Evelyn Glennie: "Sound can be the most subtle thing, but the body does need to slow down in order to connect with it."

Experimental and classically-trained percussionist Evelyn Glennie has released almost 50 albums and collaborated with the likes of Björk, Mark Knopfler [ Tape Op #97 ], Fred Frith, Béla Fleck, Bobby McFerrin, and fellow Scot, filmmaker Danny Boyle ( Trainspotting , Slumdog Millionaire ). Evelyn became deaf at the age of 12 and she is currently the only deaf artist known to have ever won a Grammy – which she has done twice, as well as having been nominated three other times since 1988. She also received Britain's Polar Music Prize in 2015, and the Leonardo da Vinci International Award in 1987. Amongst other honors, she has been awarded the title Dame by the Order of the British Empire (the female counterpart to Knighthood). Ms. Glennie was the focus of the 2004 documentary feature, Touch the Sound, and even appeared on an episode of Sesame Street . The author of two books ( Good Vibrations and Listen World! ), Glennie's stated mission is to "teach the world to listen."

What is your earliest sound memory?

As a young kid, growing up on a farm, I was very, very aware of placement of sound. For safety reasons, if you're beside a great big combine harvester or a tractor, or some other vehicle, you have to be aware of where you are in relation to that object. Likewise, with livestock you're very much listening to the sound of a calf, a sheep, or a lamb, and trying to detect if they're okay or not okay. It's actually a really musical environment, but you're letting nature take its course. I think that my patience with sound has grown as I've gotten older. To let each sound – once I've triggered it – have its own life, or season, as it were. I definitely do reflect much more now on that upbringing and the pace, as well as the huge variety found in the sound world growing up in the countryside near the ocean.

You mentioned danger on the farm and how sound can provide warnings. I think a lot about the risk and vulnerability of people walking around cities while using earbuds, and not being well aware of their surroundings.

We find that in a lot of cases hearing damage is not so much from the volume as such as it is due to the cumulative amount of sound. Due to technology, there increasingly seems to be no escape from sound. But before we ask technology to help us with these challenges, I think the human body and the mind need to see how far we can go in order to take control of the situation, and then bring technology forward. Otherwise, we will always be hostage to technology helping us ; and if it doesn't work, we'll think it's unsolvable due to bad technology. There's a lot that we can do ourselves. In my own situation, I'm deaf, and you would think, "Oh well, she should cope with sound pretty easily." But it's quite extraordinary, because, in a way, I need to escape from sound more .

You have that beautiful quote, "Silence is one of the loudest sounds. The opposite of sound isn't silence."

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Everything needs to be in proportion. If I'm practicing, I practice for no more than 20 minutes at a time. I leave that sound environment, and then I'll go back to it and so on. We're never going to escape sound altogether, but it's very important to think of sound as something you are feeding inside of yourself, because that is what you're doing. We have to define listening and hearing. There's the hearing aspect, where we're aware of frequencies coming through, or the impact of some, but the listening aspect is to listen to that resonance and follow the journey of a sound. Otherwise, we might be receiving a lot of vibration, physically, without being aware of it. And actually, that could be affecting our well-being. What we're trying to do here in the UK is bring audiology students together with musicians, because what's traditionally been happening is that audiologists will test hearing in a controlled environment. They've discovered that hearing can be tested, and it can be displayed precisely on a graph. Nonetheless, the reality of that person moving out of the audiology room, out of the building, and then onto a busy street is a completely different sensation. To go from what was tested, hearing-wise, to what the reality is, listening-wise, as well as being able to function in everyday life, are two completely different things. But they cannot test every single frequency, or combinations of frequencies, or resonances. It's impossible to do that. It would take many, many, many, many lifetimes; and even then, we wouldn't get to the end. [ laughter ]

The heightening of awareness about the intersectionality of sound and context seems to possess great value. It seems almost as if they were to conduct hearing tests in the middle of a hectic cafe or bustling market, it might be more beneficial or accurate?

Yes, that's interesting because they are now bringing hearing tests to the orchestras – mobile situations where they bring the hearing tests to venues.

You've powerfully explained how blindness, deafness, and mobility impairments are not binary, but on a spectrum. It's not that a deaf person doesn't hear, it's that they hear differently . You have said, "Losing my hearing has made me a better listener." Maybe due to deafness, you are more sensitive to sound, and sounds might affect you more than many other individuals?

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Partly, because I'm potentially more conscious of whatever sounds I do receive. And partly because when you've got a hearing impairment, there are a lot of impure sounds and lots of things that are kind of clashing together. When I play glockenspiels or vibraphones, the physical feeling is quite nice. However, the sound that's coming through the ear with those instruments is extremely painful at times. I've got this strange clash there. On piano I love playing the lower part, because it's something that I can sort of hear. It's a frequency that is nice for me – not that I'm hearing every pitch or anything like that – but it's a frequency that I can control, and at the same time it's a physical sensation that I enjoy. I very much enjoy low, low frequencies. I love bass drums and timpani. The higher the pitches, the more distorted they become, and I feel like I can't control that at all. With low sounds, the vibrations are much, much bigger and slower, and I have a chance for that to seep through my body and to also seep through my ear. But with the high frequencies, it's so distorted that it can be quite disorienting.

I gathered from some of your talks and books that you feel low frequencies in the lower body and the higher frequencies more in the upper body – the neck and head.

Yes, yes. That's true.

I tend to be pretty against using headphones when recording. There's no right or wrong way, but I've found that people often play together better when they are less isolated. What are your thoughts about people wearing headphones while recording?

I've been in both situations. If I'm working to a click track, I would be wearing headphones. There's a certain frequency that has to be set for my hearing situation. With the Touch the Sound documentary project, we didn't wear headphones. The whole remit for that was there was no plan B to any of it. It was literally exploring the sound as we came across it, at that moment. For [guitarist] Fred Frith and I to go into this derelict sugar factory, the filmmaker, Thomas Riedelsheimer, was very aware that this was a space that we could paint sound to. That was the idea. It was to have less technology and to let the space speak. That's why sometimes Fred played up on one level and I might be positioned on another floor of the building, to explore how this place spoke. There was no aim to be perfect, there was no aim to come out with a masterpiece of music; there was no aim to create anything, other than what we felt at that moment. The sound is there already, but then what does our presence do to that space? How do we react to that? With that documentary, it was all about patience and waiting for a sound to emerge. Sometimes we hear the sound first through seeing it. Like with the crack of ice. We may not hear anything, and we may not feel anything, but we see the ice cracking. And we know that there must be a whole orchestra under that sheet of ice. We can't say, "Oh well, nothing's happening because I don't hear anything," and then just pass by. Instead, it's saying, "Well, hold on a second." And then using all of our senses to become involved in how we relate to sound. Because hearing does involve all of our senses.

As a percussionist, what are your feelings regarding metronomes, click tracks, and drum machines?

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If metronomes were addressed in a much more creative way right from the beginning of learning instruments, I think we'd have a different view on them. Especially if we were to practice playing behind or ahead of the beat. In that way they could become a creative tool, rather than something that we feel hostage to. I find that there is a time for a metronome. There's a time whereby a metronome can reveal things that are quite helpful that we hadn't realized we were doing – which could be speeding up or slowing down. But also, metronomes and click tracks have a way of affecting our sense of touch, where we become more soldier-like, and we lose the curves of our playing because we're thinking much more angularly with that forward movement. With drum machines, there's a lack of the tactile elements. It's similar to playing with a mallet, where with those there is absolutely very little sensation that comes through the mallet and then up through the hand and arm. I've always struggled with that. I simply see the mallet as a tool, rather than an emotional experience. Paradoxically, the less tightly I grip a drumstick or brushes, the more sensation that is created and the more control I have over the sound.

I read in your book that you had perfect pitch, prior to going deaf at age 12.

"Most of us know very little about hearing, even though we do it all the time."I have had to learn what each sound represents, rather than taking them for granted."

Yes, absolutely. It was possible for me to recognize a C or an A-sharp. If someone asked me to sing an exact note, that was all possible to do. But that's not possible to do now, and I certainly can't do that through physical feeling alone. One can play a C on a marimba, a C on a trumpet, or a C on an accordion, and they're three completely different physical sensations, even if it's the same pitch. There's no way that I'm going to feel those notes in the same way. A C on a marimba could just be a knock; that's it, and I don't receive enough information.

A transient pitch.

Yes, because in my situation everything needs to happen in the moment since it's a vibration, a physical sensation, that I'm responding to. If I play the same piece of music in that venue and then do it again in another venue, they are two completely different acoustics. There are completely different stages to stand on.

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What I might be wearing can be different, or the instrument is a different model or manufacturer, but it's the acoustics of each room that really changes everything. I never try to remember what I played beforehand, which mallets I used, or anything like that. It is all about what is happening right now in this space. That is what I relate to. Once it's done, it's done. Once recordings are made, they're over. There's no referring back to them, for interpretation or sound or anything. The performance is done in that space of time, with that particular frame of mind at that moment. Then I move on. That gives me the feeling, as a performer, that every piece of music that I play is like a new piece of music. The only thing that might be the same is the piece of sheet music – what I see on the page. But how I then take that off the page is according to the situation.

That's beautiful. Much of what you're talking about seems a celebration of diversity – sonic diversity. It's so the opposite of the way that the larger, highly-commercialized concert industry has gone. The technical concerns often seem to have eclipsed the artistic and human ones.

During the pandemic we have been offered an opportunity to revise or review what a performance space is. It can be absolutely anywhere. How then do we create in that space? The other day I happened to be playing in the Ghent's St Bavo's Cathedral in Belgium. If you see that cathedral, it's a magnificent place. However, one could say it's no good for music, as it's just a mush. And yes, it is a mush; it's a giant cathedral! [ laughter ] When we rehearsed the day before the concert, we were in a completely different environment. It was a box of a room – a conventional rehearsal room setup. But when we changed location for the performance, the cathedral itself became the conductor, and it was fantastic.

Modern recordings have become very compressed, and the dynamic range is much thinner than it was on most of the classic albums of the 1960s and 1970s. You are literally feeling the music." I'm curious where you notice that sonic frequencies are missing? Where are there holes, or an absence, that aren't being explored richly enough?

One of the great sensations for me are the very large gongs of Indonesian gamelan. It's that sensation of registering something that's very low frequency and having the time to digest that. We rarely get that experience when it's coming through a machine or some apparatus. It's hard to get that absolute gut feeling that I receive in a live performance where my stomach, legs, and feet are vibrating and moving. We don't get that from a recording. We might get a lot of impact, but it's not that. I am talking about the attack of the sound and then allowing that to grow. I don't often get that at all through recorded means.

Like a blossoming – a flower opening?

"Each sound has the equivalent of a life."

Yes, exactly – "a blossoming" sound. We don't usually get that because that requires patience. With recorded music, it's something that is handed to us on a plate as opposed to the listener being a participator in the sound.

You often perform barefoot.

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I do that partly to feel the vibrations – to use my whole body as an ear – but partly because of physical balance as well. To feel somewhat grounded. It's not as though I can't play if I'm wearing shoes. [ laughter ] Of course I can play, but it is that security blanket of allowing another part of my body to give me information. And yes, I notice the difference when that happens. I think a lot of musicians, especially those who are in direct contact with their instruments – cellists or a stand-up bass player who have part of the instrument resting on their chest, neck, and shoulder – have an advantage. Percussionists often are not experiencing that element. Yes, I can play skin on skin with drums by using my hands, but a lot of times I'm using sticks and I've got absolutely no direct physical contact with the primary instrument. To have as much of the body fully and openly connected to the source of vibration is really important. The unique thing about percussion is that the sound can come out from different parts of the instrument. I'm playing cymbals and have this disc, so the sound spreads out circularly that way. Or I have a marimba and it feeds down through the tube, and so I'm getting a very different sensation being on this side of the marimba than the audience does on the opposite side. That's always a challenge for recording engineers: how to mic percussion. They're dealing with such a wide variety of instruments and primary sound sources. I could be playing tubular bells so just the very tip of the bell is what I'm striking even though they are so long and can be over 6-feet tall. The sound is coming from a different direction. If you ask the leader of an orchestra to suddenly sit where the trombones are, the conductor would have such a different sensation of a piece of music, even one that they already know well. It's the same when I need to actually see the conductor, and I ask them to move right to the edge of the stage so that we are side-by-side and can see each other. Some of them are very happy to do that, and some are a wee bit reluctant because they always claim that they're not going to be able to hear the orchestra. The difference we're talking about could just be two or three feet. [ laughter ] I do feel it's important for our listening skills to develop flexibility and tolerance, as well as to really mix our environments up.

It's interesting what you're saying about percussion: that there's an intermediary physical component – the stick, or the pedal that a player is using – instead of direct contact. What are some elements that you think are underplayed, in terms of syncopation?

I feel everything that we do as musicians has to have an emotional element to it. It's a story that we're building, and a story needs a beginning, middle, and an end. Now that we have all of these social media and visual platforms, the focus is so high on virtuosity. I don't mind that so much. But what I do mind is: Where are the emotional elements? Where is this taking us? Classical and experimental music are very much being put forward as a technique. It's something that we feel has to be quite academic. We're slightly losing the natural feel of our syncopation. Every person is using syncopation, and controlling syncopation, every day of their life to function. We're maybe not aware that we are doing it, but, still, we are. What I'm finding is that it's becoming too much of a martialized rhythmic technique – what we do as instrumentalists as opposed to music storytellers. Of course, polyrhythms are another aspect that is so much to the fore with the percussion world now. It's a drumming world at the moment, where we all need to be like an octopus! [ laughter ] To have ten arms! Probably, it will get to a point where we reach such technical proficiency in those displays that somebody might say, "Okay, well, yes that's amazing that the human body can do that. But what are we saying with the music?" The element that we are always bringing to any given situation is our own body, and your own thinking and reaction at that time. For young musicians coming up, yes, it's absolutely crucial for them to know theory, what's gone before, whatever's happening at this time, and what's developing with techniques and equipment for the future. But what's most important is: What are they wanting to say , as a musician? Because that story will be absolutely unique and validated if it's coming from the inside out, as opposed to the stuff constantly being externally fed into ourselves.

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www.evelyn.co.uk

Ian Brennan is a Grammy-winning music producer (Tinariwen, Zomba Prison Project, The Good Ones [Rwanda], Ustad Saami, poet Raymond Antrobus) who in the past decade has recorded in the field over 40 records by international artists across five continents (Africa, Europe, North America, South America, Asia). He is the author of seven books, and his latest, Muse-$ick: a music manifesto in fifty-nine notes, was published in fall 2021 by Oakland's PM Press.