Music is finally making its way to the hearing-impaired population.
Holly Maniatty’s interpretation for a recent gig for Snoop Dogg at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Music Festival gained a ton of attention at the event itself but gained tons of traction online after a video was posted with her skills on full display. Watch the same one right here:
But this isn’t the first time that the interpreter has been spotted at a festival, grooving to the music while helping fans have the best overall-concert experience when it comes to music. She has interpreted shows for other artists like Wu-Tang Clan, Marilyn Manson and more but how exactly does this work?
She is a part of a huge community that works to interpret hearing-based music to a purely visual experience. They have formulated a version of the American Sign language, which has its own rules when it comes to grammar and location, into a way to convey the vibrations they feel from the music into the way they can understand the lyrics and music itself.
Its a constant play with rhyme, metaphor and wordplay to get the combination just right. This requires the interpreter to express, for example, the sound of a bass guitar by placing their hands on a lower level and mimicking the notes being played with the gesture of their mouths.
This form of expression for the hearing-impared has been going around for a few years and various interpreters including Holly Maniatty, Amber Galloway Gallego and deaf artist Jo Benfield have interpreted concerts for Adele, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Lady Gaga, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Cyndi Lauper, Futur, Arcade Fire, Iggy Azelea, Billy Joel, Coldplay, The Cure, Lorde, Madonna, The Rolling Stones and more. They manage to adapt this special version of American Sign language into the required length and duration for the artists’ requirement and they definitely don’t shy away from the cursing!
Interpreters are also adapting to the ever-changing style of music as techno and EDM seem to be most popular at the moment. Gallego has also started her own, Amber G Productions which provides interpreters for music events. It’s great to see the amount of dedication these individuals have to get the music across to the thousands of people who have not got the chance to do so till now.
We’d like to see more of this expressionism across all countries to give the hearing-impaired the chance to really connect to music.