A CONSUMER'S PERSPECTIVE ON MUSIC

Richard Reed, Rhythm & Blues Musician 

Reprinted from ACI Alliance Calling, July 2015

People ask what things sound like through the CI. I can describe and even imitate activation day. Yes it sounded weird. Imitations and simulations can’t capture the more miraculous but mundane-seeming reality of what happened later: most sounds are quite normal now. “That’s such an amazing thing,” friends say, referring to the CI. So too the brain. Not my brain especially, but everybody’s brain. Getting a CI is the first step in a process that should include a reasonable amount of post-activation (re) habilitation. We need to get those synapses snapping. Neuroplasticity is under-appreciated. Spell-check even subjects it to the indignity of the dotted red underline sometimes. Considering all it does for us, neuroplasticity deserves a higher profile, should be at least as well known as crowd-sourcing or virtualization. Hopefully, President Obama’s BRAIN Initiative will accomplish for neuroplasticity in America what the ACI Alliance is attempting for CI in research, advocacy and awareness.

As a late-deafened musician, I’ve got a lot to gain from future CI technologies. Pitch perception is still problematic for CI users, but we haven’t let that get in the way of a good time. Music is about more than pitch. It’s about more than a lyric, rhythm, chord progression or tone. Any combination of these qualities can add up to a lot more than the sum of its parts. Music only needs to break our hearts in a good way or make us dance. Or both. At first and for quite a while, CI music sounded completely alien. Now, almost 13 years post-activation, it sounds down to Earth again. Like anything worth doing, CI music can be difficult to get right, to do well. We make mistakes. So what? It isn’t brain surgery. Some musical mistakes actually end up sounding good. Composers use “happy accidents” all the time.

Sci-fi prognosticators of yesteryear offered scant details as to where we’d park all those flying cars or how to handle extra-terrestrial rush hour with fuel cells running low. The ACI Alliance is working on making the biotech dream of artificial ears (farfetched just a few years ago) come true for many more Americans. If you’re not yet a member of the American Cochlear Implant Alliance, please consider joining. Don’t let the CI future start without you. It sounds too cool to miss.

Richard Reed (photo credit: Bob Karambelas)

Click below to view the CI2021 Music Session with Richard Reed

Adults Do Enjoy Music with Cochlear Implants! (Webinar)

The perception of music for cochlear implant recipients is different than for individuals with normal hearing due to how the elements of music are coded through cochlear implant systems. Despite certain limitations, cochlear implants do offer opportunities for enjoying and appreciating music with the new sound from a cochlear implant. 

CEUs/Hours Offered:  AAA/0.1 Intermediate; ACAud/1.0; ASHA/0.1 Intermediate, Professional; BAA/1.0; CAA/1.0; Calif SLPAB/1.0; IACET/0.1; IHS/1.0; Kansas, LTS-S0035/1.0; NZAS/1.0; SAC/1.0 

Click here to watch the webinar.

Additional Information on listening to Music with a Cochlear Implant can be found in our Blog section.