Skip to content
HearingTracker
Log in

Choosing between a world without conversation or without music

This topic is closed.

9 replies513 viewsLast reply

Link to this topic
6 people in this conversation4 min readJump to latest

As a wearer, I have discovered that listening to music “thru the air” is rarely satisfying. Listening thru Bluetooth is incredibly satisfying. I had given up on music at first. But when came out with Bluetooth, I tried streaming from my Pixel to my ears, and it is unbelievably good. I now listen to music all the time, including “new to me” music, which was the hardest to enjoy prior to .

As a hearing aid user with a severe hearing loss that choice is easy i take conversations. I have never been that much of a music person. To me music is a distraction.

For me choosing conversation or music wasn’t even a question that I gave consideration too. I wanted both conversation and music.

When I was back doing rehab post , I put in the hard yards in rehab. Hours upon hours of rehab to get my 94% in speech.

When I wasn’t doing speech rehab I had Spotify music playing on my Sonos speaker. (Not streaming music via ) At first music was ghastly, By the 6-8 months post op I was enjoying music again. I can appreciate all genres of music bar one, and that’s because of the “high frequencies” of music and my electronic mapping.

When considering getting a CI you have to be able to put in the hard yards in rehab, both conversations and music. Believe me it’s not an easy road to walk.

First post from me, and this is an important issue. I too am a music lover. Started learning an instrument at 14, 55 years ago. I was wearing hearing aids at that time, having been diagnosed as hard of hearing at age 5. I was told I was a serious candidate for cochlear implants 13 years ago, but put it off because I was told it was irreversible and it would not be “normal” hearing. I could still function with hearing aids at that time, even at severe to profound level of deafness. I’ve always enjoy music, and two years ago joined a large wind ensemble community band. It would be soul crushing to lose the ability to play, and enjoy, music with others.

As I consider cochlear implants, trying to find the “best” choice of implants for music is very important. Do we have any other musicians that made that transition, and do y’all have recommendations that I should investigate.

Welcome to the forum @RickRS
I’ve got a Cochlear N8. While I can’t play my pipes either competitively or just in the band anymore because of age and other health issues.

I can thoroughly and do still enjoy listening to music. It took a lot of time and music rehab to be able to appreciate all genres of music that I do now.

I listened to Spotify and music from my era all the time (not streaming though). My speaker was going all day just listening to music.

If you’re prepared to do the hard yards in rehab you will again appreciate music. Being able to enjoy music again is a tough gig after a . It took about 8 months of listening to Spotify before the music started to sound reasonable. From then it improved in leaps and bounds.

I’m not sure about playing again, I couldn’t blow to pitch, I was constantly blowing flat, so I stopped playing.
Good luck to you

I assume you didn’t recognize you were flat and others would tell you? I’ve heard that pitch perception is difficult with . Do you still recognize pitch? Is it that relative pitch discrimination becomes too coarse? Something entirely different than that?

I simply can’t hear high notes to play in true pitch.
I don’t have a hybrid EAS attachment to my . My mappings are fully electronic now, which limits my ability to hear and play to true pitch more specifically top hand high notes.

I gave up music probably 25 years ago, maybe longer. I could not hear the vocals and most of the upper frequencies.
Those years taught me speech is more important than music, at least for me. Having a family and a job to support them was so much more important than music.
I guess I find your topic kind of out of place for the hard of hearing but music is important to many. It’s hard for me to believe music would take priority over family, work and life in general.
Interesting to see all the posts of different interest. Thanks for posting.

Trust me. Diagnosed deaf at age 5, finally given hearing aids at age 12, and now at 69 year and in the severe to profoundly deaf level for a LOOONG time, music is still important to me, and I’m guessing to some others of us.

Sorry, I don’t think my ask is out of place.

Related discussions