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Despite devastating hearing loss, woman still has song to sing | coloradoan.com | The Coloradoan
Despite hearing issues from birth, Mandy Harvey immersed her life in music, singing since age 4 and becoming an award-winning vocalist in high school.
When she auditioned for the vocal music programs at Colorado State University and the University of Northern Colorado, both quickly accepted her (UNC before she even left the audition room). Her goal was to become a college, jazz vocal instructor.
But just months into her freshman year at CSU, Harvey noticed her hearing was going. Despite new hearing aids, six months later, all of her residual hearing had disappeared. For someone who had built her world around music, it seemed the cruelest twist.
"I locked myself in my dorm room for two weeks and didn't talk to anybody," recalled Harvey, 21. "I got really depressed; I journaled a lot. ... I spent a lot of time trying to remember how everything used to sound, and I would get really frustrated.
"I stopped singing for a year, fully," she said. "I didn't even sing in the shower. I didn't want to try."
Those around her felt powerless, unable to help her or, really, even to understand.
"She had pinned a lot of hope on (the hearing aid) solving the problem," said Harvey's former high school and college voice teacher Cynthia Vaughn. "When that hope was crushed ... that's when I saw her spirit crushed. She was a fighter up until then; she was going to overcome it. You really saw the life drain out of her."
Vaughn lost contact with her former pupil until last year, when out of the blue she received an e-mail from Harvey about wanting to return to her singing lessons.
"I was shocked because I knew that there hadn't been some miracle, that she could hear again," Vaughn said.
She invited Harvey to stop by her new studio and was again surprised when Harvey arrived with an armload of sheet music, ready to work.
"I played a chord and she looked at the note and sang it back pitch perfect," she said. "I was stunned. ... I kept asking, 'How can you do this?' and her answer was, 'I don't know; I just want to sing.'"
Harvey said getting more involved in the deaf community helped pull her out of her funk. Then her father asked her to record a song he had written for her. Since the recording was just for them, Harvey consented; but after a year of not singing, she quickly realized how much she missed it.
That's when Vaughn took her to meet another friend of hers, jazz pianist Mark Sloniker, at Jay's Bistro where he frequently performs. Sloniker invited Harvey to sing a couple of songs.
"Lucky for me, there weren't a lot of people there," Harvey said. "I may have thrown up in the bathroom that night, but I can't remember. I do remember that I was really nervous, like shaking all over."
But the nervousness has passed, and Harvey drives up from her Longmont home most Thursday nights to perform at Jay's.
Regulars in the audience know Harvey is deaf, but newcomers won't realize it until they see the crowd giving her deaf applause (waving ones hands in the air instead of clapping).
"One can have (hearing) loss but still make music in the world," said Sloniker, who has a degree in music therapy and has worked with musicians with sensory loss. "It didn't seem impossible, but (she is) pretty extraordinary."
So, how does she sing? Even to Harvey, it's a bit of a mystery.
"I know that muscle memory plays a part, and perfect pitch plays a part," she said. "I can look at the keys being played and know in my mind what it's supposed to sound like and sing it. ... A lot of it is just my memory."
But relying on memory is a frightening prospect, Harvey said. "I have a growing fear that I'm going to wake up and it's all going to be gone, and I'm not going to be able to remember how to do it anymore.
"Every day when you wake up, you forget what another thing sounds like," she said. "I was thinking about it yesterday - I can't remember what an air conditioner sounds like ... the small things that are all around like that, you just forget. The sound of my car door closing, I don't remember that. I don't remember car alarms. I remember that they're annoying, but I can't remember what they sound like."
That's what prompted Harvey to make "Smile." Her debut CD features jazz standards, including "At Last" and "I'll Be Seeing You," which was recorded in a single take.
Now Harvey is looking toward her next projects, a darker CD, again of jazz standards, and a Christmas CD. The singer is also writing new songs with Hannah Holbrook of the local band SHEL. She is also looking at making those old journals the basis for a book on her experiences, something that could be helpful to other people going through similar situations.
"When it was happening then, I thought that life was going to be over from then on, and it's amazing how it all works out," she said.
As together as she sounds, Harvey admitted that the loss of her hearing is still painful to deal with, calling them a "lot of old scars that I guess aren't that old."
But to see her singing her heart out at Jay's, no one would think Harvey was focused on anything but the future.
"There's a determination behind her artistry that most performers just don't have," Vaughn said. "One of my favorite moments (during Harvey's show) is when she's performing, usually she'll do one song where she puts the mike in the stand and she'll sign along with the song, usually to her fiancee, Greg. When she signs 'Somewhere over the rainbow,' it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen."
It's remarkable how someone can meet a challenge and not let it compromise them, Sloniker said.
"For both Mandy and Beethoven, an unfortunate set of circumstances took away their hearing, but it didn't take away their music," he said. "If you're here to do something, don't let anything get in your way. Mandy certainly hasn't."
Despite hearing issues from birth, Mandy Harvey immersed her life in music, singing since age 4 and becoming an award-winning vocalist in high school.
When she auditioned for the vocal music programs at Colorado State University and the University of Northern Colorado, both quickly accepted her (UNC before she even left the audition room). Her goal was to become a college, jazz vocal instructor.
But just months into her freshman year at CSU, Harvey noticed her hearing was going. Despite new hearing aids, six months later, all of her residual hearing had disappeared. For someone who had built her world around music, it seemed the cruelest twist.
"I locked myself in my dorm room for two weeks and didn't talk to anybody," recalled Harvey, 21. "I got really depressed; I journaled a lot. ... I spent a lot of time trying to remember how everything used to sound, and I would get really frustrated.
"I stopped singing for a year, fully," she said. "I didn't even sing in the shower. I didn't want to try."
Those around her felt powerless, unable to help her or, really, even to understand.
"She had pinned a lot of hope on (the hearing aid) solving the problem," said Harvey's former high school and college voice teacher Cynthia Vaughn. "When that hope was crushed ... that's when I saw her spirit crushed. She was a fighter up until then; she was going to overcome it. You really saw the life drain out of her."
Vaughn lost contact with her former pupil until last year, when out of the blue she received an e-mail from Harvey about wanting to return to her singing lessons.
"I was shocked because I knew that there hadn't been some miracle, that she could hear again," Vaughn said.
She invited Harvey to stop by her new studio and was again surprised when Harvey arrived with an armload of sheet music, ready to work.
"I played a chord and she looked at the note and sang it back pitch perfect," she said. "I was stunned. ... I kept asking, 'How can you do this?' and her answer was, 'I don't know; I just want to sing.'"
Harvey said getting more involved in the deaf community helped pull her out of her funk. Then her father asked her to record a song he had written for her. Since the recording was just for them, Harvey consented; but after a year of not singing, she quickly realized how much she missed it.
That's when Vaughn took her to meet another friend of hers, jazz pianist Mark Sloniker, at Jay's Bistro where he frequently performs. Sloniker invited Harvey to sing a couple of songs.
"Lucky for me, there weren't a lot of people there," Harvey said. "I may have thrown up in the bathroom that night, but I can't remember. I do remember that I was really nervous, like shaking all over."
But the nervousness has passed, and Harvey drives up from her Longmont home most Thursday nights to perform at Jay's.
Regulars in the audience know Harvey is deaf, but newcomers won't realize it until they see the crowd giving her deaf applause (waving ones hands in the air instead of clapping).
"One can have (hearing) loss but still make music in the world," said Sloniker, who has a degree in music therapy and has worked with musicians with sensory loss. "It didn't seem impossible, but (she is) pretty extraordinary."
So, how does she sing? Even to Harvey, it's a bit of a mystery.
"I know that muscle memory plays a part, and perfect pitch plays a part," she said. "I can look at the keys being played and know in my mind what it's supposed to sound like and sing it. ... A lot of it is just my memory."
But relying on memory is a frightening prospect, Harvey said. "I have a growing fear that I'm going to wake up and it's all going to be gone, and I'm not going to be able to remember how to do it anymore.
"Every day when you wake up, you forget what another thing sounds like," she said. "I was thinking about it yesterday - I can't remember what an air conditioner sounds like ... the small things that are all around like that, you just forget. The sound of my car door closing, I don't remember that. I don't remember car alarms. I remember that they're annoying, but I can't remember what they sound like."
That's what prompted Harvey to make "Smile." Her debut CD features jazz standards, including "At Last" and "I'll Be Seeing You," which was recorded in a single take.
Now Harvey is looking toward her next projects, a darker CD, again of jazz standards, and a Christmas CD. The singer is also writing new songs with Hannah Holbrook of the local band SHEL. She is also looking at making those old journals the basis for a book on her experiences, something that could be helpful to other people going through similar situations.
"When it was happening then, I thought that life was going to be over from then on, and it's amazing how it all works out," she said.
As together as she sounds, Harvey admitted that the loss of her hearing is still painful to deal with, calling them a "lot of old scars that I guess aren't that old."
But to see her singing her heart out at Jay's, no one would think Harvey was focused on anything but the future.
"There's a determination behind her artistry that most performers just don't have," Vaughn said. "One of my favorite moments (during Harvey's show) is when she's performing, usually she'll do one song where she puts the mike in the stand and she'll sign along with the song, usually to her fiancee, Greg. When she signs 'Somewhere over the rainbow,' it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen."
It's remarkable how someone can meet a challenge and not let it compromise them, Sloniker said.
"For both Mandy and Beethoven, an unfortunate set of circumstances took away their hearing, but it didn't take away their music," he said. "If you're here to do something, don't let anything get in your way. Mandy certainly hasn't."