[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >Although I have to wonder . . . how >disturbing would thunder be to a deaf man!
Thunder, if it's loud enough, can cause vibrations in buildings and the ground itself that will certainly be felt even if not heard. But aside from this, very few deaf people are completely deaf, especially if they once were hearing and then went deaf, as Beethoven did. Most deaf people hear muted, muffled sounds, just as many blind people can see gradations of indistinct light. In an otherwise questionable biopic on Beethoven, IMMORTAL BELOVED, one thing I thought they did get right was the portrayal of his deafness (although obviously no one could know exactly what things sounded like to him). It was a very muffled and confusing swirl of sounds ... extremely disorienting to the viewer, not to mention to the subject. Nuriel Tobias <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >"Strike every chord that you feel" because you're deaf, >and to deaf ears there's no wrong chord. As I wrote recently in the discussion about musical literacy, music is in the head, and that's how Beethoven could continue to compose even though his ears couldn't fully receive the sound waves. So it's not that he could accept any chord because he couldn't hear it, but rather that Beethoven was an iconoclast who challenged traditional harmonic practice. If it "sounded" good to him in his head, if he felt it, then screw convention. -Fred Simon
