Interpreting music for those who can’t hear

The presence of an American Sign Language interpreter has increasingly become an expected part of performances in recent years. It’s an obvious move toward increasing accessibility for all potential attendees.

Speeches, political gatherings and other spoken events were the first to adopt the practice, but now musical performances too can often call on the services of an interpreter. As far back as 2013, Texas-based interpreter Amber Galloway Gallego went viral for her demonstrative signing during a performance by rapper Kendrick Lamar at Lollapalooza.

Locally, AV Vilavong is an Oakland interpreter who specializes in doing this sort of work. Vilavong is deaf, and often works in tandem with a hearing interpreter to deliver the subtler nuances of a musical performance for deaf audience members.

Vilavong spoke with The Chronicle over Zoom, with an ASL interpreter, about how she goes about interpreting music for the deaf.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Q: What are the challenges involved in interpreting music as opposed to other kinds of interpreting?

A:

Every deaf person has different levels of hearing that enable them to feel the beats and the vibrations of the music. Some music has a good beat that makes it easy to sign along with, but sometimes you can’t feel the beats in the music. So then I rely on the hearing interpreter.

Q: How does your partnership with a hearing interpreter work? What’s the

difference between your contributions?

A: Typically, with the hearing interpreter, there’s more English signing but not a lot of emotion behind it. The story in the music doesn’t tend to show up. It tends to be very plain.

Q: And that’s where you come in?

A: A deaf interpreter can show the emotion connected to the music, and the facial expressions as well. We make eye contact. The way we move our body as it connects to the music, the eyebrows and the facial expressions — they all go with the music as well. A deaf audience can relate better with a deaf interpreter who is a little more visual.

Q: I understand the concept of interpreting music with lyrics. But how do you interpret music, like classical music or other instrumental music, that doesn’t involve words at all?

A: I recently interpreted for the Portola Festival in San Francisco, which had a lot of EDM (electronic dance music). They don’t have a lot of words in that type of music, so it’s best to watch the hearing interpreter and get the buttons that they’re pressing on the sound board to make the different sounds. We’ll use that sign with the hand touching the buttons, and when the beat drops, we use our other hand to show that the beat is actually kicking in and matches

the music.

Q: It seems to me that it’s almost like a form of dance, in which you are physically interpreting the feel of the music.

A: Body language is definitely included in music interpretation. So, for example, let’s say there is a high-pitched “bing” that goes up, the body will start out lower and then go up to that point in the space so that we can match that higher pitch.

It’s more emotion than sound, is how I see it. If the music starts getting soft or if it’s heavy, the body will get a little lower. A lot of grammar in the face is also in the body. We have the sound, and we can just embody that sound

into our face and our body.

Q: It’s as though the whole process is much more creative and much more artistic for you than, for example, translating speeches or spoken dialogue. Is that true?

A:

Yeah, I would agree. I will normally take in the interpretation from the hearing interpreter, and then I will try to make it more expressive.

Sometimes the hearing interpreter and I do get time to study and prepare for a performance. But not always.

One time there was an artist who actually gave us the set list, and then they added some more music at the last minute. So the hearing interpreter was listening to the English, and I was focusing on the English. But then once I got the full picture of what the song was about, I was able to fully interpret the music.

Q: Can you give an example of a musical assignment that turned out to be particularly rewarding for you?

A:

At the Portola Festival, I worked with performers called the Chemical Brothers. There was a variety of different trumpets and bass lines, and the soundboard with all the buttons, and I just lost myself in the embodiment of music. I was trying to match the music, to show how the music feels, and I was completely taken over by that experience.

The music was going through me and through my signing, and that ended up coming through to the audience. So that’s one of my best experiences.

Provided by AV Vilavong Deaf interpreter AV Vilavong of Oakland specializes in making musical performances accessible to audience members who are hearing-impaired.