From Noise to Music

Yesterday I had a great time presenting at Old Cabell Hall's Music Library as part of their "Making Noise" series.  I talked about my experience of learning to hear again anew with a cochlear implant (CI). Many people don't understand that it can be hard work to learn to hear again with a bionic device. I showed with powerpoint slides some of the aural rehab I did. Things like listening to NPR radio shows, going to CI forums, ESL (English as second language) websites, audio books.

Then I talked about what I did to regain music perception. I published an article that documents all of the things mentioned in The Hearing Journal.   I worked with a music teacher and friend, Aila Juvonen doing a series of ear training exercises. For someone like me though, ear training was more about creating new neural pathways and engaging other sensory input. We worked with tuning forks to enable me to feel the vibrations of frequencies of pitches. We also did some interval recognition exercises and sight singing. It was a challenge and also a lot of fun!

After my talk, I played some of my own songs. I hope to do more presentations like this. Thanks for coming by and reading! I hope your new year is going well so far.