by John J. Drever and Andrew Hugill, editors (Music 780.87 Aur)
This book addresses a somewhat scary issue for most musicians: aural diversity. On the surface, this is a topic that reflects on the notion of hearing as something that can be a spectrum of experience among different people, similar to how different folks sometimes perceive sights and tastes differently. In practice, though, aural diversity is speaking to differences in hearing that may arise from hearing impairments of various kinds. For many popular musicians, the brutal volume levels at most modern concerts can take a serious toll over the years, causing tinnitus and high-frequency hearing loss for many artists. Danny Elfman, Sting, Ozzy Osbourne, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Pete Townsend, Roger Daltrey, Grimes, and Neil Young are just a few examples of well-known artists who suffer from this kind of hearing loss.
For other artists, hearing loss or hearing differences can come from other sources: some are deaf from birth or young age, like Evelyn Glennie or Mandy Harvey, or have issues with one ear, like Brian Wilson or Paul Stanley. Sometimes brain tumors can affect hearing, as happened to guitarist David Torn in one ear. Some develop conditions that aren’t well understood, such as Meniere’s disease that has affected Ayumi Hamasaki and Huey Lewis. Others can lose hearing from accidents, ototoxic medications, various hereditary conditions, or simply the process of aging. And tinnitus and hearing loss seem to be a fairly common symptom for those who have had COVID-19 as well, making this a timely topic. Having learned myself in recent years how to live with another of the mysterious ailments that cause hearing damage, Semicircular Canal Dehiscence Syndrome, I can vouch that one can’t always predict what will happen in life, no matter how careful you are with your hearing. And I can vouch that the passion for music remains the same.
The new book Aural Diversity, edited by John. L. Drever and Andrew Hugill, is a collection of essays that address a wide range of issues relevant to hearing the world differently, and how various composers and musicians have developed their own unique ways to engage with sound and music when their hearing behaves differently than the norm. Contributors include musicians and composers with various hearing impairments, and researchers in audiology and acoustics, some of whom have hearing differences themselves. The topics addressed are generally divided into two main parts in the book, “Acoustic Environments and Soundscape” and “Music and Musicology.”
The book features two introductions: the first is a general layperson discussion of the notion of “aural diversity” written by the editors, who propose a rough definition of the concept and why we should care about it. If you’re a musician, consider this sobering statistic laid out in this section: musicians are almost four times more likely than non-musicians to develop hearing impairments. It’s probably a good idea for musicians to have some familiarity with the research happening in this field. The second introduction is a “clinical perspective” ‘from Dr. David Baguley, the recently deceased head of the Clinical Hearing Sciences team at the University of Nottingham. His observations about hearing remind me of discussions around vision, in that 20/20 eyesight is considered “normal” and deviations from it are overwhelmingly discussed in terms of limitations: vision that’s less clear, a narrower field of vision, color blindness, etc. The field of audiology is similar, where “normal” hearing is measured as 20 Hz to 20 kHz, and the negative terms of “hearing loss” or “impairment” describe deviations from that norm. Too bad we so rarely hear of super-vision or super-hearing (although some issues with a form of highly sensitive hearing, hyperacusis, also appear in the book).
In Part I of the book, the collected essays focus on what an average reader will consider “soundscapes,” or various environments and the sounds associated with those environments. Some of these environments are surprising: the first essay, for example, addresses the development of hearing in the womb, and the unique sound environment we all experience before birth. Researchers even created a “Sonic Womb Orrb” to emulate the fetal auditory environment, noting that for some time before birth, hearing is our dominant source of sensory input, since there isn’t much yet to see. Other soundscape-oriented articles are relatively more conventional, assessing the impacts of noise-generating devices found in our everyday lives, such as hand dryers and vacuum cleaners, and looking at accessibility issues related to hearing differences. Other essays are more experiential, letting readers know a little about what life is like with a cochlear implant, deafness, deafblindness, unique hearing sensitivities often found in autistic populations, or extreme tinnitus. The final essay in Part I, “Textual Hearing Aids: How Reading About Sound Can Modify Sonic Experience,” feels like a good transition into the music-focused research of Part II, in that the processes described here can apply to general environmental sound as well as music.
Part II, “Music and Musicology,” could be considered essential reading for musicians, regardless of their current hearing health. The essays here provide lots of useful information for musicians and composers about the range of experiences listeners and musicians can have because of differences in hearing. After a sort of introductory essay, “The Show Must Go On,” which lays out the various effects that aging, exposure to high-volume sound, cognition and musicianship can have on hearing in practical terms, we get to some real-world discussions of listening and performing experiences with music from a diverse range of participants with hearing differences. This is followed by a study of musicians with Meniere’s Disease, which typically causes a cluster of symptoms that include low-frequency hearing loss (other forms of sound-induced hearing loss typically affect high frequencies), and this often results in diplacusis, or misperception of pitches, especially in lower ranges. This of course leads to difficulties with both listening to and playing music. Cognitive impairments related to dementia also have frequent correlation to hearing difficulties, which is covered in another essay.
Then we get to some concepts for inclusion of folks with different hearing abilities. “Do You Hear What I Hear?” introduces the idea of real-time manipulation of sound sources to accommodate individual listeners through unique headphone mixes (something that can also be manipulated via apps for those with modern hearing aids). Several essays discuss multimodal stage presentation ideas, including features like sign language, vibrating floors, “tinnitus relief stations,” and multimedia art that evokes sonic concepts visually. Several composers and musicians who have various differences in hearing also offer essays describing their own methods for composing, practicing and listening.
Knowing that musicians are already more likely to have hearing difficulties than the general public, and guessing that musicians vastly under-report such problems due to fear of damaging their careers, there is a potentially wide audience for this book. Besides attempting to make live music experiences as inclusive as possible, there are lots of ideas in here for protecting your own hearing, and adaptations to keep yourself active in music if hearing issues should develop. I hope to see more research in this field, but this is a great starting point for learning about where we are now.
(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Music for Children With Hearing Loss by Lyn E. Schraer-Joiner or Hearing-Feeling-Playing by Shirley Salmon, editor.)
( official auraldiversity.org web site ) | ( publisher’s official Aural Diversity sales page )
Recommended
by Scott S.
Polley Music Library
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