ASL Music Dictionary - Meet the Creator

Hi! I'm Merrissa.

I'm a Deaf Latina musician from a small town in California, and I have always been fascinated with music. Growing up, other than music playing in the car or around the house, we never really had instruments available to us. But after watching many, many hours of Celtic Woman (and memorizing their dances) I knew I wanted to play violin like Máiréad Nesbitt.

When my brother eventually gave me the chance to pick any instrument I wanted, I quickly responded, “Violin!” He bought one for me, and my life was forever changed.

Since then, music has taken me places I never could have imagined when I first picked up that violin. I went on to formally study music at Modesto Junior College in Modesto, California, where I earned my A.A. in Music. I later transferred to Sacramento State University, where I am now nearing the completion of degrees in both Vocal Performance and Deaf Studies. Along the way, I've studied classical violin, composition, piano, and voice, and I've found a particular home in church music and opera.

My relationship with music has also changed quite a bit along the way.

I started noticing that I wasn't hearing things as clearly as I once did. My hearing had never been perfect, but it was quickly becoming a barrier. After going to an audiologist and being fitted with my first hearing aid for single-sided deafness, I remember wondering what this would mean for my future in music. How was I supposed to continue pursuing something so centered around sound when I couldn't always hear it?

Thankfully, ASL wasn't entirely new to me. I had grown up around it because my twin is also Deaf. As I continued to lose my hearing, I was placed with some amazing interpreters along the way, and I never skipped a beat (no pun intended).

When I transferred to Sac State, I knew I was walking into much more rigorous coursework—and that I was going to need access to it. Music also comes with a lot of specialized vocabulary. Thankfully, I had interpreters who were willing to sit through class with me while I frantically came up with one sign after another just to make all of our lives easier.

Somewhere in that process, another one of my interests started sneaking in: linguistics. I have never formally studied linguistics, but I love learning about how languages work—especially signed languages. I became increasingly curious not only about what sign we could use for a musical term, but why that sign made sense. What part of the musical concept were we representing? Were other Deaf musicians already signing it differently? And what happens when ASL simply doesn't have a widely established sign for something musicians talk about all the time?

Those questions are a big part of how SignSounds came to be.

They're also why I want to be transparent about where the signs on this site come from. My own musical background shapes the way I think about them. I am most experienced with violin, piano, composition, and voice, particularly in classical, church music, and operatic settings. Because of that, some signs I've developed naturally come from the perspective of a singer or violinist. A percussionist, brass player, conductor, jazz musician, or someone from an entirely different musical tradition may look at the same concept differently—and I think that's exciting.

SignSounds isn't meant to suggest that I have all the answers. In fact, I hope it does the opposite. I would love for this project to grow as I learn from other musicians, Deaf and hearing alike. Music is much bigger than my own experience, and there are so many perspectives I haven't encountered yet.

For now, I'm sharing what I've learned along the way—and I'm excited to see where it goes.

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