The document provides biographical information about percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie. It discusses how she lost her hearing at age 11 but was determined to continue her musical career. It describes how her teacher Ron Forbes helped her learn to feel vibrations in different parts of her body, allowing her to sense music. The document outlines her educational achievements and rise to becoming a renowned solo percussionist, performing with major orchestras around the world. It notes how she inspires others through her accomplishments as a deaf musician.

2. The Writer
• Deborah (Mason) Cowley is a
freelance writer and broadcaster.
She grew up in Toronto, graduated
from the University of Western
Ontario and moved to Ottawa to
work for the Unitarian Service
Committee.
• As she traveled the world with her
diplomat husband, she worked as a
reporter for CBC radio in
Washington, D.C. and on a posting
to Cairo, she worked on several TV
documentaries for CBC’s Man Alive.
• Also in Egypt, she wrote the first
official guide book to Cairo since
Baedeker’s guide in the 1940’s.

3. Introduction
• Birth name : Evelyn Elizabeth
Ann Glennie
• Born : 19 July 1965
• Place: Aberdeenshire,
Scotland
• Occupation: Percussionist
• Achievements: Owns over
2000 percussion
instruments all over the
world
• Film : Touch the sound (made
on the life of Evelyne)

4. • Dame Evelyn Glennie is the first
person in history to successfully
create and sustain a full-time
career as a solo percussionist,
performing worldwide with the
greatest orchestras, conductors
and artists.
• Evelyn paved the way for
orchestras globally to feature
percussion concerti when she
played the first percussion
concerto in the history of the
Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in
1992.
Achievements

5. • Leading 1000 drummers,
Evelyn had the honour of a
prominent role in the Opening
Ceremony of the London 2012
Olympic Games.
• Evelyn was awarded an OBE in
1993 and now has over 100
international awards, including
the Polar Music Prize and the
Companion of Honour.
• . She aims to ‘improve
communication and social
cohesion by encouraging
everyone to discover new ways
of listening as proven in her
book ‘Listen World!’.

6. Part 1 - Evelyn Glennie Listens to
Sound without Hearing It
• The title itself is very interesting.
• Here the author says Evelyn Glennie listens to
sound without hearing it.
• How can you listen to sound when you can’t
hear? So, this is something we will discover
from the chapter that how Evelyn Glennie was
able to listen to sound although she could not
hear.

7. “God may have
taken her hearing but
he has given her
back something
extraordinary.
What we hear, she
feels — far more
deeply than any of
us. That is why she
expresses music so
beautifully.”
• Someone has commented this
about Evelyn.
• He says that although god
took away her hearing power,
she was impaired, but he gave
her an extraordinary thing and
that was the sense of feeling.
• She could feel very deeply. Far
more deeply than the normal
people. And that is why she
was able to express music so
beautifully, so well.

8. Lets learn some word meanings
• jostle: push roughly
• slight: small and thin
• daunting: frightening
• aspiring musician: a person who wants to be a
musician
• profoundly : Extremely
• Deteriorated : become progressively worse
• impaired: weakened
• xylophone: a musical instrument with a row of
wooden bars of different lengths

9. • percussionist: a person who plays the drum,
the tabla, etc.
• potential: quality or ability that can be
developed
• intriguing: fascinating and curious
• flawlessly: without a fault or mistake
• lilt: a way of speaking
• tingles: causes a slight pricking or stinging
sensation
• resonances: echoes of sounds

10. Paragraph - 1 Explanation
• There is a small thin girl, it is
Evelyn. Evelyn is standing at the
railway platform waiting for the
train. She feels the vibrations of
the approaching train, she gets
nervous and excited.
• This is the train that will take
Evelyn to London. She got
admission in the Royal Academy of
Music.
• Life in Scotland is not as fast as in
London. So that is why Evelyn is
nervous because she is leaving
Scotland for London.
• And she is excited also because she
is doing something that she always
dreamt of.

11. Paragraph – 2 Explanation
Slowly slowly, she started losing the power of hearing
and one day she was absolutely deaf.
Isabel(her mother) remembers one incident when she
did not respond on calling her name she was eight
years at that time.
She even hide her deafness from her friends and
teachers for a while.
But by the time she was eleven her marks had
deteriorated and her headmistress urged her parents
to take her to a specialist. It was then discovered that
her hearing was severely impaired as a result of
gradual nerve damage. They were advised that she
should be fitted with hearing aids and sent to a school
for the deaf.

12. Hearing AidXylophone

13. Evelyn was very determined(strong on
one’s decision) not to give up.
When she wanted to play xylophone her
most teachers discouraged her as it was
difficult for her.
But Ron Forbes (percussionist) took
interest and started giving training to
Evelyn.
He gave her two drums and told her “
Don’t try to listen through your ears but in
some other ways.”
Paragraph -3 (Part-1) Explanation

14. Paragraph -3 (Part-2) Explanation
 “Suddenly she realised that
she could feel the higher
drum from the waist up and
the lower one from the
waist down.”
 Forbes repeated the
exercise and soon Evelyn
discovered that she could
sense certain notes in
different parts of her body.
 “I had learnt to open my
mind and body to sounds
and vibrations.” said Evelyn.
 In this way she worked hard
and started learning musical
instruments.
Ron Forbes with Evelyn Glennie

15. • She never looked back from that point
onwards. She toured the United Kingdom
with a youth orchestra and by the time she
was sixteen, she had decided to make music
her life.
• She auditioned for the Royal Academy of
Music and scored one of the highest marks in
the history of the academy.
• She gradually moved from orchestral work to
solo performances. At the end of her three-
year course, she had captured most of the
top awards.
Paragraph -4 Explanation

16. Paragraph -5 Explanation
• “If you work hard and
know where you are
going, you’ll get there.”
• She got right to the
top, the world’s most
sought-after
multipercussionist with
a mastery of some
thousand instruments,
and hectic
international schedule.

17. • She was flawless. (making no mistakes)
• “It is not just watching the lips, it’s the whole
face, especially the eyes.”
• “My speech is clear because I could hear till I was
eleven,” she says. She learnt French and basic
Japanese also.
• Music pours through her body. Every part could
feel the sensation.
• When she used to take out shoes on wooden
platform so as to feel the vibration in her feet.
Paragraph -6 &7 Explanation

18. • In 1991 she was presented with the Royal
Philharmonic Society’s prestigious Soloist of
the Year Award.
• She admitted that she was workaholic.
• Evelyn also gives free concerts in prisons and
hospitals.
• She gave inspiration to millions of people
around the world.
Paragraph -8,9 &10 Explanation

19. 1. Who helped her to continue with music? What did he do
and say?
Ans. Evelyn was discouraged by her teachers but master –
percussionist Ron Forbes guided Evelyn to feel music some
other way rather than hearing it. He got two large drums and
tuned them to different notes. When he played the drums,
Evelyn reacted to the distinct notes differently.
She realized that she could feel the higher notes produced by
one of the drums through the upper part of her body, above
the waist and the lower notes of the other drum through the
lower part of her body, below the waist. This worked well for
Evelyn and gradually, she found that she could sense different
sounds and vibrations through different parts of her body.
Important Questions

20. 2.How does Evelyn hear music?
Ans. Evelyn became profoundly deaf at the age of
eleven.Evelyn realized that she could sense different
sounds and vibrations through different parts of her
body. Evelyn can feel music penetrate her body though
various parts – cheeks, hair, skin, etc.
When she plays the xylophone, she feels the sound
move from the sticks into her finger tips. When the
drums are played, she can feel the echo of the drum
beats through her body.
Evelyn removes her footwear as she performs on a
wooden floor so that she can feel the vibrations
produced by different instruments pass through her
feet up her legs. Thus, Evelyn has sensitized her body to
music.
Important Questions

21. 3. When was her deafness first noticed? When was it
confirmed?
Ans. When Evelyn was eight years old, her mother,
Isabelle Glennie noticed that Evelyn did not respond to
her name being called out at the piano class. Evelyn’s loss
of hearing was gradual and for some time she was able to
hide her disability from her teachers and friends.
By the time she turned eleven, her marks deteriorated,
and her parents took her to a doctor. Then, it was
discovered that Evelyn was profoundly deaf.
Imp. Questions

22. For an exciting quiz on the chapter
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