The Observer newspaper’s now-defunct Music Monthly supplement had and interesting segment called record doctor, where celebs would get a music ‘makeover’ broaden their musical tastes based on what they listened to and liked in the past.
I suspect that I will probably need such a service in the months to come, once my cochlear implant is switched on.
Why? To cut a long story short, cochlear implants are good for understanding speech and various environmental sounds, but music tends not to be so good, at least to people who had normal or useful hearing before getting one.
The long story: I was diagnosed deaf at three, and since then I’ve worn hearing aids. My left ear was profoundly deaf but my right was in the severely deaf range (there are basically four different degrees of deafness: mild, moderate, severe and profound), which meant it was still sharp enough to provide useful hearing with powerful hearing aids. I could talk on the telephone, hear the radio and TV, dictate stuff from an interview on a dictaphone and, most importantly, hear and play music. I had piano lessons for a few years as a child (until my teacher died and that was that), and then taught myself guitar in my teens. I bought music tapes (god, how old am I?) and then CDs at rate of once a month or so, on average. I went to the odd gig.
For all that, I’m hugely grateful to my right ear for hanging in there for so long, and was at least one of the reasons I chose to implant my left ear, as my right is still useful, and slightly better than my left – although there’s not a whole lot of difference between them now, on paper.
The main reason I applied to get a cochlear implant was because I couldn’t use the phone anymore or hear the radio following a deterioration in my right ear in February 2009. It wasn’t even that much of a deterioration, but the sharpness had gone, enough to cross what turned out to be quite a fine line between being able to hear the telephone and simply not being able to and, by extension, the radio and TV (without subtitles anyway), and dictate stuff from an interview etc. But more than that, ordinary everyday conversations became much more difficult.
But one of the most dispiriting effects was that music, while I could still just about hear it, now sounded flat, dull and grey. I could still hear it enough that I could still enjoy my favourite music because my mental jukebox could fill in the gaps from memory, but listening and getting into new music was too hard. As a result, I’m stuck in a kind of popular music time vortex that doesn’t go much beyond 2008.
The last album I actually bought was actually my first MP3 download: Radiohead’s In Rainbows in 2007. Not a lot since then, obviously, but the arrival of one and then two young children sort of took over any spare time or inclination I had for sitting down and listening to music.
The newest album I own was a gift from my wife in Christmas 2008. It’s not a CD, but a DVD: Sigur Ros’s Heima, a beautifully shot film of a series of free gigs in their home country of Iceland in 2007. I enjoy their big sound, but also because their lyrics are Icelandic and therefore incomprehensible so I don’t even need to make the effort. I’m a long-time Cocteau Twins fan for the same reason.
I also used to enjoy the BBC’s Later with Jools Holland music show occasionally, but the last time was when Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon did a sublime acoustic version of Skinny Love, also around Christmas 2008.
Now, you might expect that music will become more accessible to me if my new cochlear implant, when it’s switched on, works as it should. But this is not at all certain because even if they learn to recognise speech and various environmental sounds, cochlear implantees (at least those who are post-lingually deaf ie had normal or useful hearing for a time and then went profoundly deaf) traditionally have at least some trouble hearing and appreciating music to the same extent as when their hearing was halfway useful.
While cochlear implants have come a long way since they first became a routine procedure from around the 1980s, they struggle to convey the full sonic dept of music.
This is simply because instead of the roughly 10,000 hair cells in the cochlea that transmit sound information to the brain in normal hearing, I will have 22 electrodes , or ‘channels’, conveying relatively crude representations of sound in the form of electrical pulses. Since speech only occupies a very small portion of our sonic spectrum, implantees can learn to understand speech and other simple sounds in time. Music, given that it tends to occupy most of the sound spectrum, tends to get, for want of a better phrase, dumbed or watered down.
My CI software apparently includes a ‘music’ programme, but even that seems unlikely to compensate for the ultimate limitations of this type of technology when it comes to interpreting sounds of the musical variety.
I could be wrong. Music could sound OK. Or I may need to use aural rehabilitation exercises to fully appreciate it again. Speaking of which, my aural rehabilitation audiologist at Beaumont Hospital, Lesley, has already hinted that I should focus on simple, easy listening music. I don’t mind listening to ABBA or even the Bee Gees, but beyond that, my taste for middle of the road runs out. Help!
Any suggestions?
Michael Chorost, author of Rebuilt: How Becoming Part-Computer Made Me More Human. PHOTOGRAPH: ANNE KELLEY LOONEY
Going out is the new staying in
Smart Consumer: Going out is the new staying in: how you and the family can enjoy free fun…
By John Cradden
Thursday September 01 2011
When the recession began, staying in became the new going out as far as entertainment was concerned. Today, money is still tight, gig tickets are still an arm and a leg, and a cinema outing leaves little change from €10 per adult (never mind the popcorn).
But if cabin fever is already hitting fever pitch in your home, perhaps it’s time to take a different approach.
If you know where to look, you can easily find a whole raft of free special events and festivals to check out, as well as ways to gain admission to your favourite haunts for a lot less than full price.
“The most important thing is not to assume that culture and entertainment has to be expensive,” says Joerg Steegmueller, the man behind the Dublin Event Guide, a website and weekly email newsletter that lists only free events in the Dublin area.
Steegmueller started the free events guide in 2007 and is now hugely popular, with nearly 10,000 email newsletter subscribers. He still produces it in his spare time and has never missed a single deadline in the four years since he started.
“I list 80-100 free events every week and there are events available for all age groups, for all interests and in all parts of Dublin,” he said.
He says the reward for the organisers of a free event is the response they get. “If a lot of people come they will be a lot happier to run another free event, than if only a few people are in the audience.”
A free event also doesn’t mean lesser quality than a paid one. “The quality of a free gig or festival is at least as good as the quality of a non-free event,” says Steegmueller.
“Because free events are more accessible, it means that nobody is excluded based on financial ability and, especially during times of economic challenges, there is no need for people to stay at home or to miss out.”
1 Okay, so how can I find out what’s on that’s free?
Besides the aforementioned Dublin Event Guide (see Dublineventguide.com), you could look up Enjoyfreetoday.com, a website of free events in Galway, while Corkentertainment.ie has a section on free events in Cork. Other websites listing some free events include Entertainment.ie and Whatsonin.ie
For culture, you should check out Culturefox.ie, a website run by the Arts Council and Failte Ireland that lists many free cultural events around the country.
On Facebook, there is a group entitled “Things to do in Dublin on the Dry” that includes all kinds of casual suggestions for free things to do, albeit just in Dublin.
2 When it comes to free events, are festivals the only serious gig in town?
No, says Steegmueller. Although some of his favourite free events include the Street Performance World Championship, the Dublin City Soul Festival and the Dun Laoghaire Festival of World Cultures, he says there are many one-off events to watch out for that cater to all kinds of tastes.
One cool example was the 10 nights of free outdoor performances of ‘Romeo & Juliet Unplugged’ in Ranelagh Gardens and in Iveagh Gardens by Cracked Light Productions last month. It came about when the 2011 Ranelagh Arts Festival was cancelled. Rather than pack up and go home, the team decided to stage the performance for free in the nearby parks instead.
“The team was 30-strong and to get all of them to give months of their private life for rehearsals, preparation and then the performance is just brilliant,” he said.
However, most free festivals tend to take place in the warmer months, but if you hurry, you can catch one of the last in Dublin, the Phizzfest community arts festival in Phibsborough from September 8-11.
Don’t forget Culture Night on September 23, which hosts free events taking place in 30 towns, cities, counties and islands in Ireland; Open House an architectural festival in Dublin in October; and various Christmas markets. The Dublin Absolut Fringe Festival (from 10 September) as well as the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival (from September 29) also have a number of free events taking place.
Saving: €10-30 per gig/performance
3 What about art galleries, museums and places of historic interest?
The National Museums and the National Gallery are free, including the many events that it organises throughout the year. A visit to the Irish Museum of Modern Art will allow you to take in several free exhibitions as well as a guided tour of the Royal Hospital building and grounds (until Sept 4).
Earlier this year, the Government decided to offer free access on the first Wednesday of every month to most of the historic sites managed by the Office of Public Works (OPW) for the rest of this year, including places like the Rock of Cashel, Dublin Castle, Kilmainham Gaol and the Hill of Tara.
Saving: Up to €6 per adult for OPW sites
4 Okay, but what about the entertainment and events that are not free? How can I get in without paying the full price?
Again, if you know where to look, there is a whole variety of discounted and promotional offers there for the taking.
Becoming a member of Pigsback.com, for instance, has its benefits for the prudent popcorn muncher.
Almost every month, it hosts free preview screenings at selected venues for forthcoming releases, which so far this year have included One Day, Bridesmaids, and Pirates of the Caribbean 4.
It also offers daily ‘mega deals’ that enable members to get at least 50% off a variety of entertainment events, including theatre, Top Gear Live, and the O2 Summerjam.
If you are signed up to your local Tesco’s Clubcard loyalty scheme, there are some entertainment offerings available free or discounted in return for points.
You can also keep a look out for online discount promotional codes from popular venues via their presences on Facebook or Twitter or by signing up to their emailing list, which you can then enter when booking tickets.
Saving: €10 on cinema, up to 50% off popular events
– John Cradden
Case study
Italian native Guiliana Rocca has been based in Ireland since 2006 and lives in Dublin city centre and regularly seeks out both free and paid entertainment.
“I find it amazing how many things Dublin offers people to do for free,” she says. “But what surprises me more is the number of people who are often unaware of so many things going on in the city.”
Her main source of information is the Dublin Event Guide (for Free Events) email newsletter, which is produced by adopted Dubliner Joerg Steegmueller, and includes his personal picks.
Using the guide, she has managed to take in several memorable events over the last year without paying a cent, including the Fringe Festival opening in Collins Barracks; the Open House day, when you could visit several historical Dublin buildings; some shows from the Ulster Bank Theatre Festival, and many others.
“I’d say that in a typical week I would go out for one or two events, and so if they are free, I would be saving, let’s say, around €50 per week.”
The last paid event she attended was the Gate Theatre’s production of Jane Eyre, for which she paid €25.
“I like theatre a lot so the price was probably fair.” But to get more value she would like to see a discounted multi-theatre season ticket that would allow her to take in plays at several different venues.
This article first appeared in the Irish Independent