The first results of a ground-breaking music project working with deaf children in Dundee will be unveiled in the city next week with the aim of rolling it out across Scotland in future.

In a scheme developed through his ongoing collaboration with the National Youth Choir of Scotland (NYCOS), musician and educator Paul Whittaker has been engaged since February with groups of deaf and hearing-impaired children at three Dundee primary schools – Claypotts, Craigiebarns and Tayview – as well as with pupils from a handful of other schools in the area.

“What we wanted to do was find out whether deaf children can sing and vocalize, and how well they can pick up pitch,” said Mr Whittaker. “What we’re doing on Monday is presenting some of the work that we have been doing.”

What gives the project its potency is that Mr Whittaker has been profoundly deaf since birth.

“Because I’m deaf myself, I don’t like to put any barriers in the way of deaf children,” he said. “What’s important as well is that the children realise I’m the same as them. There are lots of amazingly good music teachers who work with deaf children, but at the end of the day they know that person is not the same. I can say: ‘Look at me, I’ve got hearing aids, I can sign’. We have that rapport. It’s something that a hearing person will never be able to replicate, and it plants the idea in a child that if he can do it, I can do it too. That’s vital.” 

Given time and funding constraints the project hasn’t achieved absolutely everything it set out to accomplish. “But what has been absolutely lovely has been seeing how all of the pupils, from being quite shy and retiring and quiet at the start of the project, have really blossomed. Some of them can sing really, really well. They pick up stuff quite easily. We’ve seen them develop their confidence and realise they do have a voice.”

To date, there has been little research conducted into the connection between deafness, singing and signing. “There has been some research on language development but in terms of formal research I’m not aware of that much,” said Mr Whittaker.

The Herald: Educator and musician Paul WhittakerEducator and musician Paul Whittaker (Image: BPG Studios)

Now, following a smaller pilot project undertaken last year in the Highlands with participation from pupils at Stonehaven Academy, the hope is the project can demonstrate the benefits of such an approach. Funds permitting, it may then be rolled out more widely across Scotland.

A key part of the training given to NYCOS singers already involves the Kodaly Method, a music education system developed in Hungary by composer and philosopher Zoltán Kodály. It incorporates hand signals to indicate scale and pitch. Before the youth choir’s Edinburgh International Festival appearance next month, NYCOS Artistic Director Christopher Bell will lead a demonstration of the method and its application in the choir’s rehearsal and music training sessions.

However the involvement of NYCOS also came about in part as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“During lockdown, when they couldn’t sing, NYCOS realised that they could sign,” said Mr Whittaker. “That also developed an interest in encouraging other people to learn [to sign] and to think about how NYCOS can develop their own work and involve deaf and hearing-impaired young people.”

Also working on the Dundee project is NYCOS Creative and Learning Director Lucinda Geoghegan. Mr Whittaker himself has worked with the choir for several years.

A pianist and organist, Mr Whittaker studied music at Oxford University followed by a post-graduate degree at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. In 1988 he founded the charity Music And The Deaf and in 1992 he began using his musical knowledge and signing ability to give signed interpretations of West End musicals.

Since then he has worked as a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter for orchestras and musical groups such as The Sixteen, The Britten Sinfonia, Opera North, and the London Symphony Orchestra, and worked at the Edinburgh International Festival.

READ MORE: HOW MUSIC CAN HELP CHILDREN POST-COVID

Unsurprisingly he is a vocal proponent of more and better sign language interpretation for live events as he feels there are often issues around how well interpreters can put over musical nuances such as rhythm and pitch.

“My view as a deaf person and a musician is that if you’re not a musician, it’s very difficult to put all those elements in. For me there is nothing more frustrating than watching someone signing a musical, or even worse an opera, who doesn’t have that inherent musicality.”

He also stresses the need for a systematic deployment of sign language interpreters across all aspects of the orchestral programme. While many classical concerts aimed at children and families will provide BSL interpretation, the impetus is lost from these important gateway events by a lack of provision in the main programmes.

“A lot of orchestras do family concerts and children’s concerts and that’s great,” he said. “But you’ve got people into your venue, you’ve opened up the world of music to them, they’ve seen an orchestra but you’re not providing any kind of follow up All organisations need to continue to develop their audience – it’s almost as if you dangle the carrot in front of them and then take it away.”

NYCOS will join the Royal Scottish National Orchestra to perform Benjamin Britten’s Rejoice The Lamb and Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh on August 13 as part of the Edinburgh International Festival.