When Stephanie Ellison isn't at work at the local REI store in Houston, she's hard at work practicing her drumming technique. This deaf gal loves playing the drums and listening to both classic and hard rock.
I "found" Stephanie on the web while doing a search for deaf and hard of hearing musicians for another website. So I just had to contact her and find out a bit more about her journey as a musician.
"I see myself as a person who happens to be deaf," said Stephanie. "Not as a deaf person. There is so much more of me than deafness."
Stephanie believes she likely became deaf sometime before she was a year old. She spent the first six years of her life bouncing from doctors, psychologists and social workers after being misdiagnosed with a cognitive disability. Her adult sister noticed that while she seemed quite bright, she didn't respond to anything unless it was within her visual sight. Her sister insisted that Stephanie should be tested for hearing loss.
Stephanie was finally diagnosed with a profound hearing loss and her mother enrolled her in the Sunshine Cottage School for Deaf Children in Texas. After a year and half, Stephanie moved to a mainstream classroom and stayed with another family who had a deaf daughter. The only support services she received was simply regular speech therapy.
"It's not an experience that I'd like to repeat," said Stephanie. "It was a hard life being away from my Mom for months at a time and trying to survive academically. I even fought physically. There was no one really equipped to help me deal with all the anger I had from being deaf, dealing with my parents' divorce, 'having to go to school,' and being in a strange town where poverty was the norm."
Stephanie lived with her father after her parents divorced. She was introduced to music through an old Kimball organ in their home. "I played with it, learning the different sound textures and how different instruments go together or played alone," recalled Stephanie. Her step-mother tried teaching her to read music, but Stephanie wasn't ready.
While watching "Hogan's Heroes," one day in fifth grade, something clicked as Stephanie listened to the snare drums. She began playing on pots and pans, experimenting with the sounds and patterns. Stephanie joined the band and began to enjoy playing music. She credits her music teachers for having the patience to teach her to read music and develop her talent. In high school, she focused on the bass guitar and put drumming aside for a while.
Stephanie played in Europe during the summers of 1983 and 1984. "The first group I played with was America's Youth in Concert, and the second group was U.S. Collegiate Wind Band," said Stephanie.
Group conversations are a tough thing and Stephanie explained that she deals with that by tuning out. "I'm not able to plug myself in at the right moment," said Stephanie. "That's why I tend to hang out with two or three people at a time and once in a while four or five people. Or I'll talk with one person for a while and go from one person to another."
Stephanie has a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies from UT Arlington, and an M.Ed. in vocational rehabilitation from UT Austin. But right now, her heart is in music and she's hoping to pursue another band opportunity in the near future.
