Music to a Deaf Man

If I were born deaf, I would never understand sound, or music. I might be able to understand it inasmuch as vibration, for if someone were to strike the strings of a guitar I could see the vibration of the strings and I could place my hand on the wood of the guitar and feel the vibration through the wood as it faded. This would be my only perception of sound and I would know it (and not know it) simply through the sensation of touch. Otherwise music, sound, pitch, volume, sour notes, heavy metal, whatever, would, for me, be all meaningless. It would be senseless for a deaf person to utter the words, inasmuch as he could, “turn up the volume,” for unless he was particularly fond of feeling the vibrations of beat and other sounds at the bottoms of his bare feet resting against a hardwood floor, what would he gain by asking? Perhaps to piss someone off who can hear, I suppose.