Understanding Signed Music
Cripps & Lyonblum
Rowley, 2013; Humphries, 1977; Lane, 1999; also see J. H. Cripps & S. Supalla 2012 for how
spoken language bias is a serious social problem worldwide). J. H. Cripps et al. (in press) observed
that deaf performers with strong cultural identity are the ones who create culturally appropriate
music performances through the signed modality.
To define music in a broader sense, Thaut (2005) noted that music is a highly abstract and
non-representational art that demonstrates human thought, feelings, and sense of movement.
Kramer (2003) argued that music is frequently perceived as lacking representational-semantic
richness. Specifically, he stated that individuals must understand the music’s “cultural meaning
[even] with the lack of referential destiny found in [musical] words or images” in order to
appreciate the music performance (p. 127). Theoretically, the same claim is likely to be made for
signed music through the necessary investigation with deaf community members.
Cook (2000) also claimed that music is embedded within social contexts. Music has five
basic elements: rhythm, timbre, texture, melody, and harmony. All of these elements are identified
in Western music, whereas non-Western music does not require all elements to be present. Melody
and harmony are two elements that are not so easily distinguishable in non-Western forms of music
(Schmidt-Jones, 2007). How these elements are used in signed music as promoted in the United
States a