VCU news

By Mike Frontiero
VCU School of Education

RICHMOND, Va. – Tammie Willis, a deaf music student at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Music, isn’t letting her disability mute her love for music.  She will receive a master’s degree in music composition at VCU commencement exercises, May 17.

Willis has been unable to hear since November 1994. With the help of special hearing aids, she has learned to process sound as vibrations on her eardrums. The hearing aids amplify even the faintest sounds to 90 decibels, allowing Willis to distinguish different notes and play in tune. 

“There’s this wonderful concept called dissonance,” Willis said. “Dissonance feels like two vibrations. When I feel that split into two vibrations, I know something’s not right.”

Willis can play a variety of percussion and string instruments, as well as Scottish bagpipes. Her final hurdle before graduation was composing a 12-person, four-movement, 26-minute-long percussion ensemble piece for her classmates to perform.

“I don’t just get perceptions of vibrations through my hearing aids,” Willis said. “I also feel it through my body, through the floor and in my feet, so it becomes a total body experience.”

In the beginning, her instructors were a little uneasy about teaching music to someone who couldn’t hear. None had taught a deaf student before. However, Willis, who lip reads, soon won them over. “Tammie is a remarkable person,” said William Eldridge, Ph.D., one of her instructors. “She’s extremely intelligent and strong willed. What she has done is inconceivable and miraculous.”

“I lost my hearing in an assault and had a strong feeling that my hearing had been taken from me,” Willis said. “I was looking for another way to regain or take back what had been taken.”

One of Willis’ inspirations is 19th century composer Ludwig van Beethoven, who developed his musical skills before losing his hearing. Willis’ path has been described as more difficult because she cultivated her musical skills after going deaf.  “Because Beethoven was able to keep a sense of sound in his life after he lost his hearing, I felt that maybe music was a way to keep a sense of sound in my life,” she said.

Willis is unique in the music world and she’s the first deaf student to graduate from VCU’s Department of Music. Willis, 34, said music has given her a new outlook on life. “Music gave me a lot more than just sound. It helped shape who I was, who I was becoming and who I will become in the future.”

After she receives her master’s degree, Willis plans to return to VCU in the fall to pursue a Ph.D. in higher education with a focus on music teaching.