My Own Four Cents [2016]

Chapter 22: Concert

I got this idea from the picture book  Moses Goes To A Concert, it is about a kid who's deaf and goes on a field trip to a concert and people find cool ways to help them fit in ad understand the music without hearing it. I thought that was really great. Music is a really big part of my life so I wanted Maria to experience it too. 

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One day, soon after New Year's Day, Mom starts signing to me during dinner, pretty slowly so that Dad, who's learning sign language, can understand.

Maria, we're going on a special outing tonight.

Where?

We're going to a concert.

I look at her. What?

It's a workshop for deaf kids, where they can work with instruments and learn about them without their sound. It's pretty interesting. Your music teacher suggested it. She thinks it will be great for you to experience music.

Okay... if you say so. 

We get in the car and drive to this school in Marlborough, where there is a sign for the event. We follow the signs to the auditorium. There are lots of kids from about eight to fifteen seated in the chairs, and a woman standing next to a projector screen. The stage are scattered with cymbals, tambourines, drums and other instruments. I plop myself in the middle of the front row, two seats away from a girl with long auburn-brown hair and green eyes.

The woman at the front of the room starts speaking sign language at my speed. Hello, and welcome to this workshop! My name is Kelly, and I am an American sign language interpreter. I love music, and I want to let deaf children experience music as well as hearing children. There will be a concert and then you will be able to try out the instruments yourselves. First, you should take off your shoes.

Where is Kelly going with this? I untie my sneakers and take them off. The other kids do the same.

Great! Now, I am going to hand you a balloon.

A balloon? What is this about?

You can feel the vibrations of the instruments through the floor and the balloons.

Now I understand. The woman, Kelly, hands me a blue balloon and the brown-haired girl a yellow one. I see someone else up on stage, talking through the microphone. As her mouth moves, a rhythm vibrates through my balloon. I grin and hold it more tightly.

More people, men and women, are walking onstage with trumpets, tubas, oboes, violins, and other instruments. They sit down in folding chairs. Then they start to play their instruments, and I feel rhythms vibrate through my whole body, through the balloon and the floor. I've never felt anything like it. I can look at music in a whole new way.

I've always thought of music as something I would never get to experience, something only reachable by hearing people. But now I feel like I can almost understand the music. I can actually feel the music.

I watch the orchestra. There are violinists moving their bows, trumpeters blowing into the mouthpiece, percussionists pounding on drums and xylophones. I can sense them all. I can feel them all. I can imagine what colors the vibrations would be. If only I had a pencil and paper... but I do, everywhere, in case there's someone who doesn't speak sign language. I take them out of my pocket and start to draw. I let my pencil lead as I feel the rhythms with my feet and my right hand. I smile and look at my drawing. It's zigzagged in some places and swirly in other places. It's exactly how I feel.

I feel right at home in my deaf world. Why would I want to leave? What Tanisha and Veronica are asking me to do doesn't seem right. Being deaf is part of who I am. I can't change that. I don't want to change that.

Later, the percussionists let us use their instruments. We all take turns jamming on drums, the xylophone, the vibraphone, tambourines, cymbals, and other instruments. The vibrations are so hard, I feel like I'm in a tornado, in a good way. I can't imagine being able to hear right now-- it would be a huge racket we're making, and I can feel it all. I know my world much better now.

Mom, I tell her as soon as she picks me up. Let's go to concerts more often. 

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Yay! She went to a concert! I think it would be really cool. Once I went to a parade and the music was so loud I could feel it in my chest, pounding and pounding! It was also so loud I wanted to cover my ears the whole time and at that point I kinda wished I was deaf! A good thing for Maria!

What will Maria's decision be? Read on to find out!