Deafness and Hearing Aids.

[barwonfan]

A cautionary tale about deafness and Hearing Aids. What to do?
A week ago, I threw away the USB containing my favourite styles. I did this because my musician friend told me that he ALWAYS keeps his hearing aids on when he played his keyboard.
Now I have to find lots of new styles which sound good when I wear my hearing aids. I am finding it quite a challenge.
I wish I had not been so hasty throwing away that USB as it has just occured to me that, maybe , playing songs using my old collection of styles might have sounded good to SOME of my audience.
{Scatter gun approach} . I wonder what elderly members of bands or orchestras do when they start to lose their hearing. Do they start wearing hearing aids when playing in concerts with their band?
And, how long does it take to retrain the brain?

[Ron]

Hearing aids are designed to improve on hearing loss. So, why would you not wear them all the time and especially when playing your keyboard. I was found to have lost the ability to hear the higher end of the frequency spectrum and the improvement when wearing my aids is utterly remarkable. Playing without wearing your aids will give a false picture of what comes out of the speakers. No need to look for new styles! Simply wear your hearing aids when playing. The only downside I have found is that they do not handle the noise created when in a group of people having multiple conversations or in my case when my 3 very chatty grandchildren come to visit.

Ron

[Hugh-AR]

JT,

I too wear hearing aids .. which I wear from the moment I get up to when I go to bed. When they carried out my hearing test they drew a graph showing me where my hearing loss was greatest. Basically, I had no problem hearing lower frequencies, but as the frequencies got higher, this is where my hearing was dropping off. The graph line was falling off rapidly as it moved to the right. So what they have done for me is to amplify the higher frequencies in proportion to make up for what I am missing.

There are two types of hearing aids. With both of them the sound is picked up by a microphone in the aid, which sits behind the ear. The sound is then amplified in proportion to your hearing loss, and the sound then travels down a tube and into your ear. What is different about the two aids is the way the sound is put into your ear. In my case I have a grommet (dome) which sits in the ear canal.



The dome has holes in it, so the sound I am hearing can pass through these as normal. The frequencies I am missing out on are amplified in the hearing aid and come into my ear via the tube and through the hole at the end of the dome. The result of this combination is .. what I hear is what a normal person with no hearing loss would hear. When I first had my hearing aids it was quite a wake-up call to hear the birds 'tweeting' in the park. I hadn't heard those for some years!

Now my wife has hearing aids too, but her hearing is far, far worse than mine. For her to have this type of dome, she would have to have the volume up so high that the sound would come backwards out of these holes and be picked up by the microphone sitting behind the ear .. which causes feedback, and therefore howling. So she has to have earpieces 'molded' to her ear canal. So all the sound she hears has to come via the amplification in the hearing aid .. and there is no feedback as the sound reaching her ear canal cannot get back to the microphone. It has to be said that creating a mold requires a lot of skill!

Earmolds are often recommended for severe or profound hearing loss as they seal the ear better than domes. “Generally, the more significant the hearing loss, the more likely it is that earmolds are necessary. Domes work well for patients with mild hearing loss and for those with a lot of residual low-pitch hearing. When a patient has a hearing loss that requires more gain (volume), earmolds are much better at keeping that sound in the ear canal and directed toward the eardrum,”

So in answer to your question about wearing hearing aids, why wouldn't you wear your hearing aids when playing your keyboard .. or playing in a band? When you play something on your keyboard, one of the most important things to do is to get the balance between the instruments right. If you are not wearing your hearing aids and put the VOLUME of those STRINGS up so you can hear them, imagine what that would sound like to a person with normal hearing! Very scratchy/stringy I would think!

Hugh

[barwonfan]

Thanks, Hugh. I learnt quite a lot from reading your post. I am following up some of the things you mentioned. I think the whole subject of hearing is fascinating.
In the year 1786 the great Scottish poet wrote--
" Oh, would some Power the gift give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us" ,
I suppose we could equally say-----Oh, would some Power the gift give us to HEAR ourselves as others HEAR us