In our audist societies, where superiority is ascribed to those who hear or behave like those who do (Humphrey, 1977), the common perception is that music constitutes a solely auditory art form, one that Deaf people cannot fully perform as artists, have access to, or appreciate. Combined with ageist discourses that tend to associate (popular) music predominantly with youth (Forman & Fairley, 2012) and to focus almost exclusively on its therapeutic function for seniors, a narrow definition of music strongly affects ageing Deaf individuals, adding to obstacles to their social participation (Gaucher, 2012). Yet, music has played an important role in Deaf cultures (Maler, 2013), and Deaf artists have developed a range of musical forms (Cripps, et. al. 2015). How have ageing Deaf people accessed and experienced music as a cultural practice in the past? How are they doing it now? What media and technologies shape their "musicking" (Small, 1998) and inform their attachments (Hennion, 2014) to music? To which music cultures do they feel a sense of belonging? How does music mediate the experiences of ageing of Deaf seniors? These are the key questions guiding Music at the fingertips, a project that Vero Leduc (UQAM) and I have undertaken, that explores Deaf music in Montreal as it is practiced and/or experienced by two generations of Deaf adults.

In this talk, I offer a preliminary analysis of video recorded interviews conducted in Quebec (LSQ) and American (ASL) Sign Languages in 2018. Combining life histories (Chazel et. al., 2014) and techno-biographies (Blythe et. al., 2002), I outline the participants' musicking across their lifecourse, and consider them in the context of the changing discourses around d/Deaf in Québec. By way of conclusion, I discuss their experiences, practices and understandings of music as contrasted “affective belongings” (Massumi, 2002) that generate different feelings of being Deaf in specific places.