Page 14 - the Noise February 2017

INTERVIEW
MANDY HARVEY
BY BEVERLEY NAPALM
Jazz singer Mandy Harvey is a remarkable woman. She has faced and defiantly overcame what is the ultimate and unthinkable obstacle as a singer — severe hearing loss. At age eighteen, Mandy lost her residual hearing due to a connective tissue disorder that affected her nerves. Though her hearing loss is profound, Mandy’s timing and pitch are perfect. Her passion is infectious, and her performance is inspiring.
Ms. Harvey has released three full-length albums to date and has won many awards for her singing, including in 2011, VSA’s Top Young Soloist Award. Ms. Harvey is also a motiva- tional speaker and has become an ambassador to both No Barriers USA and Invisible Dis- abilities Association, encouraging others to break through their personal barriers.
This author caught up with Mandy prior to leaving for tour and posed the following questions.
Your voice is very clear, unwavering and pure. This challenges the average person’s perception of the hearing impaired. It is difficult for many of us, not blessed with a voice like yours, to under- stand how you are able to perform and sing in tune with accompaniment with such precision. How do you approach your performance in terms of pitch?
This is something I put a lot of effort into on a daily basis. The benefit of losing your hear- ing as an adult is that I spent 18 years with sound, listening and pronouncing words and singing and speaking clearly. I have always had issues with my hearing so I have done a lot of extra work growing up, including Hooked on Phonics when I was really young. I’m not sure if it 100% worked for me; A,B,C,D,E,F,G ha-ha.
After losing my hearing and while it was degrading, I decided to make it my job to talk and sing as much as possible so I would remember and continue to speak as clearly as pos- sible. Pitch is a different ball game. I was born with near perfect pitch so I can stay in tune as long as I know what the first note is. I spend significant time each day working on my pitch through the use of visual tuners. Finding middle C and working on my scales and making sure that as I move my voice I am moving them in the appropriate intervals. I grew up with a love and passion for music and music theory. If I hadn’t been involved with music before losing my hearing, I’m not sure if I would do very well at all. It would be another level of challenge that I would have to work through.
Do you take musical inspiration from your memory of sound? Or from other non-audible sources? I am curious how you write and construct music, and how you choose your accompani- ment for your singing.
I write music on my personal feelings. I don’t think about things too hard. I just think of a melody and sing it out loud into a recorder that I send to others who have hearing and they chart it out for me so I can visually see what I sang. For example, “Happy Again” is a song I wrote in one take. I was sitting in my car and I hit record on my phone and sang a song from start to finish. Three and half minutes later I ended the recording and I never changed anything to that song.
I don’t try to make a “hit” song, or to sing about something I am not passionate about. I focus more on the feeling of the song and how it feels physically. When you play music you can feel the beat and the tempo but you can also feel when a song crescendos and de-crescendos. That movement plays into how you experience a song. I like to add instru- ments that can help me create large impact while also being able to pull back dramatically to give the right emotional response. In my head the music looks very different than reality, mainly because I don’t have the budget to have a full orchestra on a song I think would have strings.
You perform barefoot when you play live, to feel the bass and percussion. Are there acoustic difficulties that interfere with this process, or compromise your ability to perform? For example, I am thinking of a reverberant or odd shaped room, or a noisy environment. How do you adjust to the different physical properties of performing in a different space each night when you are on tour?
Feeling the music is what keeps me in time but also helps me to understand those dy- 14 • {online at thenoise.us} FEBRUARY 2017 | the Noise
namic changes. When the room is really loud there are too many vibrations on the floor so you have to rely more on visual communication with the rest of the band. We all look at one another when we are trading solos or when it is my turn to come back in, they will nod at me, but we create a structure before hand and just watch each other. The beats through the floor help me to understand and to feel more connected with what is going on.
Are you aware of the work of Evelyn Glennie, (deaf percussionist), and her documentary Touch the Sound?
I am very much aware of her work and I think she is amazing! I have had the honor of meeting her a couple of times and she is simply a brilliant woman.
Your attitude and approach is truly inspiring. What advice would you give yourself, if you had a time machine and could go back to when you were 18 and first coming to terms with your hearing loss?
If I had a time machine I think I would just leave an anonymous note saying “Keep mov- ing forward” and walk away. The experiences and the pain of losing my identity and what seemed to be my future has changed who I am. I appreciate things more and have more empathy for others. Each step was a learning process and a chance to grow. I needed to grieve and to be angry. I needed to cry and to become numb for a time. Then one day, I learned to smile again.
There are many recommended videos on YouTube highlighting Mandy’s passion, and her remarkable talent.
Mandy Harvey is on tour in February and has three Arizona dates: Feb 7th — Tucson, Club Congress
Feb 8th — Phoenix, Musical Instrument Museum
Feb 9th — Flagstaff, Firecreek Coffee
| Beverley Napalm is a Flagstaff music aficionado who just happened to Brexit earlier than everyone else. beverley@thenoise.us