The Sound of Music

1. About the chapter — two biographies, one spirit

Chapter 2 of Beehive brings together two very different life stories, yet both carry the same spirit: music is not merely a skill but a calling that can sustain a person against every obstacle. The chapter is a lesson in perseverance, passion, and the belief that the human spirit can transcend even physical limitation.

Part I is the story of Evelyn Glennie, adapted from an account of her remarkable journey from a deaf Scottish schoolgirl to the world’s foremost solo percussionist. The chapter’s Before-You-Read note asks students: “Do you think it is possible to learn a skill through sheer determination, even when you face great obstacles?” Evelyn’s life is the answer.

Part II is a profile of Ustad Bismillah Khan and the ancient instrument he made world-famous — the shehnai. The text traces the shehnai from its humble beginnings in the royal court and temple to its place on international concert stages, all through the life and music of one extraordinary man from Banaras.

Read together, the two profiles remind students that great music is born of discipline, love and surrender — whether you are a Scottish girl feeling vibrations through a tiled floor or an old master sitting on the banks of the Ganga at dawn.

2. Summary — Part I: Evelyn Glennie

2.1 Early life and the discovery of deafness

Evelyn Glennie was born in 1965 on a farm in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. She grew up in a musical environment and showed an early love for music. At the age of eight, she began to lose her hearing gradually due to severe nerve damage. By the time she was eleven, the damage was so serious that she was profoundly deaf. Specialists advised her parents that she could not pursue a career in music and suggested she attend a school for deaf students.

Evelyn, however, refused to accept that deafness was the end of her musical journey. She had always loved music and she was determined that love would not be taken away from her.

2.2 The turning point — Ron Forbes

The turning point came when her music teacher Ron Forbes spotted her potential and decided to nurture it in an unconventional way. He told her to stop thinking of music as something heard through the ears. Instead, he asked her to feel the music through different parts of her body. He began by tuning two large drums to different pitches and asked her to sense the sounds not with her ears but with her skin, her bones and her whole body.

Evelyn discovered she could feel vibrations. She felt the higher drum vibrating in her wrists and the lower drum reverberating in her legs. Over time she trained herself to detect the finest variations in pitch and rhythm through touch and vibration. She learned to remove her shoes while performing on stage so that she could feel the sound vibrations through the wooden floor, through the soles of her feet and up through her entire body.

This was not a trick or a compensation — it became her primary way of perceiving music. She would later say that hearing people often listen to music with their ears alone, whereas she listens with her whole body.

2.3 Training at the Royal Academy of Music

Evelyn was determined to pursue formal training. She auditioned for the Royal Academy of Music in London. Despite initial concerns about her deafness, she was eventually admitted. Her performance was so exceptional that she topped her class at the Academy, winning prizes and earning the admiration of her peers and teachers. She passed eight grade examinations in one year alone — a record of extraordinary dedication.

2.4 Rise to world fame

After graduating, Evelyn Glennie went on to achieve what no deaf person had done before: she built a full-time solo career as a percussionist. She plays over a thousand different instruments, ranging from marimbas and xylophones to snare drums, timpani and orchestral bells. She performs with bare feet on stage so she can pick up vibrations from the floor. She has performed with the world’s leading orchestras and soloists. She also gives free masterclasses to deaf children to show them that music is accessible to everyone.

She became the first person in musical history to pursue and sustain a full-time career as a solo percussionist. She believes she hears music in a richer, more complete way than many hearing people, because she is forced to engage her entire being with the sound.

2.5 Her philosophy

Evelyn Glennie’s life teaches us that disability is not inability. She has said that hearing is a form of touch; you feel it through your body, and sometimes she feels it as clearly as others hear it. She insists that being deaf is not a handicap for a musician; it is simply a different way of experiencing sound. Her story is proof that where there is will, there is always a way.

3. Summary — Part II: The Shehnai of Bismillah Khan

3.1 What is the shehnai?

The shehnai is a wind instrument that looks like a pipe widening towards the lower end. It has a double reed at the top and eight holes for playing. It produces a rich, warm, melodious sound and is considered auspicious in the Indian tradition — it is played at weddings, temple worship and celebrations. For a long time, the shehnai was regarded as an instrument fit for folk and ceremonial settings, not for serious classical music concerts. Bismillah Khan changed that forever.

The shehnai is believed to have evolved from the pungi, a simple wind instrument played by snake charmers, which had a harsh, nasal sound. According to the NCERT text, the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb banned the pungi from the royal court because its sound was too shrill and unpleasant. A barber from a family of professional musicians then improved the pungi by using a hollow stem of a different kind, making it longer and broader with a cleaner reed and additional holes for musical notes. The improved instrument produced a soft, melodious sound and came to be known as the shehnai. Some say the name comes from Shah (royal) and Nai (barber) — the royal instrument of the barber community.

The shehnai was then adopted in the naubat (the traditional ensemble of nine instruments played at royal courts) and became part of auspicious temple music. For a long time it was confined to these settings. It was Bismillah Khan who brought it onto the classical concert stage.

3.2 Bismillah Khan — early life and background

Ustad Bismillah Khan was born on 21 March 1916 in Dumraon, Bihar. His father, Paigambar Bux Khan, was a court musician. Music was in his blood from birth. At a young age, Bismillah moved to Varanasi (Banaras) where his maternal uncle, Ustad Ali Bux Khan, was employed as the shehnai player at the Vishnu temple (near the Balaji ghat area of Banaras). As a small boy, Bismillah would sit behind his uncle in the temple, listening and absorbing every nuance of his playing. Slowly he began to learn the shehnai from his uncle.

3.3 Practice by the Ganga

Bismillah Khan’s connection to the Ganga was spiritual and musical. He practised the shehnai for long hours on the banks of the Ganga. He believed the river and the shehnai were inseparable from each other and from Banaras. He would wake early in the morning and play ragas appropriate to dawn — ragas like Bhairav and Todi were among his favourites. The river, the ghats, the temples and the shehnai were, for him, all one flowing reality. He practised his riyaz (daily practice) religiously for decades. His devotion to riyaz never weakened even after he became world-famous. He was known to say that real music is born of genuine practice, not mere talent.

3.4 The shehnai reaches the nation — 15 August 1947

The most celebrated moment of Bismillah Khan’s career came on 15 August 1947, India’s Independence Day. He was chosen to play the shehnai at the Red Fort in Delhi to mark this historic moment. He played Raag Kafi, and the sound of his shehnai floated over the newly free nation. After this, he played at the Red Fort every Independence Day, after the Prime Minister’s address to the nation. The shehnai, once dismissed as a folk instrument, became forever linked with India’s national pride and independence.

His career had begun earlier — the opening of All India Radio in Lucknow in 1938 made his name a household word across the country. He then performed at major national and international venues, taking the shehnai to concert halls in Europe, the United States and many other countries.

3.5 Banaras — the city he never left

Despite his international fame, Bismillah Khan never permanently left Banaras. He was deeply devoted to the city and believed his music could not be separated from it. When he was offered incentives to settle in the United States, and when a music school was offered to him in Canada, he declined. He once asked, “But where would I find the Ganga there?” He could not imagine his music, his soul or his shehnai without the Ganga, the Banaras ghats and the Vishwanath temple.

He was a devout Muslim, yet he played daily at Hindu temples and revered the goddess Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of music. He used to say that for him, music was a way of worshipping God and that God was present in all faiths. He is therefore also a shining example of communal harmony and India’s composite culture.

3.6 Awards and legacy

Bismillah Khan received the highest honours India confers on an artist. He was awarded the Padma Shri (1961), the Padma Bhushan (1968), the Padma Vibhushan (1980), and finally the Bharat Ratna in 2001 — India’s highest civilian honour. He also received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award. He passed away on 21 August 2006 in Varanasi. His name is inseparable from the shehnai, and both are inseparable from Banaras. He is remembered not only as a musician but as a symbol of India’s musical, spiritual and secular heritage.

4. Character sketches

4.1 Evelyn Glennie

Evelyn is the embodiment of iron will. When doctors told her that her deafness meant she could not have a musical career, she did not despair — she found another way. She is determined, innovative and passionate. Her willingness to feel music rather than hear it, to take off her shoes on stage and to re-imagine what “hearing” music means shows a mind that refuses to be boxed in. She is also generous — she gives free masterclasses to deaf children, sharing the possibility of music with those who might have given up hope. Evelyn teaches us that greatness comes from redefining limitations rather than being defeated by them.

4.2 Ustad Bismillah Khan

Bismillah Khan is a simple, humble, deeply devoted man. Despite achieving international stardom, he lived modestly in Banaras and never let fame change him. He was disciplined — his daily riyaz was lifelong. He was spiritually rooted — the Ganga and the Vishwanath temple were not merely places but the very breath of his music. He showed that true art is inseparable from love — love of place, love of tradition, love of God. He was also a remarkable symbol of religious harmony: a Muslim who played at Hindu temples and regarded music as his act of worship, regardless of faith. His refusal to leave Banaras for material comfort shows a man who valued belonging and spiritual rootedness over wealth or convenience.

4.3 Ron Forbes (Part I — supporting character)

Ron Forbes is Evelyn’s music teacher in Scotland who recognises her potential when others have given up on her. His method of teaching her to feel music through her body rather than hear it is creative, empathetic and transformative. He is a reminder that the right teacher at the right moment can change a life forever. Without Ron Forbes, there might have been no Evelyn Glennie as the world knows her.

5. Themes

• Determination and perseverance: Evelyn refuses to let deafness end her dream. Bismillah Khan practises every day of his life, through poverty and fame alike. Both teach us that greatness demands commitment that does not waver under any pressure.
• Love for music — passion as a calling: Neither character treats music as a profession alone. For Evelyn, music is her way of experiencing the world. For Bismillah Khan, it is his form of worship, his connection to God, to the Ganga and to Banaras. True love for music — or for any art — transforms the artist.
• Overcoming physical disability: Part I is specifically a lesson in how a disability need not define or limit a person. Evelyn shows that the human body has more ways of experiencing the world than we imagine. Deafness becomes, for her, not a wall but a different door.
• Simplicity and humility: Both characters, despite extraordinary achievements, remain humble. Bismillah Khan declines luxury abroad to stay near the Ganga. Evelyn gives free classes to deaf children. Greatness does not require pride.
• Religious harmony and composite culture: Bismillah Khan, a devout Muslim, plays daily at Hindu temples and celebrates India’s independence at the Red Fort. He is a living symbol of India’s Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb — the blended, harmonious culture born of many faiths living together.
• Music as a universal language: Both the percussionist and the shehnai player communicate across barriers of language, religion and physical ability. Music, the chapter insists, speaks to the human soul directly, without needing translation.

6. Word meanings

• Percussionist — a musician who plays percussion instruments such as drums, cymbals, xylophone or marimba.
• Profound (deafness) — complete; total; very deep. Profound deafness means almost no hearing at all.
• Vibrations — rapid back-and-forth movements that produce sound and can be felt as well as heard.
• Audition — a trial performance to test the skill of a singer, musician or actor before being accepted.
• Perseverance — continued effort and determination to do something in spite of difficulty or failure.
• Shehnai — an Indian wind instrument with a double reed and a conical bore, considered auspicious; used in temples, weddings and, thanks to Bismillah Khan, classical concerts.
• Pungi — a simple hollow wind instrument traditionally played by snake charmers, known for its harsh, shrill sound.
• Reed — a thin strip of material (cane or metal) at the mouth of a wind instrument that vibrates to produce sound.
• Auspicious — bringing or considered to bring good luck; favourable; associated with happy occasions.
• Naubat — a traditional ensemble of nine instruments played at royal courts and temples in India.
• Riyaz — (Urdu/Hindi) regular, disciplined musical practice; the daily exercise of a classical musician.
• Raag / Raga — a melodic framework in Indian classical music; each raga has its own mood, time of day and season.
• Maestro — a master musician; a distinguished teacher or performer of classical music.
• Ustad — (Urdu/Hindi) a master; a title of respect given to experts in Hindustani classical music.
• Bharat Ratna — India’s highest civilian award, given for exceptional service to the nation.
• Composite culture — a culture formed from many different religions, traditions and communities living together and blending over centuries.
• Ghat — a series of steps leading down to a river, often used for bathing or religious rituals.
• Resonance — the quality of being deep, full and reverberating in a sound; the ability of a surface to amplify or prolong a sound.
• Devotee — a person who is very enthusiastically dedicated to an art, a religion or a cause.
• Conical — shaped like a cone, tapering from a wide base to a narrow point (describes the bore of the shehnai).