Learning not to listen: the experiences of musicians with hearing impairments (original) (raw)
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Journal of the American Academy of Audiology, 2018
Hearing aids (HAs) are important for the rehabilitation of individuals with hearing loss. Although the rehabilitation of speech communication is well understood, less attention has been devoted to understanding hearing-impaired instrumentalists’ needs to actively participate in music. Despite efforts to adjust HA settings for music acoustics, there lacks an understanding of instrumentalists’ needs and if those HA adjustments satisfy their needs.The purpose of the current study was to explore the challenges that adult HA-wearing instrumentalists face, which prevent them from listening, responding to, and performing music.A qualitative methodology was employed with the use of semistructured interviews conducted with adult amateur instrumentalists.Twelve HA users who were amateur ensemble instrumentalists (playing instruments from the percussion, wind, reed, brass, and string families) and between the ages of 55 and 83 years (seven men and five women) provided data for analysis in this...
Expert Listening beyond the Limits of Hearing: Music and Deafness
Journal of the American Musicological Society, 2017
Attitudes to the relationship between music and deafness suffer from two related misconceptions: the enduring assumption that hearing is central to musical experience in conjunction with an extreme impression of deafness as total aural loss; and, more recently, the tendency to reduce deaf listening to tactility, as narratives about inborn sensory acuities among the deaf proliferate in the popular imaginary. Increasingly, deafness symbolizes a set of sensory polarities that obscure an intrinsic diversity of musical experiences from which musicology stands to gain, a diversity that encompasses members of Deaf culture and non-culturally deaf people alike, and that is signaled through the person-centered compound “d/Deaf.” My article builds on recent music scholarship on disability to offer a pluralistic understanding of music and deafness. Beginning with Scottish deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie, I investigate a range of d/Deaf accounts of music, including those of Deaf sign language ...
Hearing aids and music: the experiences of D/deaf musicians
Musicians such as Ludwig van Beethoven and more recently Evelyn Glennie show us that even a profound level of deafness is no barrier to the creation or performance of music. While there is a growing literature on the perception of music using cochlear implant technology, there exists comparatively less empirical research about the amplification of music using hearing aid (HA) technology. As part of a recent AHRC-funded project exploring the perception of music using vibrations, an interview study was conducted by the first author to explore issues relating to performing and perceiving music in the presence of a hearing impairment. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twelve musicians who spoke about their musical background and training, history of hearing loss, and experience of using HAs. Transcripts were coded and analysed using thematic analysis. Overall, satisfaction with digital HAs was low, with pitch and timbre distortion often reported to compromise music listening experiences. Some musicians sought enhanced HAs while some dispensed with them altogether. Preferences for digital or analogue technology were found to relate to musicians’ history and level of hearing loss and evidence of dynamic auditory attending was found. The results suggest that musicians who use HA technology draw on a range on strategies to compensate for impaired auditory feedback. Advanced signal processing algorithms within digital HAs have necessarily prioritised speech perception with potentially negative effects on their ability to amplify musical acoustic input. Further research is needed to understand how HA technology and fitting may be improved for music listening.
Troubling Disability: Experiences of Disability In, Through, and Around Music
2019
The purpose of this study was to trouble existing conceptions of disability that ground music education literature and practice. I sought plausible insights into how disability is experienced in, through, and/or around music by participants who are disabled persons/persons with disabilities (DP/PwD). Insights gained might allow readers to complexify and trouble taken-for-granted assumptions about disability. Questions included: (a) How do participants experience disability in, through, and around music? (b) What plausible insights related to disability can be gained by attending to participants’ experiences of disability in, through, and around music? (c) What plausible insights related to inclusion can be gained by attending to participants’ experiences of disability in, through, and around music? The inquiry approach was grounded in Buberian relational ontology, phenomenollogy, interactional theories of disability, and narrative. Seven DP/PwD participated in this study: (a) Erica, a 14-year-old diagnosed with a developmental disability of unknown etiology; (b) Duke, a drummer diagnosed with Williams syndrome; (c) Birdie, an abstract visual artist with epilepsy who used music to inform her art; (d) Daren, a b-boy/breakdancer diagnosed with Tourette syndrome, (e) Sienna, a legally blind social work college student who played banjo in a music therapy-based bluegrass band and participated in musical theatre; (f) Ice Queen, an undergraduate flute player recently diagnosed with Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); and (g) Culann, an adult counselor and music listener with ADHD and mood disorders. Data generation included conversational interviews, observations, artmaking, and serendipitous data. Data co-generated with participants were crafted into narratives of their lIifeworlds, including description of their experiences with disability in, through, and around music and in other aspects of their lives. An envisioned conversation among all participants demonstrates the shifts and complexities in the meanings of disability and unpacks different ways participants describe and understand disability and the myriad roles that music plays in their lifeworlds. The final chapter of the study offers discussions and suggestions regarding thinking about and approaching disability (i.e., interactional theories, intersectionality, and identity), inclusion (i.e., belonging, suggestions by participants, and anti-ableist pedagogy), and research/writing.
The impact of music on the life quality of hearing impaired
University and institutional scientific research: Collective monograph , 2022
Scientific research highlights the importance of music and the extend of its positive impact on the personality of individuals with hearing impairment throughout their lifelong development. The possibilities of perceiving music through compensatory aids, playing musical instruments, vocal intervention and rhythmic-motor education are part of a more comprehensive mapping of music impact to the life quality of individuals with hearing impairment. Attention is also given to the extent of music therapy for the development of hearing and spoken language skills. We suggest, however, that although in some cases music could be used in special education interventions for individuals with hearing impairment during childhood, it is gradually disappearing from their lives as it has already fulfilled its supportive role in the acquisition of spoken language. In the research findings we offer an elaboration of the interviews of four participants with hearing impairment, who confirm through their experiences that music has positively influenced their life and their personal development. The participants actively listen to music, play musical instruments even after completing music therapy and music education, and they also form currently an important part of their leisure time activities. Keywords: hearing impairment, compensatory aid, music education, music therapy, quality of life University and institutional scientific research [elektronický dokument] : collective monograph. - : 1. vyd. ISBN 978-3-200-08879-5. - Viedeň : Institut für Intellektuelle Integration, 2022. - S. 101-119 [online]
Beyond Audition: Psychosocial Benefits of Music Training for Children With Hearing Loss
Ear & Hearing, 2021
Objectives: Children with hearing loss tend to have poorer psychosocial and quality of life outcomes than their typical-hearing (TH) peersparticularly in the areas of peer relationships and school functioning. A small number of studies for TH children have suggested that groupbased music activities are beneficial for prosocial outcomes and help develop a sense of belonging. While one might question whether perceptual limitations would impede satisfactory participation in musical activities, findings from a few studies have suggested that group music activities may have similar benefits for children with hearing loss as well. It is important to note that the effect of music on psychosocial outcomes has primarily been investigated at an anecdotal level. The objective of this study was to explore the effect of a music training program on psychosocial and quality of life outcomes for children with hearing loss. It was hypothesized that music training would provide benefits for domains centered upon peer relationships and prosocial measures. Design: Fourteen children aged 6 to 9 years with prelingual sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) participated in a 12-week music training program that consisted of group-based face-to-face music therapy supplemented by online music apps. The design was a pseudorandomized, longitudinal study (9 participants were waitlisted, initially serving as a passive control group). Psychosocial wellbeing and quality of life were assessed using a questionnaire battery comprised of the Strengths and Difficulty Questionnaire (SDQ), the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory, the Hearing Environments and Reflection on Quality of Life (HEAR-QL), and the Glasgow Children's Benefit Inventory. For comparative purposes, responses were measured from 16 TH children that ranged in age from 6 to 9 years. Results: At baseline, children with SNHL had poorer outcomes for internalizing problems, and all measures of the HEAR-QL compared with the TH children. There were no differences for general psychosocial and physical health. After music training, SDQ internalizing problems such as peer relationships and emotional regulation were significantly reduced for the children with SNHL. There were no changes for any outcomes for the passive control group. Additional benefits were noted for emotional and learning factors on the Glasgow Children's Benefit Inventory. However, there were no significant changes for any psychosocial and quality of life outcomes as measured by the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory or HEAR-QL instruments. Conclusions: The present study provides initial evidence that music training has a positive effect on at least some psychosocial and quality of life outcomes for children with hearing loss. As they are at a greater risk of poorer psychosocial and quality of life outcomes, these findings are cause for cautious optimism. Children with hearing loss should be encouraged to participate in group-based musical activities.
Seminars in hearing, 2012
The purpose of this study was to examine the musical engagement (participation and attitude) of pediatric CI recipients who were implanted during early childhood and who have reached age 15 or older. A questionnaire was administered to a group of 31 prelingually deaf CI users who receive annual follow up services and assessment in a clinical research center. The questionnaire was used to examine involvement in and attitudes toward music in school, the community, and in the home; social affiliation (hearing, Deaf, both) and mode of communication (oral, manual, both) were also examined. Despite the technical limitations of cochlear implants in transmitting pitch, melody, and tone quality, over two thirds of this sample described music as being important or very important in their lives. A high level of past and present familial involvement in music was associated with higher levels of current involvement and importance of music in the lives of adolescent and young adult CI users. Comp...