At home today...

...researching on brain plasticity. Watching Ted Talks on it. And more. Sort of thinking. Working out what might be the best approach for me listening to music with this new mapping.

Audiologist had said I wouldn't be able to listen to music, nor would I be able to form an emotional attachment to music.

When I was a teenager (I was born profoundly deaf), I wanted to be the same as my friends (who were all hearing) and so I watched pop music on the telly in the 60's (my hands on the speakers), went to concerts, dances etc. I was the one next to the speakers to feel the vibrations. Or my ear was next to the record player to feel the vibrations again. My emotional attachment to music then was through vibrations and the visual thing of seeing the group on telly or in concerts. Though I would say telly with Top of the Pops, and Ready Steady Go, and I think there was another program which was short lived, was the main visual emotional attachment rather than concerts.

But, now I have the cochlear implant, that has gone. You cannot feel vibrations against your ear drum once you have had a cochlear implant. I now have a sound input for music, but it is nothing like a hearing person hears. It is a bit of a confusion of noise.

I have been experimenting this week and I found I stand more chance of hearing something from a single instrument like a piano or a flute.

The other thing I have done is get another radio. I already had one radio as company when I was out of the house, for my dog Meg who died last year. The first radio was in the front room, on quite loud! But if I walked through to my bedroom I couldn't hear it, and I wanted the sound to follow me. I wanted to be able to hear it all through the bungalow, without having to wear wireless headphones or the other electronic paraphernalia I have to stream music wirelessly to the processor.

So I got the second radio and had that in the back room. Both radios are on the same channel, an easy listening music channel. I think there is pop music mostly from 60's onwards. Also, the same people talk/host the programs at regular days and times etc.

So in this way I can begin to home in on a voice at regular times if you get me.

Initially I got my phone, pointed it at the song that was being played, and my phone could tell me the song and bring up the words of the song. This was fun for a short while but didn't serve a useful purpose for listening to the actual music. Also, just because I had named that tune, I didn't recognise it the next time it came on.

So this is when I had the idea of two radios, both on same channel/program so I would constantly hear the music wherever I was in my bungalow, but just keep it as playing in the background, although I need it fairly loud for the processor to start picking up information from the sound.

After a few days of this I am now recognising songs/music in that I know that same song was being played earlier in the day/yesterday etc. I don't know the names of the songs/tunes or who the artist/s are yet, and I am not interested in this aspect yet.

I know in a few days curiosity will get the better of me, and I will use my phone to ID the tunes. But that is not the purpose of this. The purpose is just to listen and get a feel of the music/tunes.

This is difficult for me to explain because I am just finding my own way through this.

All this week I will be mainly exploring music in its different forms. I have never listened to classical music by vibrations before, because there was nothing there for me, but today I found some apps that give me snippets of classical music from a few minutes to half an hour. This will be something that is completely new to me. I will download these tomorrow.

Earlier processor mappings didn't give as much sound information as this current mapping. I can now pick out birdsong, so who knows how far it will be possible to go. The sound information was more muffled especially with music on the earlier mappings. I won't be able to hear anything like what hearing people get from music, but I think I can train/teach my brain to get the most out of this.

I am going round in circles, waffling now!!!

Here are 2 pics today. Both encaustic paintings, but not done on shiny paper (which gives those fantastic otherworldly effects), but done on an absorbent paper. It has a completely different feel to it that I rather like. So this is my pic for today for my challenge to myself of a pic every day in 2017.

Thank you for your kind comments and stars and faves yesterday x