythical desert island, and there are a few pieces that would always make the list:

Carilion - Herbie Flowers and Ian Gomm (Recorded by SKY on their first album) Ave verum corpus, K. 618 - Mozart West Side Story - Bernstein

I am a massive James MacMillan fan - I think he's a genius!

I may not hear the instrument, but I can certainly feel it and there is an immense amount of fun and pleasure from that. My main instruments are the piano and organ and, having tried many other instruments over the years, I have a good imagination and was actually told by one of my tutors that I was really good at orchestrating and arranging music because my imagination was so vivid.

I would say that your ears are not actually that important when playing music; your heart and soul and emotion play a bigger role. Musicality is not linked to hearing ability. There are thousands of hearing people who say they don't like music and many deaf people who do!

Thank you very much!

Even though I was born deaf, music was always around in the house when I was growing up. My Mum played the piano and my parents had the radio on or played records nearly all the time, so I was aware of this phenomenon which affected people in profound ways. Perhaps if I had grown up in an environment where there was lots of art or dance, I may have pursued that path instead!

Finding a teacher was often a challenge as they were unsure of how to communicate and to explain music to someone without hearing. I always rely on what I call the 'played example' where the teacher showed me what they wanted me to do, then I watched and copied it.

Describing the feeling of music is a tough one to answer. Sometimes, I can attend a performance of a piece of music and feel that I'm going to burst because it's so overpowering; at other times, it makes me happy or sad or makes me cry. Music can bring people together, and divide people, can be used as a political tool, can be experienced alone or in a crowd. You can have several thousand people attending one physical performance of a piece of music, but everyone goes away having responded to it differently. That's the power of music! For me, it's something that I just have to do and I can't imagine life without it.

As I'm not really a composer and have written very little stuff that I would share with anyone, I don't actually have a favourite of mine. There is one little piece I wrote for my chapel choir when I was at University which I like but that's about it, haha!

My own education was oral and I started signing when I was 10 years old. At that age, I moved from my local primary school to one in Bradford and travelled on the same bus as children going to the school for the deaf over there. Those children could sign and I just watched and copied as the bus ride was about an hour each way.

I have two sisters - one deaf, one hearing - and they both sign. My deaf sister was educated orally, as when she was at school sign language was formally banned because of the Milan conference 1880 (Google it for more info!). She started signing when she was 16.

Mum and Dad both attempted to sign but I know of many, many families where parents sadly make little or no effort to communicate with their deaf child.

I read a lot when I was young (and still do) and find English fascinating. Having both English and BSL skills is, I feel, a huge advantage, especially when it comes to translating signed songs.