right ear focused …
Just went through an intense ear week. And seem to have come out OK. Last Wed & Thurs got the Economic Engine band together for rehearsals, did the performance on Sunday (with me on stage for a solid hour and a half), editing Hammer & Hair for the CD on Monday up in New Paltz, then long recording session on Tuesday, and about 13 hrs of editing on Thursday.
It now feels like my gone/white noise afflicted left ear is pretty well settled in. I’m getting more and more adept at just ignoring it when I need to. For example, as we set up on stage last Sunday, I realized that the wierd stage arrangement meant that the speakers were basically aimed at my missing ear. I made a quick attempt to re-arrange things so that I’d be turned around, but the small stage area and the need to accommodate 9 players without any re-setting of the stage during the concert mean that I was pretty much stuck in this unfotunate position. Deep breath, then I figured I’d just hear what I hear, and would have to work with that. A little scary since in the first two pieces I was playing laptop solos, and then was mixing pre-recorded effects, and finally for Economic Engine controlling and mixing real time effects. But the very good (and ever more appreciated) right ear came through, and all seemed to go well.
Mixing and recording in Jody’s studio in New Paltz presented different, but not dissimilar challenges. Jody understands that I can’t hear stereo, so we talk about the stereo for each piece, and he implements that. For the actual recording and mixing processes, it feels pretty much as though I just have to focus my attention to the right ear. With the right ear i can hear the musical relationships just fine, and I think I’m hearing balance of parts and levels as well. At least Jody doesn’t react as though I’m hearing anything different that he’s hearing. Plus, the way the studio is set up, I turn sideways so that my good right ear is aimed at the stereo speakers, and I get to look out the big window at the apple orchards and hills which surround Jody’s house. So that’s a nice side benefit of the unfortunate situation.
One of the things which has been most interesting about this whole processes is that as I share my problem with people, either through this blog or through conversation, I’m becoming aware of how wide spread hearing problems are. Musicians, in particular, have spoken with me via private email or in person, describing various scenarios in which they’ve lost some of their hearing. Perhaps musicians are just more attuned than others to the quality of their hearing. Or perhaps we’re more at risk because of exposure to loud sounds. Or perhaps we’re more at risk because of a general cosmic sense of irony at compromising the sense which we depend upon for our creativing and careers. Whatever the reason, I’ve heard from an awful lot of musicians who have been dealing with some form of hearing loss.
One of the things this makes me think about is a more philosophical issue. We communicate with sound, with words and with music. And that communication depends upon us agreeing on the fact that what we hear is the same for me as for you. But if many of us are dealing with a loss of hearing, then what we each hear may be quite different. Yet we are able to agree on it all enough to be able to talk and to listen to and enjoy music. So how does my experience of hearing differ from yours? I have some sense, because my hearing now is quite different from my hearing before. But I’d be reluctant to say that what I hear now is less real, though it clearly is lacking the dimension of spacial location.
As I look forward, I’m thinking more and more about how this kind of thinking might be reflected in a conscious way in my music. I’ve written up a couple of grant applications recently in which I’ve proposed to create a series of works which will explore this idea, and the general experience I’ve gone through. Quite different from the usual process I go through, where I write a piece for a particular performer or a particular situation. This would be starting out with the thought of trying to reflect and respond to a personal situation, rather than fulfilling a specific compositional task. It will be interesting to see where this goes … probably have time to do this beginning sometime mid-2009. We’ll see.
the way it is …
Went to hear David Little’s Soldier Songs this evening at Poisson Rouge. Very effective music, though unrelentingly grim. Also recently finished Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, which is even grimmer. While the concerns of both Little and McCarthy are very sympathetic to me, I’m not convinced that a representation of the grim toll being a soldier takes on one’s life is really the most effective way to communicate it. I have an underlying feeling that some portion of humor and irony are necessary to keep us really engaged.
Keeping engaged, for me, is also an aural problem. Much more than I’d like to admit, it was just impossible for me to understand the singer’s words. And I have the feeling the fault was in my ears, not in the singer’s voice. Maybe this impacts my take on the music. Or on the theatrical presentation. I’ll never really know, but it is something which scares me about dealing with my own music … particularly finishing up this next CD. Sometimes I feel as though my consciousness slips around the constant white noise … and while I always do hear it, sometimes I forget that I’m hearing it. But then, when I can’t hear things clearly, I wonder if the white noise is just screwing up everything I hear, or try to hear.
Keeping busy and musically engaged does help me forget about the white noise. But then complications come up, and it gets to a point where I may notice it, but I just can’t pay any attention to it because other things require my attention. I’m somewhat here now: Saturday night (i.e., last night) at about 11pm I found out that one of my players for the Economic Engine is ill, and may need surgery next week. Which would mean she couldn’t perform. And since it’s one of the Chinese instruments, there aren’t a lot of subs in New York City. I’ve been looking and contacting all the players in NYC, as well as players as far away as Minnesota and San Diego. So far, no one can do this on such short notice. Sunday night now, we start rehearsals Wednesday evening, perform on Sunday, and record the piece for the CD the following Tuesday. Assuming I can complete the ensemble before the performance.
Of course, everything was set over a month ago. But life (and illness) get in the way and screw things up. Part of me wants to whine about how this happens. But in reality, any kind of long term major project is vulnerable to this kind of problem. The important aspect of any situation like this is not about whether or not you can avoid the problems, but if you can deal with the problems and avoid a catastrophe. Although everyone here in NYC is much more professional than they were in Beijing (as I’d expect), shit still happens and is beyond my control. What’s not beyond my control is the fact that I can keep pushing to make something come together to make the piece work. It’s more or less universal this this is siply the way it is … so the best I can do is deal with it as best I can.
what’s that noise?
Led a student seminar discussion yesterday about noise + music + sound. Ended up talking about how my hearing problem has made me re-think the whole definition of noise, and my relationship to it. It was a nice day, so I had moved the class outside to sit at a table under a big tree. With periodic visits from a very loud construction tractor/front-loader, which was working on a major construction project on the outside of the Arts building. We’re talking about noise. And this noisey machinery keeps chugging up the driveway, completely stopping conversation, dumping it’s load of wood in a huge pile next to us, and chugging back away for the next load.
So there’s the idea of noise which is something which we distinguish from musical sound, and noise which makes it hard to hear the sounds in our environment. Or makes it hard to parse the sounds around us and to make sense of them.
The sense of noise as unconventional sounds, unconventional in the sense that we don’t traditionally think of it as musically relevant, is old news. Ives, Varese, Cage and their colleagues, as well as punk and hardcore bands and hip hop DJs, have all made it so that we can understand any sound or any noise as musically relevant and meaningful. It all depends on how we use it, and the context we put it in.
Noise as sound which makes is hard to parse our sonic environment is another story. That’s more how I think of my left-ear white noise generator. Or the front loader which disturbed my class discussion. Not so benign.
As the discussion went on, I mentioned my loss of stereo perception. I told the students that working with the placement of sound in the stereo field or in 5.1 is an important part of working with electronic sound. I told them that I’d want to talk with them about it in relation to their work in the class … but that I’m not going to be able to hear it. But we can talk about it, and they can all hear it and can critique each other on this aspect of their work. We’ll see how that works out. Maybe they’ll actually focus more on this aspect their music, since it’s being singled out like this, and since I’ll make a point of bringing it up in their critiques.
back at it …
I’m going to try to get back to this. Things have not been progressing in terms of hearing. In fact, over the last week or two, I’m noticing that my tinnitus is seeming louder than ever. I keep being in situations where I’m talking to someone and it seems like half of what they say is buried in the constant white noise. This gets disturbing.
On the other hand, since my last blog entry I’ve spent several days editing material for my next CD. I can hear the musical qualities of the recordings, certainly the playing and quality of performance, whether or not the notes are right, etc. But I certainly have no idea about stereo, and have to rely on the engineer, Jody, for that. Also, with one ear and the constant white noise, I have a feeling that I don’t really know about the ambience or reverberant space we’re putting the performances in. So that’s another thing I need to depend on Jody for. A wierd way to make a CD. On the other hand, it’s music that never existed before, and this is the best I can do to get it out into the world. So I need to try to get the people whose ears I trust to help me as much as possible. I need one more session in the studio to get both pieces where I think they’ll be pretty much done, then I can post them to the players and get feedback from that direction.
Another thing which is being strange is the fact that I’m back teaching. I haven’t brought up my hearing issues with my advanced class yet, but am going to have to tomorrow, probably. When they start playing their work for me, I have to let them know that they need to be thinking about stereo placement and movement of the sound … but I also have to tell them that they need to critique that aspect among themselves, since I can’t hear it. Also, along with the increased white noise recently, there’s been a bunch more kazoo sounds … so I’m wondering how that will impact my teaching. Somehow, with my own music, it’s different: I know what I want it to sound like, and the question in my mind is always whether or not what I hear on a recording matches the internal sounds … or as close as I can get, given my current limitations. With student work, where I don’t know what to expect going in, it’s likely to be different.
One last thought: since my last post I actually heard back from someone with a similar kind of hearing loss (SSNHL), who is also getting the steroid injections. Although I’ve heard a lot from people who have suffered from temporary hearing loss, either as a result of trauma or infection or long-term subjugation to very loud sounds, this is the first time I’ve actually heard from someone with a loss which seems very similar to mine. While I can’t take heart in someone else’s misfortune, it IS heartening to hear from someone else with the same problem. She says she’s going to see a homeopathic doctor, and I’m interested to see what kind of response she has. I’m definitely interested in following up on any alternative treatment which seems like it might be helpful.
where to now? …
NOTE: I actually wrote this post around Aug 12, but forgot to post it then … better late than never.
I’ve now done the diuretic treatment for nearly a month, and no change. So I think this one is another dead end.
Wendy and I are on Cape Cod now for a week of vacation, during which I hope to move forward on a new piece for piano and computer called Faith. Right now, I don’t have a lot of faith in the likelihood of improvement in my hearing. However, I continue to be thankful that I can continue to compose and perform, and even that my every day life isn’t substantially affected by this problem, other than the very public need to continually ask people to be on my right side so I can hear them, and the more private problem of the constant white noise on my left. I’ve developed a sort of standard response when people say “oh, how terrible that this has happened to you.” I usually reply: “Well, we can still have this conversation. I can hear you, and I can continue to do my work. It’s a problem, but isn’t not a tragedy.”
Yesterday, Wendy and I took a four mile walk along a bike path from “Head of the Meadow” beach, along a salt marsh, ending up at the foot of huge sand dunes. Beautiful and un-earthly landscape of sand and shrubs. At least 13 rabbits crossed our path. I could clearly hear the various birds in the marshes around us … and was also very much aware of the intrusion of the white noise of my tinnitus. It’s now really constant. I had sort of assumed that at some point this aspect of the hearing loss would fade away. At this point, I’m beginning to suspect that the white noise, like the hearing loss may be here to stay.
So, while I don’t have much faith that anything can be done to improve my hearing loss or my tinnitus, I do have faith in my ability to keep on with my work and my life. And that’s probably enough. Now back to writing the piece.
