A few days ago I was struck with tinnitus. Mine was exactly a high E flat ringing sound which would occasionally shift to an E natural and back. It was like a messed up Jaw's soundtrack, and it was very eerie during the night. The tinnitus lasted for 2 days (thank god), and in that time I was annoyed, frustrated, and irrationally scared I was going deaf. However, the tinnitus made me aware of a few things:
1. Silence is never actually silence. As many composers have been exploring throughout the history of modern music (Er John Cage hello?) there is always something- white noise, your heart beat, your thoughts... I always knew that fact, but tinnitus really pushed my hearing to a different level, and made me acutely aware of everyday sounds for the first time in my life.
2. The only way I could drown out the ringing? Listening to something else, which meant I was practising a lot more, a lot harder, and with a lot more enthusiasm. Practise was a relieving experience and I loved every minute of it. In fact I became scared of silence.
3. I could sort of live out my dream of having 'perfect pitch' for a couple of days. Of course I could only tell you what an Eb or an E was, and for the rest I'd still have to use my relative pitch skills, but hey, I still thought it was pretty cool.
4. It gave me some great ideas for a piece I'm composing at the moment.
So one day if you have tinnitus, don't fret, get it checked out if it doesn't go away after a few days, but more importantly think of all the weird and wonderful things you might discover!
No comments:
Post a Comment