Finding my way
Subtitle: experiencing audition as a sightless musician.
Published: 2005
Language: eng
Number of pages: 298
Description: My examinations reveal how sightless individuals consciously use audition and attend to sound through the application of aural abilities that sighted people also possess. Therefore, by reading my study, sighted people will become more aware of the benefits of activating audition---a research aim addressed in my final sub-question: "Founded on my musical and non-musical auditory experiences, what implications may become evident, for sighted individuals, concerning their experiences of audition?" My study concludes with practical applications concerning ways in which sighted individuals may use audition and sound while interacting with a sightless person.This study examines my experience of music and motion through the interacting methodologies of personal narrative autobiographical research and hermeneutic phenomenology. I began by writing a personal narrative account over a four month period that consisted of 160 pages. I analyzed this narrative and interpreted my experiences, drawing on quotations and remembrances from my personal writings.Within my analytical work, I insert vignettes from my life and interpretive descriptions of these experiences to address the personal directions of my primary research question: "How do I experience audition?" and the initial sub-questions: "How do I experience music?" and "How do I use audition to experience motion?" However, my interpretive explanations are written using the voice of a blind individual to demonstrate the relevance of my work for other sightless people. Discussing topics by applying this approach has enabled me to address the issues raised in my third sub-question; "How do my auditory experiences reveal ways in which other sightless individuals use and experience audition?"My analyses include four areas that demonstrate the necessity and value of audition and sound within a blind person's life from two perspectives. First, musical and non-musical pursuits are conducted by a motivator and, second, such performances are observed and absorbed by a monitor. As a form of human intelligence, audition comprises hearing, listening, audiation, and the complex competency that I have labelled aural/spatial discernment. The issues I examine concern musicianship, movement-oriented procedures, understanding an environment's design through aural/spatial discernment, and positive emotional responses invoked by a sightless individual's involvement in auditory experiences.
Notes: Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2005.

Electronic version licensed for access by U. of T. users.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-06, Section: A, page: 2015.