Colorado Jazz Singer Hits The Right Notes, Even Though She Can't Hear Them!
By
Editorial Staff in
Feel Good
On 24th August 2016
The Saturday night crowd at Dazzle is overflowing and noisy. The pretty young woman, who looks barely out of her teens, takes the stage at the local jazz hot spot and begins to sing. That's when the magic happens.
From the first note, Mandy Harvey tames her audience into stunned appreciation as she glides pitch-perfect from breathy jazz standard to growling blues. She is never still, clapping and twirling, keeping time while the saxophonist, the bass player, the pianist lay down their solo improvisations. When it is her turn she jumps in seamlessly, never missing a beat or note.
At show's end the audience is on its feet. Some know the secret. Harvey has not heard any of it — not the applause, not the talent of the musicians who shared the stage, not her own incredible voice.
At 27, this rising star in the jazz world is completely deaf.
#1 She wants to be Choir Director.
Mandy Harvey (born January 2, 1988) is a deaf American jazz singer and songwriter. A Vocal Music Education major at Colorado State University, Mandy lost her hearing in 2006-2007 at age eighteen and left the university.[1] She pursued several career options, including education, but returned to music in 2008. Smile (2009) is a self-produced album and has received acclaim from Jazz critics. Her third album "All of Me" (2014) was released in November 2014.
Mandy was born in Cincinnati, Ohio before moving to Florida at age two. Mandy is one of four children of Joe and Valerie Harvey. Daughter to a minister and to a public school teacher, Mandy showed an early talent for singing, but also suffered reoccurring hearing problems. At age ten (1998), her family moved to Longmont, Colorado, where Mandy attended middle school at Twin Peaks Charter Academy. Mandy participated in choral groups and music competitions in high school, including traveling with one such group to sing in Australia. Her vocal talent blossomed during her high school years and she was recognized as the "Top Female Vocalist" at the Longmont High School graduation ceremony (2006).
#2 Hope.
She sings from memory, from a time when she could hear a phenomenon in which her brain is able to summon music she once sang or notes she saw and then commands the muscles controlling her vocal chords to repeat the past. The notes are still there.
"I understand that my story opens doors and gives people hope, but for me it's still a wound that I am working to heal. I don't want to be known for my disability."
#3 She watched herself die!
From the time she was little, a series of bacterial ear infections ate away at her eardrum. Through childhood she never passed a school hearing test. Doctors warned her parents that Mandy's hearing would probably always be impaired, and that she would eventually lose all hearing in middle age.
#4 My Funny Valentine
Then one day in 2008, her father, who had always shared her love of music, asked her to learn a song and sing it as he played guitar. "I thought he was nuts," she says. Or maybe in denial. Didn't he realize she couldn't sing anymore?
She gave it a shot. She would see a note and try to sing it. A friend would find the note on the piano and help her adjust her pitch. To her surprise, she hit it more often than not. When she sang for her father, it was his turn to cry. "Was it really that bad?" she asked.
"No," he replied. "It was right on."
He made a recording, which Harvey took to Cynthia Vaughn, her former vocal coach. Skeptical at first, Vaughn was floored when Harvey began to sing. "How did you do that?" Vaughn asked, marveling that Harvey's pitch was better than most of her hearing students.
Harvey, who once shunned performing solo, decided to go all in. On a whim, she signed up for an open-mic night at a Fort Collins club. "I said, screw it. What's the worst thing that could happen? If I sound awful I'll never know," she joked.
She sang "My Funny Valentine" to the six people in the audience, clutching the side of the piano in terror. "I opened my mouth and didn't think." Management asked her back.
#5 I don't know where this is all going. I could stop remembering, stop being able to sing. But for now I am just glad music is still part of my life.
