I’m a big lover of accessibility, a big lover of interpretive dance, and a big lover of music.

So, one day, whilst working on an accessibility piece for work, and needing a bit of a break, a thought occurred to me… how do deaf people ‘listen’ to music. Sure, I get it, maybe fully deaf people can’t ‘listen’ to music in the traditional sense, but music is not only ‘just noises’ right? It is also words, tone, rhythm, pvibrations, the intent of the artist, and essentially, just another form of communication.

So I did some googling, and I came across Amber Galloway Gallego. Amber is a certified ASL sign interpreter, famous for sign interpreting music for artists such as Jay Z, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and Eminem.

If we merely show the sign for music, then we are doing an injustice as an interpreter

As a creative, and a music lover, I adore this. As an accessibility lover, I champion this. But as a UXer, I am absolutely fascinated by Amber’s work.

So years ago, I did an interpretive dance course; I also play a bit of music and regularly listen to/watch music; and so I’ve always been fascinated by how emotions and information can be transposed by a medium such as an instrument or the human body.

And, as a kid, I had a love of things like puppetry, and foley art, as well as a bit of a ‘soft spot’ (ha!) for hardcore gangster rap. So things like this, get me really fired up in many ways. And this video, in particular, has definitely spurred me on with wanting to learn sign language.