Deafness and Hearing Aids.

[YammyFan]

Deafness and Hearing Aids. What to do?
To-day,  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 clarinet in a local concert band.
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?

[Lefty]

This question is so complex there's a whole branch of science built around it. Psychoacoustics is the branch of psychophysics involving the scientific study of sound perception and audiology —how human auditory system perceives various sounds.

I have profound hearing loss in my right ear due to a physical trauma, and substantial hearing loss in the left.  So I feel your pain.  When you are fitted for hearing aids, they perform a hearing test, then adjust the hearing aids according to your test.  Subsequent adjustments are made based on your feedback.  Notice that your hearing is never tested with your hearing aids in to determine how they are performing. When you are fitted for corrective lenses (glasses), they test your vision before and after correction.  What this means is that every time you have your aids adjusted, replaced, or change audiologists, your "corrected" hearing will change, and you will have to "correct" your patches to sound good to you.

For me, I've chosen to trust my ears.  I also ask my friends with educated ears how I sound.

Best Regards, and good luck!
   Craig

[tyrosguy85]

Hi all,
I have recently had hearing aids fitted and used them at a gig for the first time two weeks ago.
Things were a bit strange at first but I'm slowly getting used to them and I'm hearing sounds out of my keyboard that I hadn't heard before!!!.Funny today I did a gig in a old folks home and something didn't sound right in my left ear. Turns out that the fine plastic cord had got blocked by some wax so always make sure they are kept clean.
Regards
John.

[Toril S]

I have also started using hearing aids, and always use them when performing. Took a little time to get used to hearing my music so crisply, and I had to turn down the volume some. In the begnning the keyboard sounded like it lacked much base. Now everything is OK.

[travlin-easy]

I lost much of my high frequency hearing while I was a kid in the US Navy and first loader on a 3-inch, 50mm antiaircraft gun. Back then there was was no hearing protection and I would be totally deaf after a half-hour practice shooting at towed sleeves.

As I grew older, the problem worsened, which is natural. Men tend to lose their high frequency sounds, while women tend to lost the low frequency sounds. I can't hear her and she can't hear me, particularly while driving the car. That's the good part.

Hearing aids, even the latest digital aids, are nothing more than a tiny amplifier with a tone control. More often than not, the aid is tuned so men can hear those high frequency sounds, which means you can now hear those high hats and other sounds that seemed to be missing while performing with your keyboard. The problem is, that same hearing aid is also blocking sounds that you had no trouble hearing without the aid. Consequently, those low frequency sounds are no longer prevalent because they are not being amplified at the same level as the high frequency sounds you had lost and not regained through amplification.

My solution to the problem was to wear only one hearing aid - not two as most of the hearing aid sales folks would like you to believe are necessary. My worst ear was my right ear, therefore, that is the ear where I used the hearing aid, thereby allowing my left ear to still hear those low and mid range sounds that I did not suffer a loss.

As an onstage entertainer/musician/singer, I needed to hear all the same sounds, at the same level that my audiences were hearing. This could not be accomplished wearing 2 hearing aids, but by wearing just a single hearing aid, in my most deficient ear, everything worked perfectly.

Now, I have a pair of Bose hearing aids, and the only time I wear both of them is when I am in a crowded room where lots of people are talking at the same time. When I am watching a movie on TV, one aid is more than sufficient. The sales person will insist that you must have two aids to hear properly. IMO, this is just a way of making a lot more money, your hard earned money.

My advice, try using a single hearing aid, and if that does not work for you, go back and order one for the other ear.

Good luck,

Gary

[ton37]

Everyone deals with his/her 'flaws' differently.
Maybe redundant information, but if you have your hearing tested by a professional and independent hearing care professional, you will receive a diagram showing the status of the left and right ear. On the diagram you can read how much sound you miss (Decibels, volume) and in which pitches your hearing is impaired (Frequencies, high to low). This is compared to average good hearing. The hearing care professional adjusts the hearing aid in such a way that the aid brings the 'bad' frequency and volume back to 'normal' as much as possible. Taking into account that what is damaged too seriously cannot be improved even with a hearing aid.

You can use that diagram as a starting point to use the specifications of a sound monitor and/or mixer to select the one that is 'strong' in the frequencies you are missing. . (of course without using headphones) Jm2c

[YammyFan]

I lost much of my high frequency hearing while I was a kid in the US Navy and first loader on a 3-inch, 50mm antiaircraft gun. Back then there was was no hearing protection and I would be totally deaf after a half-hour practice shooting at towed sleeves.

I am wondering if the commanding officer had an arrangement with his men that they could go below deck  after firing  for 10 minutes. Thanks for your interesting post about using a single hearing aid. It never occurred to me to do that.

[Amwilburn]

I lost much of my high frequency hearing while I was a kid in the US Navy and first loader on a 3-inch, 50mm antiaircraft gun. Back then there was was no hearing protection and I would be totally deaf after a half-hour practice shooting at towed sleeves.

Gary

Yup, that'll do it!
My grandpa's buried at Arlington National, dad always told me US Navy (but I looked up his grave, which I hadn't visited in over 40 years, it says USMC! Not  quite the same thing, dad!)

Since I'm also responsible for selling drums (in addition to keyboards and pianos) at my store, I warn all customers about the dangers of sustained loud noise; if you play a drum at home, everyone on the same *floor*, in the same or adjacent rooms to the drum kit should wear ear protection, but especially the drummer. Phil Collins lost 90% of hearing in 1 ear and 100% in the other in 2009. He claimed nobody warned him of the dangers of live acoustic drumming...?!?

Now, in 2016 he had transducers (microphones) implanted in his ears so that he could hear again, and started performing again. It cost him £22 million, so if you've got about that kind of money lying around, by all means, don't protect your ears. (back in the 50's and earlier there was a *lot* of damaging things we didn't realize. Don't go down that internet rabbit hole, but suffice it to say it's horrific what happened to glow in the dark watch workers, as well as matchstick workers)

For most of us now, a pair of $30 plugs would prevent that kind of damage. We even buy drummers earplugs to wear to concerts because even rock concerts are too loud!

Hence why most of our drum kit sales are digital :p

Mark

[Toril S]

Gary, I sometimes use just the one aid while playing. But I prefer same sound from both ears. First time I used them while performing I heard loud and clear one lady say that she liked the music😀 Before I did not hear remarks from the adience😀😀

[dr4sight]

I have been using hearing aids since I was 40 -  I'm 75 now.  The past 15 years or so I've used Widex brand hearing aids and always have added the "music program" option.  There is a surprising difference how music sounds when I'm in the music program compared to how it sounds when in the program called Universal.

Larry