Ask any hearing person which of their five senses is used to enjoy music. Most likely, their response will be “My sense of hearing.” The enjoyment of music is a multisensory experience, not only an auditory one, and involves much more than the simple auditory processing of sound waves.
Many of us have had a certain experience while driving that clearly illustrates this point. You sense that a car coming up from behind has the music turned all the way up. You feel the music thumping in your chest as the car rushes past you. Your car vibrates to the other driver’s music. Even if you don’t recognize the song, you feel that bass with your whole body. This is the sense of touch at work much more than the sense of hearing.
Many people listen to music while working at their computer. For greater intensity and clarity of the music, lots of people use headphones or earbuds. Music played on a computer can include an on-screen light and pattern show. This involves the sense of sight along with hearing. When we go to a concert, we respond to the extreme lighting effects. We see the keyed-up faces of the other audience members and participate in the excitement of our own companions. We respond to what the musicians are wearing, how they work with the instruments and how they move around the stage. This is visual and emotional enjoyment of music.
We have all heard stories about the amazing plasticity and adaptability of the brain. In the human brain there is a specialized golf-ball sized area over the left ear. In hearing people, this area processes sound and another area of the brain processes other vibrations. In deaf people, it has been shown that this golf-ball sized area adapts itself to process all vibrations in addition to the area that is already programmed for vibrations. This adaptation can assist in giving deaf people a unique and very rich appreciation of music.
Deaf people’s enjoyment of music can be enhanced with training and assistive equipment. The equipment can go from extremely low-tech to state-of-the-art. On the low-tech end, a simple balloon held in the fingertips can transmit airborne vibrations extremely well. There is a device that hooks over the ears and wraps behind the head that contains a powerful vibrator which sends sound vibrations through the wearer’s head. For a number of years in many schools there have been platforms mounted on springs and equipped with specially-adapted speakers that allow students standing or sitting on the platform to feel a wide range of musical sounds through their feet and bodies. A chair is in development that has air jets, body vibrators and a shaking floor plate to give a total-body experience of all the different instruments and variations of sound produced by a full orchestra.
Music can be enjoyed by both the hearing and the deaf. Technology is advancing every day that will give deaf people a fuller and deeper musical experience in the very near future. Right now, hearing-impaired people can use a device called a Boostaroo. This item amplifies and splits the sound from any portable device. At about the size of a computer’s thumb drive, it delivers up to 12 decibels of amplification, which makes a big difference when played directly into the ears through earbuds or headphones!
Another device that opens up a whole world of hearing to the deaf is the Clear Sounds Amplifying Neck Loop. Worn around the neck, this neck loop amplifies sound from iPods, TVs, laptops – any personal sound device.
Some hearing impaired people can enjoy music, and give the joy of music to others in a very big way. Is the name Elliott Yamin familiar? A quick Google search turns up a fascinating story. Anyone who is a fan of American Idol recognizes his name instantly. His mother was a professional singer, so he was around music his entire life. What many people don’t know is, with all of Elliott’s musical talent – the smooth voice, the moving expressions, and his recent second-runner-up final standing on the show, Elliot is nearly deaf in one ear. He grew up with chronic ear infections, and eventually his right eardrum burst, requiring eardrum replacement surgery. He was embarrassed about constantly having to use drops in his ears, and this embarrassment made him shy.
Despite his shyness and only ten percent residual hearing in his right ear, he couldn’t deny his love of music and singing. With a couple of nudges from his friends, he began to sing karaoke. Finally, he decided to audition for American Idol. He almost didn’t get to audition – out of thousands of people, many of whom never got in front of the judges, Elliott was the second-to-last candidate to be auditioned.
In addition to his hearing loss, Elliott is a diabetic. He doesn’t let any of his problems slow him down.
Another name that is famous in music despite hearing loss is Ludwig van Beethoven. Beethoven has been called the most influential composer in history. Born with normal hearing in 1770, he began to notice hearing loss and tinnitus, or ringing in the ears, when he was aged 26 or 27.
There are varying opinions on what the cause of Beethoven’s hearing loss was. The tinnitus suggests auditory nerve or cochlear damage or deterioration. Other diagnoses suggest ossification of the bones of the middle ear. Whatever the cause of Beethoven’s deafness was, by the time he was 49 he was profoundly deaf and could no longer perform in public.
As his hearing declined, he came up with unique ways of staying in touch with music so that he could continue composing. One ingenious method he invented was to hold a wooden rod in his teeth, and press the other end of the rod to his piano’s soundboard as he composed. In this way, the musical vibrations were transferred directly to his jawbone. Through the process of bone conduction, Beethoven could feel the musical notes. This crude method can be roughly compared to modern bone conduction hearing aids – although it was certainly much less efficient than today’s technology.
A more famous method Beethoven used involved an ear trumpet and a hammer. At the time, an ear trumpet was the only type of hearing aid available. It was, simply, a cone-shaped item with a small end and a very large end. The user would place the small end in his ear and aim the large end at whatever sound source he was trying to hear. Beethoven adapted this crude technology for his own use. He cut off the legs of his grand piano and laid the body of the piano directly on the floor. Then, while sitting on the floor himself, he would place an ear trumpet in his ear and pound the piano keys with a hammer until the keys broke. Not only did this method amplify the sounds for his ear, by sitting on the floor he could feel the notes with his body as well. At other times, he would lean over and put his ear to the floor while he played, picking up the sounds through his cranial bones directly from the floorboards under his sawn-off piano.
In addition to his hearing loss, Beethoven was plagued with lifelong health issues. Due to his determination and his devotion to his music, Beethoven found ways of succeeding against enormous odds. His music influenced and informed generations of composers. Fortunately, we now have technology that can help people with hearing loss and other health issues to gain and retain a more independent lifestyle.
For information on assistive devices for the deaf, please visit hearmore.com.
