FEATURE

We Need to Talk

...About Music

By Richard Reed,
Keynote Speaker
VOICE Conference 2009

“Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.”
-Frank Zappa (1940-1993)

Hearing loss can feel like a lonesome corner in a dark room full of strangers. And music – the source of joy and solace for so many biologic-eared humans – can make that crowded room feel even spookier for being noisy. And so, when it comes to hearing music with a hearing loss, we definitely need to talk.

On May 2, I had the privilege of discussing my experiences as a late-deafened musician and cochlear implant user at VOICE’s “Music to My Ears” conference in Guelph, ON. It’s always great to shares tales and tunes with fun smart people trying to improve (or just normalize) HOH children’s lives. The friendly attendees arrived on time and full of hope (and coffee).

Most of my slide projections show a written phrase or two along with an occasional drawing. The words and cartoons provide context while not giving away the whole story. Sometimes written cues will trigger an improvised yarn or musical phrase. I try to keep the spoken parts like the musical parts – slightly wacky but heartfelt – and slip advice and tips between the lines and riffs. The “winging it” factor keeps me on
my toes. When a technical glitch caused the real-time caption projector to go blank, attendees were nice when I just kept going. It seemed as if even the Hard of Hearing (HOH) folks could still follow the narrative, assisted by the “feel” of the piano licks, and some of the goofier cartoon slides. And it was reassuring to realize that, no matter what goes wrong during a music lecture, no one ever shouts out requests for “Free Bird”
or “Mustang Sally.”

Music is “controlled noise,” and improving music appreciation can help acclimate hearing aid (HA) and cochlear implant (CI) users to noisy environments. That’s easier written than done. HOH kids will always have to augment verbal cues with speech reading when the band starts playing (and these days, who doesn’t?). If kids can begin to recognize individual instruments and songs – no matter how weird or noisy it

sounds – they’ll get better at ignoring music and background noise while focusing on speech. When sounds are less mysterious (That’s a
trumpet? Okay), they become easier to contextualize. Never mind timing: for HOH persons, context is everything.

Figures of speech, irony, sarcasm, rhetorical questions, deadpan humour, etc., use tones and/or phrasings that are musical to some degree. Improving our understanding of music can help us decipher the context and subtext of conversations. Increasing a child’s understanding of music can help them better hear, feel and fall into the rhythms of everyday life.

Technology for hearing loss is amazing now. The hard part is how we – along with parents, teachers, therapists and mentors– stretch what’s between our ears. That’s a LOT easier said than done. I didn’t use the phrase “neural plasticity,” but did try to demonstrate how just five or six piano notes sounded “less bad” than others after CI activation day. Those few buzzing barely-in-tune tones helped me regain a sense of pitch with my CI. Over weeks and months, I was able to start recognizing octaves of those notes, then some intervals. The fidelity of the
notes greatly improved along with my perception.

The lousier music sounds to HA and CI users, the more they need to try learning to play an instrument. The connection between notes-on-the-page and our hands on the horn, keyboard, neck, or gizmo, helps our brain start to make more sense of what we’re hearing through our electric ears. There’s a lot of helpful tactile stuff going on when we play, too.

Watching someone describe practicing scales might be the only thing more boring than actually practicing; but again, the nice VOICE folks hung in there. I showed them what simple scales and songs sounded like to my ears with varying degrees of hearing loss, and post-CI activation. I then demonstrated how simple riffs could slowly lead to more complex melodic and rhythmic parts, regardless of timbre. And when Abby, a
six-week-old baby, suddenly voiced an opinion, she couldn’t have timed it better. It went something like this:

Me: “And then there’s this sound …

Abby: “WAAaaah!”

My first heckler! Abby provided a big laugh, which was music to all ears. Will I demonstrate an obnoxious flair for the obvious if I mention that not taking oneself too seriously (while seriously studying and practicing) seems helpful, too? I finished up the presentation with two recorded songs: warped arrangements of “Twinkle Twinkle” and “Fur Elise,” with open captioned lyrics and an animated blues guitar solo in the former,
and descriptions of tonal variations between instruments in the latter. Folks listened, and asked good questions. No one has all the answers for every individual. That VOICE devoted an entire conference to discussions of hearing loss and “music loss” is a wonderfully proactive approach to finding solutions. Other presentations I attended were by turns informative, scholarly, entertaining and/or all three at once. If you weren’t
there, you missed something special. You probably know that HOH clients are clamouring (nicely) for improved access to music. It’s great to see (and hear) that manufacturers, teachers, and therapists are responding.

In the afternoon we held a teen music workshop. It was scary initially because I didn’t know if they’d be as sullen a group of wise guys as my friends and I were at that age. But it was fantastic: those kids were genuinely funny and intellectually curious. They were so polite – without being phony – I’d almost be willing to suggest all teenagers be raised with hearing loss in Ontario, but I’m afraid too many parents might
email to say “Take mine there until they’re thirty, PLEASE!”

Maybe what I should say is that the parents and professionals of the VOICE program seem to be doing something right. I love it when that happens.

After the introductions, I asked the kids about their favourite music. Their answers revealed a wide range of styles and tastes, including classical, The Beatles, jazz, pop, rock, hip hop, AC/DC and “What she said.” And if “What she said” isn’t the name of a band, it should be.

We talked a bit about songwriting, about lyrics, rhymes, and melodies, how a pop song can be like a little aural movie squeezed into three or four minutes. I quickly realized that these kids knew this stuff. It must be on TV! A more wistful memory: two of the kids said they didn’t have any favourites, didn’t really get music. I made sure to get them all up pounding on the piano and drums (huge thanks to Marc and his dad
for bringing the drum kit) during the second half of the workshop. Even if we’re not playing actual melodies or following a set pattern, just flailing away for a few minutes on any instrument is a completely cool and freeing feeling. Some of the kids didn’t have to flail at all: they really knew how to play. Everyone who tried the drums showed enthusiasm, musical potential, and a willingness to risk embarrassing themselves in front of
their peers. That’s kind of amazing in a roomful of teenagers. Most of the VOICE workshop teens didn’t seem to identify as“HOH kids,” but as a normal bunch of (preternaturally respectful) young men and women with “HOH” much more parenthetical than when I went deaf nearly 20 years ago. Their social skills are the result of years of hard work and real progress. I came away from the VOICE conference knowing that there’s a lot more work to be done before “hearing-in-melodic-noise” becomes a more enjoyable experience for HA and CI users of
all ages; but it’s happening as we speak … about music.