Amazing Scottish percussionist Evelyn Glennie (who lost her hearing in her early teens) gave a TED Talk about “Listening To Music With Your Whole Body” – it’s 32 minutes well worth your time.

If someone asks me: “Oh well, how do you hear that?” Then I simply say: “I really don’t know, but I just basically hear that through my body, through opening myself up. How do you hear that?” “Oh well, I hear it through the ears…” …you know…” Well, what do you mean, ‘through the ears’, what are you actually hearing?” So, when you try to bounce the question back to a socalled hearing person, then, they simply do not know how to answer these questions…

There’s also a longer documentary about this, Touch the Sound.