By Lisa Billings/AP
Tammie Willis watches fellow music student Tiara Walker play piano at Virginia Commonwealth University. Willis can't hear the music - she was rendered deaf in a 1994 beating
Posted on 05/18/2003 6:09:43 AM PDT by Maigrey
Va. music student defies deafness to a high degree
By Bill Baskervill, The Associated Press
May 18, 2003
RICHMOND, Va. - A woman who lost all hearing when she was beaten by a robber received a master's degree in music composition Saturday from Virginia Commonwealth University, becoming the first deaf student ever to earn a music degree from the school.
By Lisa Billings/AP
Tammie Willis watches fellow music student Tiara Walker play piano at Virginia Commonwealth University. Willis can't hear the music - she was rendered deaf in a 1994 beating
Instructor William Eldridge described Tammie Willis's accomplishment as "a personal act of defiance against deafness itself."
Willis, 34, who taught herself to play percussion and string instruments after losing her hearing, composed a four-movement, 12-person percussion ensemble piece as part of her master's program.
Willis said she no longer imagines sound as she did when she could hear. "I have no memory for sound," she said.
In her compositions, "the trick is finding bridges between my imagination and what a hearing person understands," she said. "I don't perceive melody. The way I've learned to construct music is through text like a poem or story."
Primarily, she thinks in terms of rhythm. Her composition instructors help her resolve issues of dissonance and consonance.
Willis was attacked in 1994 by a robber who walked into her home in Daly City. He smashed her head repeatedly against a table, punched her in the face and shook her. No one was ever arrested.
Doctors found that the attack caused a brain injury that produced permanent deafness.
She considered suicide. However, she couldn't do that, and soon afterward she saw Immortal Beloved, the screen biography of the great German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, who also lost his hearing.
Willis intends to pursue doctorates in higher education and music theory.
And she plans to continue composing: "It gives me a chance to pursue my imagination for sound."
Willis intends to pursue doctorates in higher education and music theory.
And she plans to continue composing: "It gives me a chance to pursue my imagination for sound."
At risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, I say, "Horse hockey!"
1) If the Beethoven film (which was horribly fantacized, btw) was her "inspiration" (how could she tell if she couldn't hear it?),
2)and she is from Daly City, the legitimate and obvious Music School that would let her in would be San Jose State University, where the American Beethoven Society is housed.
This does not pass the smell test. I hold a Master's in Music at SJSU, specialty, Beethoven Studies, and this insults me. Waaaaayyy too touchy feely.
This is the flaw in your premise. Had she had ANY interest in music, she would remember it. Beethoven certainly did. Anyone schooled in music is able to compose a melody and write it down, without hearing a note of it.
Heaven has smiled on you. To have perused the works of the Master himself is to hold daily conversations with eternity.
This is the flaw in your premise. Had she had ANY interest in music, she would remember it. Beethoven certainly did. Anyone schooled in music is able to compose a melody and write it down, without hearing a note of it.
I agree that the article should be taken with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, perhaps she suffered a brain injury in the attack that affected the part of the brain that interprets sound.
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