♪
Willow Yamauchi: That's me riffing on a harmonica.
I used to be a musician. I used to be in a band.
That all ended one day onstage at a blues club in Vancouver.
at the end of the song, I realized I was out of sync
with the rest of the band.
♪ [harmonica]
It was mortifying.
I never played on stage again.
I was born half deaf, my right ear doesn't work.
♪ ♪
I'll never know if my deafness caused
that fatal stumble on stage, but over the years I've wondered:
was it crazy to think I could be a deaf musician?
♪ [upbeat rock]
Sean Forbes: Well, I grew up in a musical family,
and music was always around us. My parents would often
play all the music that they loved from the 60's and 70's,
you know, it was not uncommon to hear The Rolling Stones,
or the Beatles, or any of those bands in my household.
Willow Yamauchi: Sean Forbes lives in Detroit, Michigan.
He's deaf. I sent him a list of questions.
Sean Forbes: So when I was about probably
three or four years old...
♪ [heavy rock]
my mom would often play songs in the car
and you know, she would lip sync songs,
and music was always around us,
but it wasn't until my parents realised that...
[simple drumming]
I was following the music and what I was doing
was I was repeating the drum pattern on my thighs.
I was drumming along to it on different parts of the car,
I'd be banging on, and I would just, my foot would be going,
and when my mom saw that, she was like,
"huh, he's following the rhythm of the music perfectly,"
♪ [steady beat]
Willow Yamauchi: So perfectly, his parents got an idea.
Sean Forbes: They decided when I was five years old
to buy me a drum set for Christmas.
♪ [drumming]
That really opened up a lot of opportunities for me
because it was my parents' way of saying,
you could do whatever it is that you want.
Willow Yamauchi: And what he wanted was pretty simple.
Sean Forbes: From that day forward,
all I ever wanted to be was a drummer.
♪ [drumming]
Willow Yamauchi: In another time and another place,
a youngster named Evelyn Glennie
was also just discovering music.
Evelyn Glennie: Well, I began losing my hearing
from the age of 8 and that's when I started piano,
but you know, that's just coincidence;
I just wanted to start piano, there happened to be a piano
in the house, and I was encouraged to do that
and I enjoyed it, and I then started the clarinet
from the age of 10.
Willow Yamauchi: Over the next two years,
she lost about 90 per cent of her hearing,
but being profoundly deaf didn't deter her.
Evelyn Glennie: From the age of 12,
I was then introduced to the school orchestra,
and I was just so enthralled by that, I really was.
♪ [dizzying orchestral]
And so I looked around the orchestra
and I found percussion and I thought,
hmm, maybe I could give that a go.
Willow Yamauchi: One teacher made a huge difference
for young Evelyn Glennie.
Evelyn Glennie: A very very gifted teacher indeed.
And one day he said, "Well heavens, Evelyn,
"you know, these drums, they're extremely resonate,
can you actually feel them through any part of your body?"
♪ [tympani]
And he struck a tympani, I think it was,
and I put my hand to the wall and I said,
"actually, I can feel that," from perhaps my fingertip
to part of my palm or something.
And then he tuned it to another note and, wow,
I could feel it in a different part of my hand.
And we went on like that, and that was really
the beginning of discovering that actually my body
really is a huge ear.
♪ [rock]
Sean Forbes: I always wanted to be a drummer,
I always wanted to have long hair,
I always wanted to twirl my sticks.
And I wanted to be like Tommy Lee,
I wanted to have a drum set that flies across the audience.
That, you know, I wanted to be these crazy characters.
It wasn't until I was in college,
I was probably 22, 23 years old,
that I realized that the kind of person that I was
and the kind of musician that I wanted to be,
probably was not going to happen for me.
Willow Yamauchi: Back in 1982, Evelyn Glennie
did an interview with CBC radio, and in that interview,
she admitted to some of her own misgivings.
Evelyn Glennie: I know I've got to prove myself all the time,
but I can play. I mean, I'm not a very good player,
but at least I can make an acceptable noise
so that they can appreciate it.
♪ [marimba]
All I want to do is just to play all the time.
I would actually like to play in an orchestra,
but I know problems that would be
playing in a professional orchestra.
But doing solo work is great fun,
and that's just what I want to do.
♪ [marimba]
♪ [mystic]
Willow Yamauchi: Evelyn Glennie had no idea
what kind of successes lay ahead of her: Grammies, albums,
performing in the 2012 Olympic opening ceremonies.
And on top of that, a few years ago
she became a Dame Commander of the British Empire!
But I still don't get it.
How does a deaf musician do it?
♪ [soft chimes turn to radio static]
[radio static]
♪ [soft rock]
Sean Forbes: When I listen to the radio, for instance,
the only things that I really pick up
are the drums and the bass.
Everything else is, you know, kind of disappears for me.
I can hear the vocal, depending on where
the vocal is placed in the mix. Often for my own mixes,
we place the vocals out in front, so that I can hear them.
And so the majority of my audience, which are deaf people,
can experience my music as well.
Evelyn Glennie: I feel, for example,
if we imagine high sounds, a lot of them are felt
in the upper parts of the body. So the scalp, your cheekbones,
even your teeth actually. Your neck, your breasts, and so on.
A lot of the low sounds are felt in the lower parts of your body.
♪ [bass strings]
Even Beethoven, when he lost his hearing,
he still had that instinct to go to his keyboard,
to put his mouth against the keyboard itself
in order to feel these things.
♪ ["Ode to Joy" chorus]
He found another way to try to perceive sound.
Willow Yamauchi: It's widely believed that Beethoven
wrote his 9th symphony while profoundly deaf.
♪ ♪
That was the time when people assumed that deafness
meant that, well, you just simply couldn't hear.
But he was showing the signs that, "Well, hold on a second,
I am actually feeling something, you know, I really am."
♪ ["Ode to Joy" chorus]
Willow Yamauchi: But let's face it,
there's only one Beethoven.
Sean's parents wanted him to be practical.
Sean Forbes: I got an opportunity to be an intern
at an electric company in Chicago.
And at the end of the summer, my boss took me aside
and he said, "Sean, you were amazing this summer.
"You were so amazing that we want to pay
"for your college education. We want to have a job for you
"when you complete college, and you'll be making
80 thousand dollars a year right when you graduate."
Most people would have been like,
"Oh yeah, I'm going to take this opportunity, yes."
Me on the other hand, I was like,
"Thank you, but no, I want to be a musician."
they were just like, their jaws were on the floor.
They were like, "What? No, we are offering you
"the opportunity of a lifetime, and you're telling us
that you want to become a musician? Are you crazy?"
Willow Yamauchi: At this point, Sean was 22 or 23 years old.
He'd met lots of people in the Detroit music scene,
but he hadn't met anyone with what he likes to call...
Sean Forbes: A deaf connection.
Willow Yamauchi: Until he met...
Sean Forbes: Joel Martin, he was a music publisher
and he happened to own the recording studio
that Eminem worked at.
He told me that he had a deaf brother-in-law.
Willow Yamauchi: Sean made a video of himself performing
Eminem's song, "Lose Yourself," in American Sign Language.
He asked for a meeting, and Joel obliged.
Sean Forbes: Everybody was there, Eminem was there,
his producers were there, his engineers were there.
I had already met them before but this was the first time
that they had really seen what I was capable of,
translating Eminem's songs into sign language.
So at this point, they decided to hire me
for an internship.
Willow Yamauchi: Sean saw opportunities everywhere.
Sean Forbes: Just by chance one day,
I was in the lounge and I found this CD sitting on the table
that said "Beats" on it, and I decided to steal it.
Not something that you should do in the Eminem office
because they are very strict about that,
but I just saw it there, it was like shining at me.
And it was like, "Take me Sean, take me!"
So I took the CD, put it in my coat,
walked out the back door with it,
got into my car, put it in the CD player,
and I was like, "Oh, my gosh!"
♪ [heavy beat]
These beats were just speaking to me,
and I started writing lyrics to them,
to the point where I have these songs and these lyrics.
I didn't know who they were,
I didn't know if they were Eminem's producers,
or if they were Eminem himself,
or if they were, I didn't know who they belonged to.
Willow Yamauchi: Sean had to fess up.
Sean Forbes: You know, I finally confessed that I stole these.
You know, they knew I was crazy at that point,
but crazy enough to not go out there
and like send these songs out to somebody else.
And I shared these songs with them, and they were like,
"What? You're writing songs, you're writing lyrics,
like, what is this?"
Willow Yamauchi: What it was, was the beginning
of an unique musical partnership.
Sean Forbes: Those beats belonged to a 16-year-old kid,
actually he was 15 at the time, and they introduced me to him.
And from that moment forward,
we started writing songs together.
So that was really the start of it all, you know,
this 15 year old kid took a chance on me
and all of a sudden I'm writing songs with him.
♪ Deafer than deaf jams ♪
♪ so so deaf ♪
♪ deafer than deaf jams ♪
♪ so so deaf ♪
♪ My name is Sean but they call me seen ♪
♪ got a message here I'm delivering ♪
♪ look at understand that you might be leery ♪
♪ getting music beats from the hard of hearing ♪
♪ from the hard of hearing ♪
♪ something inside me is so intent ♪
♪ evidently its bringing up my 6th sense ♪
♪ my hands got dirty momma wash them with soap ♪
♪ I play the devil's advocate ♪
♪ against my horoscope ♪
♪ and if I cut my ear off like Van Gogh ♪
♪ would it matter cause through my ears ♪
♪ the wind blows ♪
♪ Wind blows ♪
[Sean laughs]
♪ I'm so so deaf ♪
♪ deafer than Def Lepperd I'll make the world go deaf ♪
♪ I got deaf tones but I'm not tone deaf ♪
♪ I'll stop stating the obvious but I ain't done yet ♪
Willow Yamauchi: Evelyn Glennie didn't lift beats from anyone,
but she did have to fight for acceptance
from the music establishment.
♪ [melodic percussion]
Evelyn Glennie: I auditioned for two places in London,
not expecting to get in because I was quite young.
Willow Yamauchi: Being deaf wasn't her worry,
but when she turned up at the Royal Academy of Music...
Evelyn Glennie: They actually didn't let me in
because of my hearing, and I challenged that.
I said, "look, are you saying I am not getting in
"because of my hearing, or because of my ability?
"If it's because of my ability, I will completely accept that
"and respect that. However, if it's because of my hearing,
I absolutely will not accept that."
♪ ♪
Willow Yamauchi: There was one dissenting voice on the panel.
That panellist said:
Evelyn Glennie: We need to let her in.
Willow Yamauchi: So, they gave her another chance.
Evelyn Glennie: They were used to blind musicians actually,
because that, you know, we've seen a lot of jazz musicians
for example, we've seen a lot of sight impaired pianists,
classical pianists and so on.
But suddenly a hearing impaired musician,
this was totally alien to them.
♪ [melodic percussion and strings]
They asked me to return, and they gave me
a totally unprepared audition, and after that they said,
"Okay, you can start in September,"
♪ [marimba]
We each have to find our own sound world.
♪ [eclectic orchestral]
You know, for any young musician who is hearing impaired,
just be aware that you are the musician
who happens to be deaf.
♪ [hip-hop beat]
Sean Forbes: If you want to be a musician,
you want to be a basketball player,
you want to do all these things, be prepared to work
twice as hard for it. The truth is,
I've had to work twice as hard because I'm deaf,
because of my speech, because of all these different things
that I'm unable to do I've had to work twice as hard
to get to where I am today.
♪ They always have to use a label ♪
Sean Forbes: And that's that.
♪ unfortunate or unable ♪
♪ Don't let anything hold you back ♪
♪ don't let anyone say facts are facts ♪
♪ open your mind open your eyes ♪
♪ you can be anything you want if you just try ♪
♪ you have the choice to ignore advice ♪
♪ from those who think they know it all ♪
♪ they don't ♪
Willow Yamauchi: As for me, I'm picking up my harmonica again.
It turns out you can be deaf and be a musician after all.
♪ Don't let anything hold you back ♪
♪ don't let anyone say facts are facts ♪
♪ don't let 'em say it ♪
♪ ♪