Adventures with Beethoven

Scene Three

Activities

Write your words.

Try using a conversation book with a family member.  Write questions on one page and have your partner answer on theirs. See what it’s like to communicate in this way. Does it take longer? Do you ever miss the person’s meaning? 

Can you keep the beat?

Try to keep the beat of your favorite song, WITHOUT the music. When Beethoven conducted for the last time, he couldn’t hear much, if anything. How hard is it to keep the beat, when you can’t hear the music? 

Feel the music.

If you have a piano, try feeling the vibrations like Beethoven did. Play the lowest notes on the piano (the ones on the far left hand side) and feel the side of the instrument to see if you can tell the difference in the notes. If you don’t have a piano, see if you can adjust the bass on a stereo and do the same thing. 

Meet another hearing impaired musician.

Several other famous classical musicians lost their hearing later in life. Try finding a piece by Gabriel Fauré, Bedřich Smetana, or Ralph Vaughan Williams and listen to their works. Many rock musicians have also suffered hearing loss, including Eric Clapton, Chris Martin, and Pete Townshend. Find out if they were able to keep performing and writing in spite of their hearing loss. 

Listen to two different versions of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 29 in B Flat Major, Hammerklavier, one featuring a modern piano and one on an instrument Beethoven might have had. Notice the differences in sound and volume. Which do you prefer? 
period: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cyFo680_iw 
modern: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww6ktFsBj54 

Look at pictures of the pianos Beethoven had, see how different the instruments all look. 
Pictures of Beethoven’s pianos:  https://www.pianistmagazine.com/blogs/7-pianos-that-beethoven-played-during-his-lifetime/ 

With permission, listen to the podcast episode “There is Only One Beethoven” from the series Decomposed. In this episode, the presenter, Jade Simmons, plays part of one of Beethoven’s works and takes away the sounds he would have been missing as his hearing loss progressed. 

Learn about the percussionist Evelyn Glennie. She began losing her hearing at age eight and was profoundly deaf by age twelve. Despite this, she has had a long and celebrated career as a concert percussionist. Glennie often performs barefoot to allow her to feel the vibrations of the music better. She has said deafness is greatly misunderstood by the general public and that she has been able to teach herself to hear with other parts of her body. 
https://www.ted.com/talks/evelyn_glennie_how_to_truly_listen 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVw5KawqUIg 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMZeBJJ5JJc