Music and Cochlear Implants

Cochlear Implants
#1

Music for recipients is a real tough gig to re-learn how to appreciate music after being implanted.
My main genres of music are Rock & Roll, Rhythm & Blues. Country, Jazz and Pipe Band music. You can work out my age from the music I listen to.

Listening to most music for me aurally (ie radio,TV) is reasonable, not really good though. And pipe band music is horrible, yuck is all I can say. But when I stream the music it becomes 90% better, and pipe band music becomes reasonable, not great but I can tolerate it.

Most of us CI recipients on the board have really good comprehension of speech and environmental sounds. But what about music? Why is music so hard? Why do we have such a big gap between listening aurally and streaming music? Some recipients on the board have already succeeded, what is your secret to music appreciation?

Cochlear have an app “Bring back the beat” which I’ve downloaded during the week. I’m slowly working my way through this app. What other music as are available to recipients?

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#2

I believe what makes music so difficult for us is the fact the cochlear processor/implant cannot generate all of the tones a human ear can hear. So, it will blend it to something close. For example, when I listen to anything from Michael Jackson, his voice is deeper. It is in about a normal range and not high pitched.
The sounds we hear are not the actual sounds. Even after 2 years of activation, I am still asking my family or friends on particular sounds I am hearing that I do not recognize. Once I know what the sound is, my brain slowly changes it to what I used to remember what the sound was. Shortly after activation, I was at my daughter’s basketball game and kept hearing a pinging sound. It was something similar to a windchime. I asked my wife what I was hearing, and she figured out it was the shoes squeaking on the basketball court. Now I hear a shoe squeak sound and not the windchime.
I truly believe that I do not hear voices as they are naturally. If I haven’t heard someone’s voice before losing my hearing, it is not the actual voice. Which is fine but I think it affects how I hear newer music. It doesn’t sound very good to me. Something feels off. Like the voice doesn’t match the music. I have accepted that is how it is. Which is unfortunate but I would take this any day just to be able to hear again.

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#3

Some would argue that’s true regardless of Cochlear or not! :rofl:

While this is okay for some things, I found it mainly a disappointment. The overall interface is slow & unintuitive to move between sections. The section headings themselves aren’t intuitive. The exercises recognising high vs low pitch are okay. The worst is probable the exercises to recognise the sounds of different musical instruments, as they’re using 1980’s quality synthesised instruments instead of true instrument sounds. My 1987 Korg M1 synthesiser gives the same saxophone sound as this app! I’ve written to Cochlear about this app & they just shrugged it off.

With regards to your overall comment about music, I’m now about 13 months in. If I’m lucky, I can recognise some pieces with less instrumentation, in your genres, perhaps a well known piece like Take Five. There’s no chance recognising, say, a Chick Corea piece as it’s way too complex. Rock & Roll pieces with vocals may be recognisable if the vocalisation is clear enough, but choral pieces are a no-go.

I rely on my other, good ear to listen & play music. When I’m on stage, I absolutely rely in in-ear monitors (IEM) through the good ear to hear my own instrument & other band members. Previously, I used to have one IEM plugged in solidly & the other partially in to allow some of the room ambience to filter through. Now, I just use the one IEM & the Cochlear blasts what sounds like a pipe band in my other ear!

With a purely acoustic set up, it’s really hard. I can no longer play my cello in an ensemble as my left, good ear can hear my own instrument, but I can’t hear the other instruments. My right Cochlear ear has no chance hearing pitch, although rhythm can work. However, that doesn’t help me set my own pitch. The only way I can perform now is really with IEMs, but that doesn’t happen (much) with classical music.

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#4

I agree with you that Bring back the beat is very uninspiring, some instruments are recognizable others it’s just far to electronic sounding and it’s plain guessing. More miss than hit.

@bcarp “I can no longer play my cello in an ensemble”. Is this because of your CI or your level of hearing loss? Or both?

#5

The right CI ear is useless at determining music pitch, quality, etc. My good left ear hears my own instrument, which drowns out the sounds of anyone else in the ensemble. So I have no idea whether I’m in time, in pitch, etc with the rest of the group. (Under bilateral hearing circumstances, the left ear would primarily hear my instrument and the right ear would primarily hear everyone else.)

#6

I am going to be the odd one out. For me I am good with the music I listen to, mostly singer songwriters and older rock.

Does it sound like it did when I had my hearing, probably not, but it does all work together so that is fine.

My wife has broader musical tastes and some of the stuff she listens to still doesn’t work for me but that may be lack of practice on my part.

Overall I m happy with music.

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#7

I’ll join you in the odd one out group!

Never listened to music with full hearing, so I’ve always listened to it without a complete experience of what it might’ve been. With that in mind, the CI is a step up.

Listening via the processor microphone is fine for the most part. But when there’s audio streaming, it’s quite splendid!

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#8

The past couple days I volunteered to do bottling at a local distillery. To do this was something I never would have done before getting implants!

25-30 volunteers typically help in a noisy environment with a cheap sound system and about 15 loud fans running in pretty much ambient temperatures.

With two implants I did pretty good with speech. The fans made it much more difficult but it was a learning experience.

The music was pretty loud at times, mostly country music and some older rock and roll. I recognized about half the music, the other half was just noise. When I did recognize the song it was pretty nice. The fans made listening to the music very difficult.

It was fun.

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#9

This may seem like an odd question, but will a CI give you back any hearing in the 100Hz and lower range?

The audiologist that was working with my ENT and evaluating my hearing during my SSHL recovery efforts recommended BiCROS at my final evaluation. I asked her about CI because everyone sounds robotic in my left ear. She told me she felt BiCROS would be a better option for me and having a CI would make everyone sound like Darth Vader.

I’ve been using BiCROS in social situations and regular hearing aids at home where it’s just me and my wife. I don’t like the non directionality of the BiCROS at all.

To the point of my question, I had just remodeled my home media room and sound system. New speakers and Subwoofers. I was only able to enjoy them for a couple of months before I got SSHL in my left ear. I can’t hear any low frequencies in my left ear with or without hearing aids. Would CI give me back those low frequencies?

#10

MedEl have a cochear implant that process 70 hz (to 8000 hz?)
the others 150HZ (AB) and 188 hz (CochlearAmerica)

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#11

I am SSHL with a CI, and I no the CI will not bring back the lows you are looking for. To truly enjoy deep, rich music I recommend using your good ear, as you doctor suggests.

The CI will over time allow you to enjoy music, but it will sound completely different then normal hearing.

Its hard to explain, but when using both normal hearing and a CI music can be challenging.

The closest example of what this sounds like - Sit in a chair with a deep, rich, high fidelity music system on your left, then sit facing forward and place a broken / torn tweeter speaker (high frequency) on your right. Turn them up to the same volume and song. That is my life…

Seems to work fine for speaking and communication, but music is a different story…

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#12

Your question has me wondering.
I need to sit down at a piano next time I get a chance and just go through the keys to see how they sound. A little research on a pianos frequencies would help.

No idea how low I can hear with bilateral CI or how high. Sometimes low sounds feel like they vibrate in my head like they used to, not sure if that’s a good description or not. The highs are way high in my opinion. I sure can hear high frequency things I couldn’t hear before. Music is slowly getting better for me. I need to listen to it more often!

I feel like those with one CI are more challenged than those with two. Especially those with one pretty good ear. The brain really is lazy about listening with the good/easy ear. It takes more effort to get the CI ear to learn.

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#13

Yeah the bass is a tough one to reproduce. I’m glad I have good bass hearing on my left 125 is 20-25 db… that the only hearing i have left that matches the CI side in loudness…

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#14

@ssa , @DWol999 , @Raudrive ,

Thanks for the very helpful replies. You guys answered my question well.

I figured that range of hearing was out of reach for me, but I had to ask to be sure.

#15

I have no idea how high freq but it sure does not sound natural compared to my hearing aid ear.up until like 4khz speaking from experience… it sound louder and more harsh but i like it

#16

@Raudrive - I’d love to hear how your piano experiment went. I read somewhere that with a CI with 16 channels, one can only distinguish notes 5 semi-tones apart. I’d really like to hear what you find at the piano. i’m trying to decide on CI or not CI, and music (both ensemble playing and listening) is a very important part of my life.

#17

I personally do not know or have the answer.
@Dani is bilateral implanted and plays the piano. He has also used the piano to help his audiologist fine tune his processors.

What I have learned personally is what you put the time in on practicing you will hear well. So if music is important to you and you put the time in to learn music it should be fine. The brain is a wonderful thing.

@Deaf_piper plays the bagpipes I believe.

You will read all spectrums of music quality from CI users. Just understand everyone is different with CI. Just because someone does well or bad it has nothing to do with you.

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#18

the 5 sub channel you are referring to Current steering in AB between 2 channels which Cochlear LTD does not do. in my personal opinion, I don’t think it help with music but drains the battery even further with marginal benefit to the users… Firing rapidly in sucession is what makes music possible on a CI

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#19

@bcarp & @Deaf_piper - I’d like to hear more about your experience playing with ensembles. Do you find your pitch hearing improves the longer you have your CI’s? Or is it just totally a washout never to return. I play clarinet and bass clarinet in bands and small ensembles (so no IEM), and if I can’t distinguish pitches, I will never be able to play in tune.

#20

@Jody I played bagpipes in a band for 50 yrs, so not an ensemble. For me it’s not being able to hear the 2 top hand G & high A pitch. If I still had the hybrid attachment it might be different, but I don’t. I just couldn’t hear those 2 notes to be able to play.

Even just listening to a pipe band is very hard to hear those 2 top notes, unless I’m streaming it. But listening to any other music I can enjoy it and I do. For me I can’t play pipes now, but I was past the age of retirement for competition work.

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