Facing The Music

They say if a person is slighted on one of their senses the other senses will be sharpened. I totally believe this as I have certainly seen evidence of this.

I once got in an argument with someone over something related to this.

He was a musician and he told me that it was of no use to play music to hearing impaired people because they could not hear the music anyway so it was a waste to play for them.

I immediately objected to this reminding him that hearing impaired does not necessarily mean that a person cannot hear anything at all and that many times it means that they cannot hear at the level that specialists consider to be a perfect condition and that there are many degrees of “hearing impaired.”

As a musician he should have known this since he considered himself to be a master of sound and also considered himself to be perfectly versed in music. We got in a heated argument over this because he felt that being labeled hearing impaired was more of an absolute thing. I finally just had to agree to disagree (which did not end the argument with him, because he needed to be right in his mind).

This was not just a matter of me believing, it was more of a “knowing” thing to me, and when I looked at him I could see bricks and mortar everywhere, in other words I was talking to a brick wall. So the question became this: Do I continue to try to keep pulling the bricks out as fast as they were being mortared into that wall, or just walk away, and consider it to be a lost cause?

I know for a fact that every disability has its degrees, and that sometimes even the ones that feel they are not disabled may indeed be disabled merely by thinking and believing in absolutes just like in this situation.

No matter how I tried to reason with this person, there was no reasoning and there was no logic that I could find possible to get through to him. I tried to show him that music could also be visual too, which just about caused him explode in front of me in his denial.

I showed him on his own drink sitting at the table while some music was playing. The surface of his mixed drink undulated with the sound waves of the percussion, and he explained it as table movement. He was a denier in and out, through and through. I think he was just angry at something, or someone, or perhaps something he had lost in this lifetime. And rather than accept his losses he fought himself, and in turn anyone else that might be tempted to step in to reason with him.

One of his own friends even had tinnitus, receiving his damage from playing in this gentleman’s band and after suffering from the impact of loud noises for years the result being ear drum damage. I know the impact of this, because I also have tinnitus, though I cannot say what caused it and it has never become an issue until I am in dead silence, or in very quiet surroundings. I realized this whenever I have lived out in the country, away from the city sounds at night when falling asleep. I have been bothered by changing patterns of a rumbling or a buzzing sound in my ears, sounds that are not present to others, just me. Luckily for me it has never altered my lifestyle and I know that if I want to escape the sounds of tinnitus, I just need to be around some gray noise to help cloud the sounds of the rumbling and buzzing.

I know of others that are hearing impaired that still hear beats, drums, and even some of the music. Some people are deafened to lower or upper ranges of sound too. I know that I have some hearing damage from working in a hair salon for so many years. I have always called it “blowdryer-itis.”

There are some tones I just do not hear. And drummer friends of mine almost always develop some form of hearing impairment after years of drumming, just like the form of tennis elbow, from their repetitive movement that they sometimes develop in their arms.

So why this ‘friend’ of mine could not understand that hearing impaired people could many times still hear was beyond my comprehension.

I am so happy that we never got into the sight impairment or intellectually challenged because he might have melted into a pool of genetic code right in front of me. He absolutely got along fabulously my daughter who just so happens to be intellectually and communicably challenged.

And speaking of being challenged in the senses, and the balancing of remaining senses to compensate, I will say this regarding my own daughter. If I could receive a $100 for every time the phone has been ringing and she correctly names the caller even before the name pops up on the TV screen’s caller ID (including her inability to read), I'd be rich!

If I could tell you how many times we have been discussing something in one room, closed off by at least 2 doors, and she bursts in to the room and says something in relation to our conversation, or just naming something we are talking about (many times it has something to do with a meal or food item), our gal proves that one sensory deprivation can, and is compensated for, by the sharpening and the acuity of other remaining sensory organs. In our house, we call it brain sucking.

All of this brings me back to where I am going with this post. I wonder if the inability in a sense can be compensated for within that same sense. Confused? Let me lay it out for you.

For many years I have played guitar, and a teeny bit of piano. It has always been enough to get by in order to write my own musical scores. My voice has suffered with this illness. I can no longer sing because it takes breath to sing. And not only does it take breath, a lot of the inhalers and medications affect the throat causing hoarseness.

I have always been told that my voice quality is hefty, or deep, guttural, which I happen to agree with, though I could sing not only in an alto range but I could also sing in a soprano voice too, and I have a very slim to none falsetto, whatever that means. I have though, always had perfect pitch, as does my daughter. She is even more “dead on,” in her pitch and was born with a natural knowledge of scales and ranges, lucky her, although she really cannot do much with it, because of her disability. But she loves to sing anyway.

My singing voice has become nonexistent in the past 5 years. For many years I played guitar and wrote my own music. Even when I had access to a piano, as in the old days, it was my nature to just sing out while I was playing.

Now, wouldn’t you know it, when I hear the music in my head, many times I can hear different sections of instruments such as percussion, and stringed and brass and such. But I haven’t had the desire to play my guitar because I can no longer sing. I haven’t done much songwriting because I haven’t been able to sing the tune. Even though it is all in my head I find it depressing if I try to whistle, and let’s face it, it’s not the same. Sometime’s the music in is my head but there’s no release…… My voice was my outlet for the feelings that arose in me while I played. Not anymore. So I express my art in other ways.

I am just curious to find whether I regain my voice after surgery. Like so many other parts of my life, will I have to rely on memories?

Travesty

It would be a Travesty,
If you know what I mean.
It would be unlawful for us,
Not to give it a try.
Seeing each other daily like this
Just letting the time slip by.
Don’t you see the Travesty?
By not getting together…

Whatever’s forever in time
Completely together.

It would be a travesty,
If the Sun went away;
But I would see you standing there
In its light, anyway.
The stars in the night’s sky are shining on you,
They’re sparkling as if to say….
Don’t make tonight a travesty
Just get it together

Whatever’s forever it time,
Complete it together.