I know I haven’t posted much on the National Women’s Music Festival I attended – mostly because I am still waiting to hopefully receive some pictures to share so you will have a better idea of what I’m talking about.
However, to continue the “music bug” that seems to have bitten me, I’d like to share with you another music video…this one was done by a member of the management team for one of the concert performers at the festival. There were many different, skilled female musicians showing their stuff, with a lot of different types of music…and all of it was interpreted.
One such musician was a woman named Trina Hamlin. A native of Minnesota, Trina studied music at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and played in the club circuit in New York City with a band called Blue Leaves before striking out on her own. She’s toured all around the nation and played with some well known musicans such as Ricki Lee Jones and the Indigo Girls. Her music has been heard on the TV show “Dawson’s Creek.” Besides being a skilled guitarist and pianist, Trina is also a top-notch harmonica player. Her songs have a pure, soulful, folksy quality to them.
Here is a video of Trina performing the song “Beautiful” at the National Women’s Music Festival, with interpreting services provided by Sunny Pfifferling-Irons. The lyrics to the song can be found below the video.
You can learn more about Trina Hamlin by visiting her website
Beautiful
One touch and I might melt
So I run far, far away
Not too much to tell you
Yet oh so much to say
I take a look at my life
And I just can’t find a way
Long, long ago
In a once upon a time
Where the prince remained a prince
And I understood the rhymes
Fantastic was the feeling
Didn’t know what kept me reeling
Was the one thing that I’d run from
Many years down the line
I just can’t, I can’t find a way
You’re beautiful beyond me
Incredible before me
Why can’t I open my eyes and see you?
You’d be the one I’d dreamed of
The one that I could love
You’d be the one that Iíd call to
In attempts to rise above
I just can’t, I can’t find a way
You’re beautiful beyond me
Incredible before me
Why can’t I open my eyes and see you
One touch and I might melt
My apologies – I know this isn’t a very “Deaf-Friendly” video…and I do wish it was captioned. However, hopefully it gives you a feel for what the festival was like, and I am pleased to see that it took advantage of Sunny’s presence to show the inclusion of an interpreter for musical performances. For my hearing readers, I hope you might comment and let me know what you thought of the song…
This sculpture shows the sign for "connect"...and that is what Deaf Pagan Crossroads is all about - making connections. Connections between Deafhood and Paganism, connections between the Deaf Community and the Hearing Community, connections between myself as the writer and you as the reader. I hope you will take the time to read my various posts, some of which are listed below. Welcome to the Crossroads, and I hope you make some connections here!
Deaf Pagan Crossroads 
Very good performance, and I am partial to the Folk/Rock genre, so I enjoyed the song. Good to see the interpreter to make it acessable also! She seemed to get into the spirit of the song as well.
Blessed Be
MoonStorm
Great song! Some nice guitar playing there too (I love guitar!), and I’m glad to see that performances were interpreted!
Trina surely sang with *feeling*. I agree with MoonStorm that it looks like Sunny got into the spirit of the song, which I would think adds more feeling to it, and to me it looks like the combination of guitar, voice, and sign made for quite a nice performance. But as I am only seeing bits & pieces of the interpreting in this video, I must ask you, Sistah, do you feel that the interpreters did a good job with the music performed at the festival?
Well…that’s a kind of subjective question. Evaluating an interpreter’s skill depends to a certain extent on your own personal preferences.
Overall, I thought the quality of interpreting services provided at the festival was quite good, and I was pleased.
However…
there were interpreters there whom I felt were better skilled than others, and whose signing style I preferred. In addition, some of them may be good interpreters, but not necessarily appropriate interpreters for music.
I think most Deaf individuals such as the ones who visit here at the Crossroads would be able to determine who were the more skilled interpreters in the group.
Then again, it’s very possible some of them might prefer the interpreters I didn’t care much for. Soooooo…
Let’s just say that that there were certain interpreters I really liked, and others I would not care to see again.
I didn’t get to know all of the interpreters, as truthfully they were kept quite busy and didn’t have much free time for socializing. There were concerts every day, workshops, rehearsals, etc. so they were often running from one place to another with barely room to breath!
I shared a room with Sunny – the interpreter in this video. She was a very pleasant person and I enjoyed her. As far as her interpreter skills…I would rank her in the middle. She wasn’t the best, but neither was she the worst. I think most of it had to do with limited experience…I think she is an educational interpreter working in a high school, so she might not get as much exposure to working with Deaf adults and/or in musical situations. She’s a skilled signer, I will definitely agree to that…but could perhaps use a little more work on musical translation.
She did pretty well with this song…there were some songs she interpreted quite beautifully, and others she struggled a bit with.
Part of the problem also was how much advance practice the interpreters received…which is another thing we need to really emphasize with musicians…
FOLKS, IF YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE SOMEONE INTERPRETING YOUR PERFORMANCE…PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT THEY NEED THE TIME TO DO LYRIC TRANSLATION, MEMORIZE SOME OF THE WORDS, AND PRACTICE THE MUSIC! THEY CAN’T JUST STEP UP THERE ON THE STAGE AT THE LAST MINUTE AND BE EXPECTED TO DO A TOP-NOTCH JOB! PLEASE MAKE SURE THEY GET THE LYRICS AND MUSIC AT LEAST A WEEK IN ADVANCE SO THEY CAN DO A LITTLE REHEARSING…JUST LIKE ANY MUSICIAN WOULD!
But I thought she did express the feeling of the music much better than some of the others…one in particular made me feel like I was watching a mechanical, deadpan signing robot. Very little expression – during musical interludes she would just stand there doing nothing…if you couldn’t hear the music, you would think the song had ended already!
I LOVE TINA; BEEN FOLLOWING HER FOR YEARS; I WAS THE ONE WHO ENCOURAGED HER TO WRITE LYRICS IN ALL OF HER CD’S.. SHE IS NOT ONLY AN AWESOME PLAYER BUT AN AWESOME PERSON; WARM AND COMPASIONATE..
I AM DEFINITELY A TRINA HAMILIN FOLLOWER :)… YEAH.. YOU GOT THE BEST PERFORMER IN THE WHOLE EVENT!!!!