Tag Archives: music

“I hear a symphony, a tender melody, pulling me closer”

27 Monday Jan 2014

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               “Ah things ain’t what they used to be, no no

               Where did all the blue skies go?

               Poison is the wind that blows

               from the north and south and east

               Woo mercy, mercy me, mercy farther

               Ah things ain’t what they used to be, no no”

                                             -Marvin Gaye

As a person living with a severe to profound hearing loss from birth, I experienced something for the first time in my life this past week and I’m still smiling about it. I went to the Broadway show and I understood every single word of it.

In my life thus far, I’ve had the privilege to attend dozens of productions -musicals, plays, concerts, shorts…and while I’ve enjoyed them all so much, I’ve always struggled to understand what was being said, what the context was, what the songs were expressing.

“Miss Saigon”, “Cats”, “Phantom of the Opera”, “Rent”, “Chicago, “Kiss of the Spider Woman”, “Mama Mia!”, The Vagina Monologues

Tina Turner, U2, Violent Femmes, The Temptations, Sarah McLachlan, Peter Gabriel, Depeche Mode, Jill Scott, Diane Reeves, Esperanza Spalding, Patti Smith, Buena Vista Social Club,  East Village Opera Company, Gregory Porter, Taj Mahal

Attending these events brought me great joy and I’ve never shied away from attending in spite of the fact that I was missing out on a major component.  Instead, I would focus on watching movement, observing faces, interpret music  in my own way -even so far as to imagine what was being said as empathetically as I could. In a sense, I would create my own version of the production in my head with the information available to me through my four and a half senses.

Plays could be researched beforehand to help provide context and those who attended with me would do their best to fill me in as the production progressed.  Some larger venues would have enormous monitors throughout, displaying a performer’s face so that I could catch snatches here and there.  In many cases, I would even recognize favorite songs -those I would know the lyrics by heart and could “hear” from memory. U2’s “With or Without You”, Tina Turner’s “Private Dancer”, The Temptations’  “Just My Imagination”

Watching the expressions on other concert goers’ faces would fill me with happiness and  sometimes if I was lucky I could read their lips as they sang along -my own private interpreters.  Elaborate costumes, gorgeous choreography and the energy of the crowd provided me with an incredible experience in itself. A different kind, yes, and without words but still so beautiful in its unique way.

               “You’ve given me a true love,

               and every day I thank you love

               For a feeling that’s so new

               So inviting, so exciting

               Whenever you’re near

               I hear a symphony

               A tender melody

               Pulling me closer

               Closer to your arms”

                              -Diana Ross

This past Tuesday evening, all of that changed.  My partner and I attended the incredible Mo’town The Musical -a production we’ve wanted to see for quite some time as we know one of the lead performers but because I knew I wouldn’t be able to understand most of it, my partner did not want to attend as she felt this was unfair to me.

And then we found out that this particular performance was open-captioned. So we jumped at the opportunity.

Thanks to an amazing organization called the Theatre Development Fund, Mo’town and scores of other theatre  productions are made open captioned for a selected number of performances.  A text display stationed at the side of the stage provides a simultaneous transcription of dialogue and lyrics during a live performance. Because I don’t know sign language, this was the perfect solution for me -along with thousands of others who are hard-of-hearing.

When we reached our seats and took our coats off, moments before the lights dimmed, I scanned the crowd and noticed dozens of people wearing hearing-aids and cochlear implant devices all around me.  Suddenly, as the theatre darkened, bright orange words flashed on a rectangular screen to the left of the stage as a song -one of 59 began, accompanied by a booming 18-piece orchestra.  “You’re Nobody ’til Somebody Loves You”, “Dancing in the Streets”, “War”, “My Guy”, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”…and so many more.  And I could understand every single word the performers were singing and saying.

Overwhelmingly happy, I cried.

               “You and I must make a pact

               We must bring salvation back,

               Where there is love, I’ll be there.

               I’ll reach out my hand to you

               I’ll have faith in all you do.

               Just call my name and I’ll be there.

               I’ll be there to comfort you,

               Build my world of dreams around you,

               I’m so glad that I found you.”

                              –Berry Gordy

As the story moved along and the action shifted about on the stage, in synchronous movement my head along with dozens of others around me swung back and forth from the screen back to the stage, reading quickly and then watching the performers.  Several were clapping along, many were smiling and all of us could understand.  Being able to read the words made the musical experience so much richer.  This time -for me costumes and stage decorations were icing on the cake and the choreography was so much more fun – simply because I was able to “hear” the words to the songs to which they were dancing.

Since first introducing this service to Broadway in 1997, there have been over 46,000 admissions to TDF open captioned performances. More information on this amazing organization can be found here.

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Hairball removal and Pat Metheny’s “First Circle”

22 Tuesday Oct 2013

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It’s day six of being ‘activated’ and I must admit it’s been very interesting.  I’ll also admit that it’s been an exercise in extreme patience.  During dinner last night, I told Lisa that while I absolutely do not regret this, I can see how some people would go a little nuts in the beginning. I can see how failed expectations can really falter determination and even discourage actively pursuing progression.  Two things are at play here.  Expectations and surrendering.

Because I have no idea what it is to hear high-frequency sounds, I also have no idea of what kind of expectations are reasonable.  A person cannot help but to have expectations. Planning that trip to a place you’ve never been to before during a time that you really, really need a trip, your mind cannot help but to visualize what it’s going to look like. You imagine how it will feel to stroll slowly along cobblestoned streets with colorful flowers, quaint outdoor cafes and wafts of laughter floating by. (Yes, I said “wafts”.) Or that oceanside spot -your toes dug in sand, your hair damp from that incredible swim you just took and a cold, refreshing beverage in your hand.  You keep imagining over and over again what it will look like and you can’t help but to smile in expectation. Ahh…..

And then you get there. Boom.  One of the kids gets sick, your suitcase got lost and the bed-and-breakfast room that you booked smells like mold.  To make matters worse, you’ve got the worst sinus headache known to humankind.  And all you want to do is sleep…because you’re exhausted. You keep thinking in the back of your head, “This was not supposed to happen!”

In this case, while I don’t have to sniff a moldy guest room and I don’t have sick kids to tend to and I don’t have a suitcase I have to track down in a foreign country, I do have ringing in that ear, I’m totally exhausted and I do feel downtrodden, like “What!? This is not the what I thought it would be.”

At the end of every day so far, I’ve had a mild headache, I feel like a sleepwalking, cranky, crabby zombie and my left ear has a strange ringing/rushing sound in it -even after I take the processor off. It was so loud one night that I began to wonder if what I was “hearing” with the processor on was a figment of my imagination!  Albeit, when I woke up the next morning, the sound had thankfully vanished.

Having described all of the difficult parts, and they have been difficult, it’s even more important that I look at the other side of the coin.  I had what some call a “CI” moment yesterday on the bathroom floor while removing a matted hairball from our 18 year old cat, Molly.  A CI moment is a moment when a cochlear implant recipient experiences hearing in a brand new way and it’s extraordinarily exciting. Often times it’s a small moment but so many of those moments make up a mosaic that becomes your new hearing experience -the one that you are working so hard for.

So, back to the bathroom floor, scissors in hand and a very angry old toothless cat, I was wearing only the processor -I had left my hearing aid out so that I could let my left ear do some work.  I had my computer open in the dining room and my YouTube list of favorites was playing. Carefully cutting through this particularly large hairball, I kept hearing -or rather feeling this beat in my head. I shook my head and looked at the cat. She glared back at me.  It was not my imagination -the beat continued. Leaning forward, I snipped another tuft of fur and as she bit my hand with her gums, I thought to myself, “Am I hearing something or am I nuts?”

Moments later after freeing Molly’s offending hairball, I sat down in front of my computer and suddenly realized that the beat bouncing in my head were the notes to Pat Metheny’s “First Circle”.  “First Circle” contains a myriad of high notes produced by an assortment of instruments and human voices.  To the natural hearing ear, it’s a melodic exploration of sound but to my ear, half of the song was inaccessible -that is, until yesterday on the bathroom floor with my enraged kitty.  I could suddenly hear the high-frequency beats and when I realized what it was, it made sense.  It was a definite “CI” moment.

I mentioned surrender.  This is the difficult part.  I’ve noticed that when I “surrender” my expectation of sound, I hear more.  When I stop listening for something, I hear more.  When I was concentrating on avoiding the cat’s attempts to bite me while not scissoring her on accident, that’s when I could hear the beat.  While I’m sitting here typing this, I can hear the  beats.  It’s when I strain and listen for what I believe it to sound like is when the song fades away.  I’m working on surrendering to new sounds and my patience is being worked. Then again, patience is a muscle that must exercised   regularly in order to grow.

When you look back on that trip you took where you had so many expectations that failed to materialize and you felt so left down, you may also remember some super sweet moments that made the trip incredible.  You may have held your sick kid on your lap while watching a gorgeous sunset from the porch swing at the “moldy” guest house. You may have taken a nap three days in a row to help your sinus headache go away, only to find out that you really just needed some sleep -peaceful, uninterrupted sleep. And you may remember laughing so hard with your family that your face hurt.

That’s what I’m working on. Letting the CI moments come so that I can have my own mosaic of hearing experiences.  But I do suspect that the cat will be hairless before this all over.

“Hand me the doggy bag…I can’t hear the music.”

18 Friday Oct 2013

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A few nights ago, before activation, Lisa and I went out for dinner at a neighborhood restaurant. I had my leftovers packed up to go in a doggy bag -a styrofoam container in a plastic bag.  Strolling down the street, we noticed that there was live music happening at Rooster’s, another neighborhood establishment. We decided to go in for a nightcap and to enjoy some tunes.

The music consisted of a fantastic DJ spinning some beats accompanied by a violinist playing nearby.  The place was jammed with patrons chatting, laughing and some even dancing. Polished cement floors and enormous windows contributed to the bouncing cacophony of sound that was swirling around my lone hearing-aid and it was becoming too much.  I stood still and tried to relax, focusing on the dancers in front of me.

Lisa tapped my shoulder, motioning for me to take the glass of wine and the doggy bag that were in her outstretched hands. I reached over and took both items and suddenly the beat of the music made sense to me.  Looking over at the violinist, I happily watched him sway as my right foot tapped in time to the vibrations reverberating through the styrofoam container in my left hand.

With the aid the styrofoam clenched in my fingers, my brain was able to isolate some of the sounds and I could see where the beats were coming from.  Fast forward to today, that’s what I feel is happening with my newly “activated” left ear. I’m experiencing an odd assortment of sounds -mostly a dull roar, almost like a continuous tone of white noise with the sporadic injunction of a tweet or ping.

When I leave my hearing-aid out, it’s hard for me to map where the errant tweet or ping comes from and I don’t even necessarily hear anything more than that but when I put my hearing-aid back in my right ear, I suddenly hear more in my left. I know this is because my brain is mapping sounds with the help of my right ear -which I’m now referring to as my “styrofoam doggy bag”.

I can definitely tell the difference today and it’s only been 24 hours. My hearing is heightened.  Almost like when you have a decade-old prescription for eye glasses and you’re used to it. You go in and grudgingly get a new prescription and, wow! things are so much more crisp! You can read those signs! Huh!

It’s not all clear yet and there’s clearly a lot more mapping to do but I can see where this is going.  Today I tap-danced in the office bathroom after flushing the toilet because I could hear the tinkling of the tile under my shoes. And I liked it!

A Surprise Bit of Grieving

04 Friday Oct 2013

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Music for me as a hard-of-hearing person was always an interesting experience. What I considered to be good music included electronica and classical piano along with good base.  When all is considered, this would be attributed to my ears’ ability to only hear and isolate singular-type sounds.

When I was a little girl, I used to love the beginning electronic intro just before “Beverly Hills Cop” theme song -“Axel F”.  I wore the tape out in my little pink cassette player rewinding and playing that part over and over again.

Men Without Hats’ “Pop Goes The World” pulled me in with its rhythmic melody. I couldn’t hear the lyrics so I didn’t know that Johnny played the guitar and Jenny played bass. I just knew that it sounded like a easy-flowing, happy river ride in the sun.  My childhood friend Amy and I used to dance around her sun-lit house to the song on full-blast over and over -with the bass throttling the speakers for my benefit.

The first song I learned the lyrics to was Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start The Fire”. I was in middle school and I so envied my hearing friends being able to sing along with the lyrics with each other and I wished so badly I could do that.  I wanted to be cool. So I found a tape that had the lyrics in the jacket and spent an entire afternoon studying the lyrics, stopping and rewinding the song over and over again, practicing singing along with it until I got it damn near perfect.

At the next slumber party I attended, someone broke out the cassette-player and I hurriedly put my dog-eared tape in and pressed play.  Even though no one else really knew the song, much less the words, I happily mouthed along with Billy’s rapid-fire diatribe -every single one word.  It was a private victory moment for me.  I felt cool -even if it seemed like no big deal to others. I felt normal.

My high school boyfriend introduced me to different kinds of music but one moment stands out.  I remember he came over one night. He had a little red CRV that he outfitted with a rather extensive stereo system complete with subwoofers that sounded incredible to my limited sense of hearing. He recognized the kind of melody I liked and he brought a song for me to hear -“Sweet Harmony” by The Beloved.  I grinned so hard as we listened to it from beginning to end.  And then I took the tape with me and wore it out listening to it nonstop.

Depeche Mode, Erasure, U2 and Fleetwood Mac joined my high school repertoire of music that I “liked”.  Even the Violent Femmes and Massive Attack.  Later, scores of Buddha Bar and Ibiza albums would join the ranks as they all contained at least one if not a half dozen songs with electronic strains woven around some strain of an identifiable bass that I could easily follow.

I have an interesting parallel relationship with music. I can listen to one song with my hearing aids on and then I can hear that same song in a completely different way with ear buds pushed into my ears.  Some songs I’ve found that I don’t like at all with my hearing aids but others I adore with just ear buds cranked up at full volume.

Listening to music at full volume with earbuds has an embarrassing downside.  One day at work, I was enjoying U2’s “Joshua Tree” album from beginning to end while happily engrossed in a programming project. Halfway through the album, I looked up across my monitor and noticed that Robert -my cube-mate appeared to be mouthing along with the lyrics to the currently playing “Where The Streets Have No Name”.  The timing was impeccable.  Startled, I pulled one bud out, waved at Robert and asked him “Are you listening to U2?”  He smiled and nodded. And then suddenly and in disbelief, I thought…”oh shit.”

“Robert, can you hear my music?” He smiled even wider and nodded. I flushed from head to toe and sheepishly turned my music down.

Fast forward to today, I’m sitting on the porch listening to my list of favorite oldies on YouTube with my good ear when I decided to try to see if I still had any natural hearing left in my left ear to listen to music.

To be cautious with my still-healing ear drum, I turned the music down before carefully nudging the other ear bud in to my ear. As the intro starting to wind up, I slowly pressed the button to increase the volume.  And I heard nothing. I knew this would be a possibility but I guess you can’t really be prepared for that. I don’t regret this decision but I cried.