deafstoryteller

Most annoying song- Call Me Maybe

Most annoying sounds- flushing toilet, motorcycle, or a balloon pop (hella scary)

Mozart's Lacrimosa- halfway through the song it hit me like an airplane. I felt a strange sensation on top of my skull like a numbing tingle. Very similar to what I felt during my first kiss :)

As for what I was thinking... the moment after I realized I was actually hearing the song I was petrified with fear because my life would never be the same again and I knew it at that second. It was beautiful but also scary... overwhelming to say the least.

Is there no decency in this world?

These are great questions!

-You are absolutely right... my brain is still learning how to discern and separate sounds. This is the #1 reason why I don't listen to music with any background noise. It helps since I can plug my new hearing aids directly into my phone or computer and it plays the song with zero background noise even if I'm in a busy subway station. (they are the ultimate noise canceling headphones) As mentioned before, I have my new hearing aids off way more often now to give me some peace and quiet from the new overwhelming and loud world. Yes, I can adjust the volume on my hearing aids but I can't do anything when sounds mash together, my brain doesn't have the luxury of 20 plus years of practice when it comes to discerning sounds from each other.

-Hmm. I can't attest to pitch but for the most part I feel like most modern music does not sound anything as soulful as pre-modern music. It sure sounds clean and pretty but there's a sense of artificiality I can't shake. It's like the difference of a movie shot on film as opposed to digital. 'Clean' does not mean better. I wish more people would shoot on film or record with old equipment. Flaws show humanity, that little spoch on the silver screen reminds you it was developed by human hands not computers.

-What I'm hearing now is like learning a new language. I have to memorize and associate the words I hear with the written word. Some people assume that I was suddenly able to understand all the lyrics of every single song, but in reality if a person listens to a song in a language that they don't understand they certainly won't be able to make a perfect translation. I can hear every word but I can understand none of them most of the time. There are words I'm starting to master like 'love' 'bye' and other common words but it's an even longer process than simply learning a new 'language' because everyone has a different voice, men sound different from women, and there's accents on top of all that. My brain cannot separate vocals from instruments nearly as well as a normal hearing person can so it's mashed together. However I have been looking up the lyrics to my favorite songs and teaching myself which word is which.

-I got vocal training at the same time I was learning sign language. My speech therapist taught me how to check my own words by the vibrations in my throat. Yes, my 18 years of speech therapy was all with my extremely limited hearing aids. However, knowing sign language and being an avid reader opened up different ways of thinking in my head. Today I feel like I have 4 minds, one is american sign language, one is purely visual, one is the spoken word, and lastly the written word. I used memorization and association for the building blocks of my speech abilities, but I also learned how to say many words through lip reading. Even now, it's usually easier to learn a new pronunciation through lip reading as opposed to what I hear because I don't know how to re create all the sounds my hearing peers can make. I've mastered all the basic sounds except for z, c, s, ch, and e.

Well you know how some paintings just look right with the composition, color choice, etc etc.... well being in the world of sound I'm exposed to a variety of different sounds but they don't really sound great, not close to what a good song sounds like. A great song is like a beautiful painting, all the colors come together to make the right form and mood to inspire. So if I had to describe it to someone who has never heard music, it's like pulling beauty from chaos. Mixing voices and instruments for something akin to harmony.

Harmony exists not just in sound but in visual beauty, what creates it is still an mystery to me.