00:00An important trait, I think, is love, because love is what helps us keep going even when it's difficult.
00:08It is the best motivation and it helps us to persevere.
00:18Hi, my name is Azariah and I'm a deaf pianist.
00:23I love music, I love the piano, I love sharing the gift of music with others.
00:28So I was diagnosed with hearing loss at the age of four years old
00:33and my parents, they fitted me with hearing aids.
00:37They also went for specialised training and brought me for a lot of specialised training.
00:41Speech therapy, how to raise children with hearing loss
00:46and I thought they really put a lot of effort into training me.
00:52So that's why I'm able to speak as my main form of communication
00:58and able to enter mainstream school.
01:01So my musical journey started when I was about four.
01:04Actually before that, my parents had exposed me to a lot of music.
01:08They brought me to concerts.
01:10When we were in the car, they would listen to classical music all the time
01:14and then I had piano lessons.
01:16When I was homeschooled around 12 years old, I had more time to explore music.
01:20So I found myself listening to a lot of CDs.
01:23I had lots of pieces that I really enjoyed listening over and over again
01:27and I started to be serious about my piano practice.
01:31After that, I attended music festivals, competitions.
01:35I went to music school and that's brought me to where I am today as a pianist.
01:41Hearing aids have been a big help in speech and in music.
01:45I remember that when I was very young, maybe four or five,
01:49my parents told me this funny story
01:52that when they called my name, Ezra, I wouldn't reply.
01:57But when they said something like Batman, I would reply.
02:03And so they thought that I was just being selective in my hearing.
02:07But that was not the case because the consonants belonged to a lower frequency
02:11which is why I was able to hear better.
02:14So the thing about hearing aids is it boosts the frequencies that I'm not able to hear well
02:19so that I'm able to hear as much as a normal person can hear.
02:24Of course, there are limitations but it was a big help for me.
02:29My hearing condition deteriorates but it is slow, it's gradual.
02:35At the age of four years old, my hearing loss was about 50%
02:39and now it's lost about 85 to 90%.
02:43So I've had to change many hearing aids over the years,
02:47each time more powerful than before.
02:50But one thing I really appreciated is having good audiologists that I can work with
02:55to tune each and every hearing aid to my specific needs.
02:58And especially as an artist, my needs are not just communicating with others through speech
03:04but also music.
03:06Sometimes hearing aids think that the music is actually noise.
03:10So I have to work closely with the audiologist to train the hearing aid
03:15so that it recognizes music and it just absorbs all the sound.
03:21It doesn't remove any of it as noise.
03:24In fact, some of them would even come to my place where I have my piano
03:29and we would tune every single note of the piano of the hearing aid
03:33so that it would be matching, it would be even.
03:37So I have to thank the many audiologists who are willing to spend the extra time and effort
03:44to understand my needs and tune the hearing aid
03:47so that I'm able to hear music as well as I can.
03:51I have two different settings for my hearing aid.
03:54One is for speech and one is for music.
03:57If I'm hearing a TV program and there's a lot of talking,
04:01so I'm in my speech program.
04:03But if there's background music at the same time,
04:06then the hearing aid knows that it's music
04:09but it's not able to make much sense of the music.
04:13It will still be processed as speech and so there will be some distortion.
04:17I remember I had to work much harder than my peers in school
04:23because things that most musicians were able to do, I would struggle with.
04:29For example, listening to music and playing by ear as we speak.
04:33That is a real challenge for me,
04:35especially when I'm listening to music that's coming from a device.
04:39There's a lot of distortion.
04:41So I have to listen perhaps a hundred times
04:44just to catch what someone of my level would be able to catch at the first time.
04:49And it's something that I'm just not able to do.
04:52I have to recognize my limitation and focus on where my strengths are.
04:57But oftentimes there are creative ways of getting around different challenges.
05:03So I understand sometimes it can be challenging for other musicians
05:06to want to work with me because they may have this fear
05:11of not knowing what my challenges are.
05:14Whether I'll be able to do the same things as any other peer musician
05:19that is at my same level.
05:21It's quite normal as humans, we have this fear of the unknown.
05:25But that's where love comes in.
05:26Love moves us to want to understand others.
05:30Love moves us to communicate and work with others, to be inclusive.
05:35And then we'll find that there are creative ways to get around the challenges
05:39and we can still reach the same high professional standard as anyone else.
05:46I remember I had this wonderful collaboration with this musician
05:50and we put together such difficult music
05:53but we performed it to the highest possible musical level.
05:56I also really enjoyed working with singers such as Khawei and Claire and many others.
06:01We put together wonderful programs of music for so many dignitaries.
06:07It was a really special event and we even recorded the music that we worked on together.
06:11It was such a wonderful memory.
06:14Right now I'm serving on the Board of Artists.
06:17That's one way that I enjoy giving back to the community.
06:21And in a very personal, meaningful way.
06:24Because Artists is a charity that helps people with disabilities to excel at the arts.
06:31And I myself was a beneficiary of it.
06:33So being able to help out in a small way is what I enjoy doing.
06:38Other than this, recently I also conducted or directed a new series
06:45for the National Cancer Institute of Singapore
06:49called the Last Mile Concert Series.
06:51Last year we put together a wonderful program
06:55which had singer Joanna Dong and also wonderful musicians such as the Lawong Boys.
07:02We put together a very wonderful, inspiring concert program
07:08that raised a good amount of funds for cancer patients.
07:13In fact, this is part of this company that I started
07:18called Poignant Inspirations, which we're using to give back to society in different ways.
07:24With a focus on promoting artists with disabilities.
07:29Over the years, I find a lot of joy teaching as well.
07:32Not just in performing, where the focus is on myself.
07:35But I enjoy sharing the gift of music with others.
07:39There's a lot of joy seeing students grow as musicians, as artists.
07:45When you see a student that enjoys a favourite piece of music
07:48but perhaps they struggle with technical challenges.
07:52Then being able to work through those challenges,
07:54I think it makes them happy and it makes me happy as well.
07:57So I'm really looking forward to the World Expo at Japan next year
08:02where I'll be looking to play, I think, a big program.
08:07But this year there are many other smaller little programs that I'm looking forward to, perhaps.
08:13Such as accompanying other piano teachers or piano concertos.
08:18Many gigs for many different programs.
08:22And a wide variety of new music that I'm learning.
08:27Even though I have hearing loss,
08:29but this doesn't stop me from persevering and doing things for others.
08:35Giving back to society, raising awareness, sharing the gift of music
08:40and just conveying the message that love is most important.
08:44If we have love, that will move us to be inclusive, to be more understanding.
08:49It will move us to be persevering in whatever goal that we choose in our life.
Comments