A Greene Man’s Blog

I performed this solo during a Phoenix College Music Department recital last night. I’ve been working on this song with my singing teacher, Dan Hooper, who accompanied me on piano. My apologies to my deaf readers for not captioning it; it’s just too time consuming for me right now. Here are the lyrics below:

So that’s what they call a family
Mother, daughter, father, son
Guess everything you heard about is true.
So you ain’t got any family
Well, who said you needed one?
Ain’tcha glad nobody’s waiting up for you?
When I dream on my own
I’m alone, but I ain’t lonely
For a dreamer, night’s the only time of day
When the city’s finally sleeping
When my thoughts begin to stray
And I’m on the train that bound for
Santa Fe
And I’m free
Like the wind
Like I’m gonna live forever.
It’s a feeling time can never take away
All I needs a few more dollars
And I’m outta here to stay
Dreams come true
Yes they do
In Santa Fe
Where does it say you gotta live and die here?
Where does it say a guy can’t catch a break?
Why should you only take what you’re given?
Why should you spend your whole life livin’
Trapped where there ain’t no future
Even at seventeen
Breaking your back for someone else’s sake
If the life don’t seem to suit ya
How ’bout a change of scene–
Far from the lousy headlines
And the deadlines in between?
Santa Fe
Are you there?
Do you swear you won’t forget me?
If I found you would you let me come and stay?
I ain’t getting any younger
And before my dying day
I want space
Not just air
Let ‘em laugh in my face, I don’t care
Save a place
I’ll be there
So that’s what they call a family?
Ain’tcha glad you ain’t that way?
Ain’tcha glad you got a dream called
Santa Fe?

Working at the Mic

Today, I took a voiceover workshop with Nick Omana. I got a lot of time at the mic because it was a small class. Nick taught us about vocal “colors”– an interesting approach to character work using color symbolism as a frame of reference. We practiced approaching the same copy with various attitudes (MP3 audio) which was a fun way of exploring character and emotion in reads.

With Nick Omana

Here’s a picture of me with Nick Omana at the Ford Robert Black Agency in Scottsdale, Arizona, where the workshop was held.

In previous installments, I’ve written about the importance of matching the Deaf speaker’s mastery of language, vocabulary, and register, especially when it comes to our ability to produce spoken English that is worthy of that speaker’s signed language. In my last, somewhat “controversial,” column, I wrote about the dilemmas we must face as interpreters when Deaf speakers produce signed English that is “wrong” or “broken English,” (as many second language speakers do). I believe that some of the controversy really turns upon the issue of whether we are voice interpreting or voice transliterating. This article will examine more closely the process that we might use to determine whether a Deaf speaker is producing an ASL message that must be interpreted or a signed English message that must be transliterated.

I’d like to start off with the assertion that, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” Many of the sentences that Deaf people sign, either in ASL or some form of manually (and orally!) coded English, follow the same syntax as regular, spoken English sentences, and should be voiced exactly as they are signed. This means that we, as interpreters/transliterators, must constantly assess the speaker’s syntax and encoding system to ascertain whether each particular word, phrase, and sentence should be interpreted or transliterated. We must ask ourselves, “if I say exactly what they are signing (and mouthing), will the Hearing audience receive the same message as the Deaf speaker intended, or must I change the wording and/or phrasing in order to produce an equivalent message to the speaker’s intent?” My assertion is that, more often than some would have us believe, transliteration is the way to go. (more…)