What It's Like for a Deaf Person to Hear Music for the First Time | Hacker News Reader

What It's Like for a Deaf Person to Hear Music for the First Time

theatlantic.com

93 pointsmdariani36 comments

After hearing a description of a similar sudden change to hearing on This American Life, I expected the answer to be "confusing, because his brain can't interpret the sounds or sort out signal from noise." I was surprised that he was immediately enjoying music.

Any ideas why this might vary so drastically?

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Edit: maybe it's a technological difference; the TAL story involved cochlear implants. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/411/t...

I am too under impression that your music taste is a product of a long and sophisticated coevolution between you and the music you like.

Without it, you might appreciate a piece of music for its qualities, but not actually enjoy it. If you get to hear the music of some unknown civilization, you won't likely enjoy it right away (and they won't enjoy your favourites).

So I'm willing to sign off his enjoyment on novelity. Any mind-opening new experience makes you ecstatic, but it's not the content - it's the form. But this effect wears off and you start to be choosy.

> I am too under impression that your music taste is a product of a long and sophisticated coevolution between you and the music you like.

This is the best description of musical taste I've ever seen.

If hearing aids which are just amplifiers help, then he's not 100% deaf. His brain still has some input from the ears and can learn which impulses are from the ears. The guy in your story didn't even realize the vibrations were noises at first.

If you have any ability to sense things with your ears, you can enjoy music. This video explains why https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_0DXxNeaQ0

I don't know how deaf the person in the OP was, as with blindness, there are varying degrees of deafness. He may have some form of hearing because the vocabulary that he describes the first things he hears, e.g. friend with a "slight rasp in his voice" is quite rich.

But even assuming he was totally deaf before, a lot of people believe that basic music appreciation is one of the wired-in aspects of the brain, like language. In fact, there is some proof that language and music are processed by the same parts of the brain (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070927121101.ht...). So, just as a person who never have exposed to language can quickly learn it when s/he encounters it (many such cases are documented, e.g. feral children, Genie) so a deaf person theoretically would start enjoying music from the get go.

The difference in the other story may be related to the sensor technology, as you point out, maybe the cochlear implant was distorting the sounds somewhat.

I actually have a friend who claims to not like music; that's it... end of the argument.

He doesn't dislike certain types of music, or the modern perversion of music. He just can't stand music.

He's been known to watch movies with little-to-no music in the soundtrack... and with his almighty DM powers he has been known to ruthlessly obliterate Bard's from his D&D campaigns.

Never quite wrapped my head around it.

It's not uncommon in other areas, such as food, for people to be prematurely dismissive - such as "I don't like Chinese food" or "seafood", or whatever, based on having eaten one or two dishes and being put off it. Is it possible that your friend is in a similar situation, where actually there is music he would like except that he made his judgement before he discovered it and hasn't allowed himself to re-evaluate his opinion since then?

I have listened to a wide range of music and I don't care for any of it. Some African chanting is interesting but more in the way that crashing waves where interesting than any real emotional response.

This is actually a thing: amusia. I'm not certain that your friend has amusia, but it sounds possible.

http://youtu.be/dtkfaroKDfI

You are correct. When a cochlear implant is activated for the first time, everything sounds markedly different from how it sounds to normal hearing people. That lasts for at least first week, while the brain rapidly learns how to interpret the input.

The guy in this story is still not hearing music normally. Being profoundly deaf means having a very, very small amount of hearing, which is just enough for a powerful hearing aid to help. But he's almost certainly not hearing the full dynamic range of the music.

I have first-hand experience with all of this stuff, and I find this story be overblown, to say the least.

> I have first-hand experience with all of this stuff, and I find this story be overblown, to say the least.

Only on HN can you find someone willing to be an expert on someone else's newly-found joy.

Next week we'll have someone that's been blind for nearly their whole life told that "seeing the sunset in brilliant color for the first in such a long time brought me to tears" is overblown.

I am an expert on the topic.

I was profoundly deaf. I wore hearing aids and later got a cochlear implant. And I've known several people in a similar position.

Trust me, these stories about people hearing for the first time are sensationalized, to say the least. I'm in no way minimizing how miraculous these devices are -- just be aware that the experience is quite different to that being portrayed in the media.

> I am an expert on the topic.

You're an expert on how this fellow felt the first time he listened to music via his new equipment?

I think it is likely that you are an expert on how you feel, but this guy is crying as he listens to Mozart, he said it himself, and I'm not sure how much more we can ask for.

Nice straw man you've got there; I didn't say anything about the guy, let alone his feelings. Let's keep this discussion constructive.

I'm just sharing my perspective, based on experience -- these stories are misleading at best. Like all stories, they're far too neat. Reality is messier. Despite what the stories would have you believe, they still doesn't hear normally. They hear better. But not normally.

You know what the reality is? The reality is getting hearing aids and still not being able to use the phone to do phone interviews. And having people insist on it anyway. And then helplessly watching your dream job slip out of your grasp because you can't hear the interviewer's questions. Reality is being in school and failing, because the exam had a verbal component. And having the instructor just smirk. It's sitting as a bystander in conversations because you can't follow it. It's being passed over for promotions because you can't be trusted to hear important things. And nobody can see any of it happening. Except you.

That's the real story. A little piece of it. Yes, there are delightful moments with any improvement in hearing, but there's a larger context that always gets left out of these feel-good pieces.

Yes, the article seems questionable. He got new hearing aids, so he most likely was able to hear with his old ones, albeit not with high fidelity.

I have a cochlear implant (since hearing aids never helped), and I can't make sense out of most sounds. Much less distinguish raspy speech from my best friend. Music is just annoying noise, but I did enjoy playing Medal of Honor and other shooters with the speakers on when I was younger.

If this was his first pair of hearing aids then you would be absolutely correct, it would take him weeks, over even months, to get accustomed to the new sounds. From what I know of people with CIs (I wear hearing aids) the process of re-learning sounds is much harder - with hearing aids it is more about the barrage of sounds and noise, with CIs it is more about learning what the sounds actually represent as well as the noise etc. The opening sentence in the article does say that he has worn aids before but none were as good as his new Phonaks - so getting used to the new aids would be pretty easy for him.

Not really a technical comment, but I found a video of this type of experience to be so much more powerful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsOo3jzkhYA

Even better, Ellen (US talkshow host) saw the video and paid for both cochlear implants ($30k each):

http://ellen.warnerbros.com/videos/index.php?mediaKey=1_ccmh...

*edited for clarity

This just looks like a rough summary of a Reddit thread. Where's the discussion of why he was deaf, what he could and could not hear before, and what the new hearing aids did differently? I want to know more about the medical cause of his deafness, and the technology behind the hearing aids.

You probably weren't looking for an article entitled "What It's Like for a Deaf Person to Hear Music for the First Time", then.

The article didn't even really cover that; it basically said "imagine the emotion" and listed a bunch of music.

>When Mozart's Lacrimosa came on, I was blown away by the beauty of it. At one point of the song, it sounded like angels singing and I suddenly realized that this was the first time I was able to appreciate music. Tears rolled down my face and I tried to hide it.

Seems to cover it to me

It's a fairly simply-described reaction that a non-deaf person could have to that piece just because of its beauty not because they are hearing music for the first time.

Yeah, but you seem to be assuming that the experience would be completely alien, a language needing to be learned so to speak. I'm not so sure about that, perhaps music being the most visceral of the arts, does not require interpretation or explanation, so that even the unschooled ear can apprehend beauty.

I've no idea if it would be any different for a deaf person to hear music for the first time than for a normal person to hear music, and if it is different I don't know if there is any way to answer "What It's Like for a Deaf Person to Hear Music for the First Time".

My point was that this article really doesn't cover that question, as you said it did.

While it doesn't fully convey the depth of his emotion, or likely even allow us to fully imagine it, I think that looking at the article as a whole, we can see that he basically now can experience music in ways very similar to (and likely the same as) the way we do. He cries to it. He has samples several different kinds of music, and has definite feelings about the genres (e.g., classical vs country). He's actively seeking out new music, and is finding ways to describe (very well, IMO) _why_ he likes one or the other better. He's found a song that he has had to listen to over-and-over.

I think that covers "what it's like" from an emotional perspective very well. It was profoundly moving for me to read this.

I am curious to what he could hear before but only from the standpoint of having worked with a deaf person back in my high school days. He felt the music more than hearing it is probably the best way I can phrase it. So in his car the music was always loud and not always of the same genre. Strong bass guitar and of course drums of any type appealed because he could feel the beat. Subtle sounds would probably be missed completely.

With so much more to listen to, Chapman says that, "ironically enough, I'm turning my hearing aids off more often than before." There are too many annoying sounds.

"Silence is still my favorite sound," he writes. "When I turn my aids off my thoughts become more clear and it's absolutely peaceful."

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This is remarkable. I wonder what the world would be like if we were able to turn our ears off and on.

... buy some really good ear plugs? It's not perfect, but it's pretty good if you buy good quality ones and stick them in deep enough ...

I bought some noise canceling headphones a while back, and started wearing them in the office even when I didn't have music coming through them. The world became a quieter, gentler place when they were on, and it was good.

I think one important thing to understand is that beautiful music is not the only kind of music that can be great. Sometimes music is designed to invoke a wide array of emotions which is why good music is crucial in TV and film. Good music can make you feel excited, happy, sad, scared, calm, nervous, anxious, angry, inspired, or any mix of the above.

So while I think it's great that he is moved by beautiful music, he should keep his mind open to allowing music to take his emotions in other directions too.

  sigur ros - staralfur

yes yes yes yes

Either this guy is spending a king's ransom on all these tunes or the RIAA is going to have a field day with him.

"The response was tremendous, running more than 14,000 comments and garnering the attention of Spotify, which gave him six months of free membersion and a 13-hour playlist that covers a huge range of music."

I felt unusually moved by this article, my rational side is trying to figure out why.

Beethovens symphony nine is the best piece of music, which I ever listened to :)

"...garnering the attention of Spotify, which gave him six months of free membersion..."

What is membersion?

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