"Edutainment: Copying Beethoven"

As part of my universal access classes our professors are teaching us with what they call “edutainment,” a combination of education and entertainment using popular culture, such as film, so we can understand the lives of others.  Some movies that we have watched include: “Benjamin Button” (about aging); “Scent of a Woman” (about visual impairment); “Children of a Lesser God (about the Deaf culture); “Rory O’Shea Was Here” (about physical disability); and “My Left Foot” (also about physical disability).  This movie, “Copying Beethoven,” is about the composer Beethoven who slowly lost his hearing as he aged. 

With subtitles on I turned the volume down on the TV, put in earplugs, and tried to simulate what it would be like to not be able to hear well.  I then watched and “listened” to the movie, and I could hear nothing but the ringing of my ears.  Since I am interested in the ELAC population I took the earplugs out and brought the volume level up to a whopping 4, but I could only hear screams and very loud notes.  I can’t explain how difficult it is to listen to only loud notes.  I couldn’t catch the whole line of music, even though I know the movie from when I watched it previously. 

If I could put a few notes together, the music would run into my mind.  Years ago I was a music business major, and I lived, ate, and breathed music.  I watched the movie a few weeks ago, and I was amazed how much I was under the spell of Beethoven.  The music sent me floating away, the music that I heard with my ears.  Then today, with only the loudest music reaching my ears, I was actually scared.

When I was a baby, my father lost all hearing in both of his ears, which lasted for days.  He slowly received hearing back in one of his ears, but not without a constant loud ringing sound in his only ear.  With no sound from the movie, even though I had words written on the bottom of the screen, I felt almost scared. 

At first, I was afraid of the silence.  Just hearing the ringing in my ears and a few loud notes instead of the whole musical line, I could not hear the speaking except for the scream when Anna Holtz saw a rat.  If there was any “silence” in the movie I was wondering what was happening, only remembering that there was a lot of music that I could not hear in it.  I was bored when they were playing music that I could not hear.  I am so used to constant stimulation, and the magic of the music escaped me, for I could not hear it.

Not being able to hear the music the way as I was meant to hear it was sad and confusing since I could not tell what was happening.  The music would be saying something in a line, and then the line would be gone.  It was even more remarkable that the composer could not hear as well.  He wrote his music loud so he could hear it.  And what great music did he create! His last symphony is my favorite, as when I listen to it I feel like I am in heaven.  Beethoven is amazing!

Anna Holtz is a fictional character, although according to Wikipedia, Beethoven did have two men copy his music.  There was one man who even helped Beethoven conduct, but he did it openly so everyone could see, not in hiding.  Beethoven did have to be told to turn around when people where applauding, though, as he could not hear the applause near the end of his life.

I learned so much “listening” to this movie that, while not being able to hear it, I was able understand a little of what it is like to not be able to hear well.  It is with exercises like these that I am learning how to help the aging and people with minor to major disabilities in order to make library services accessible to everyone.