I'm listening to "John Coltrane's My Favourite Things" right now. The beginning sent chills up my arms for some reason (Auditory overload? Amazing music? Both?). But then ... it dropped away a mere minute into the composition. I only have my implant on not my hearing aid, so that could be why. But it strikes me as odd.
What I've really found though, is it takes my brain time to ADJUST. Even if I take it out to check the volume and then put it back on moments after I've taken it out, sound composition drops dramatically until my brain has had time to adjust. It seems odd that I couldn't just jump right back into it but it also makes sense.
I tried it with Ian's iphone, which he wasn't certain if the cord fit the Iphone properly enough to deliver the best sound. I think he said this right after I said things sounded HIGH and oddly distorted. I thought, "Oh no. What if it isn't the cord? I'm not going to say anything..." He turned up the music slowly and then all of a sudden, I pulled my implant out FAST. The sound had increased from a comfortable level to suddenly a painful one, piping into my head and it HURT. After that, Ian had me adjust the volume by myself because he didn't want to hurt me.
I remarked to him that I would for sure have to find a way to "lock" my ipod touch's volume because I can see myself grabbing it and accidentally sliding the volume up and blasting my auditory nerve with painful sound!
Notably, it cannot destroy my hearing or nerves but it HURTS so if it hurts, it follows that nobody would want to do it!
My natural biological capability for music has been substituted by a bionic ear, so of course.... Of course it sounds ODD. The first time I heard a song and tried to really listen, it sounded high-pitched and tinny. The Beatles' Blackbird sounds downright distorted. Where's the metronome? It's no longer razor-sharp clear, distinctly and easily picked out of the song. Even with the hearing aid in and the implant, it sounds HIGH and hardly what I'd call "music."
However, I CAN hear melodies now with most songs. This was a HUGE surprise because I wasn't even listening for it. I was sitting in Ian's darkened music room and oh, it was SWEET. The notes soared up and down distinctively and I finally, for the FIRST time, understood the concept of melody first-hand. I had understood the definition and concept but it was like being told what stars look like without having ever seen them.
Before, I could kind of understand why the melody is "so essential" but didn't really CARE. But... Music suddenly makes so much more sense now. I happily told Ian, "So this is how you hum songs! You follow the melody!" He looked surprised, as if it were common sense..... and of course it is for most people.
I had always thought you hummed just by following the notes and making the timing right, which IS the definition of melody in a sense.... but I had never been able to truly hear the distinctiveness of NOTES in... holy crap, a complex sequence of music.
I think this is one reason why I liked classical music- because it has NOTHING else mixed in with it. It's simply one instrument, usually, and that instrument plays its own notes and nothing else. I have always liked a great variety of music though- but to me it was kind of just like "nice" sounds or "pretty" sounds that seemed pleasant. Again, that could be a definition, yes, but there's SO much more to a star than it just being "a light in the sky."
I took off my implant and listened to a Weezer song with my hearing aid. It was shockingly flat, dull, and empty. I had NEVER noticed that music was simply.... boring with my hearing aid on. It wasn't, of course, but with the implant out the quality and amount I get seems boring now.
I was just always happy I COULD hear and appreciate music to a degree. I've always loved music; my parents were always playing music or instruments and I was always playing around with instruments or dancing. But now I have to laugh at what I comprehended as music. With the implant on AND the hearing aid... oooh. It's so much more distinct. Terrible in some ways, (the high pitches leap out sometimes in some songs, Beatles make NO sense, when my brain is still "warming up" to a song it can take a minute to kick in and make sense, etc) but marvelous in other ways (Melody is FINDABLE which is AMAZING to me!, music seems way more 3D and more complex, and so on...)
I heard stereo for possibly the first time in my life. Left side was the voice while right side was the instruments.... and I went, "Huh. That's an interesting way to arrange it." My initial impression was, "This IS cool and it DOES help. But in a way, I prefer hearing it together, since the implant filters all sound directly to my brain anyway." It'd depend, I guess.
Having my hearing aid on in my right ear helps a TON and adds more "life" and sense to what I'm hearing with my bionic left ear.
My brain likes simple songs right now- because I like the practice of being able to pick out sounds and melodies. I WANT to leap into "complex" songs but I plan to listen to songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star as well. That might help a bit. I don't understand how people have such an expansive HUGE music memory at times- how can they pick out which melody a song is from when there's millions of songs out there? I wonder, will my brain ever be able to?
Part of me thinks it will in some cases, because I already am learning what sounds go with what things but I fear that I will lose that sense of knowledge with each new mapping (calibration for my new ear and software!) that I get, since sounds DO change with mappings.
Ian helps a lot by showing me which instruments are playing AS the song is playing which helps a TON because I have something to match with, to what I'm hearing. I don't know how people just naturally develop it, because while I CAN separate the elements a lot easier and find the melody, I find that it helps to such an amazing degree to have Ian tell me what's going on with the instruments/vocals.
It makes me wish I had somebody to walk with me all day and go, "This is what you're hearing!" I walk on the streets without my hearing aid on and just the implant and I hear really odd high pitched noises that I can't pinpoint to anything specific. I turn around, I look upwards, I stop walking, and still it continues and I can't find what it is.
But! One amazing thing was I was walking down the street and I saw a bus about 30 feet from me and I HEARD the doors shut. I knew instinctively it was the door. I didn't have to see the door to know it was the door. I'm not sure if it was my hearing aid, the implant, or the combination of both but it sure seemed louder and clearer and from across the street on top of that! So I chalked it up to the implant. Score.
I will keep you all up to date on how I'm doing with music!
Posts to Come: (A reminder for myself)
*Nerves
*Mapping #2
*Sounds I like/dislike/notice
*Ipod contents
*Pitch perception test.... take #1 after the implant.
Showing posts with label bionic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bionic. Show all posts
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Cyborgs
From Wikipedia:
Some theorists cite such modifications as contact lenses, hearing aids, or intraocular lenses as examples of fitting humans with technology to enhance their biological capabilities; however, these modifications are no more cybernetic than would be a pen, a wooden leg, or the spears used by chimps to hunt vertebrates.[5] Cochlear implants that combine mechanical modification with any kind of feedback response are more accurately cyborg enhancements.
My take on it: I mentally went, "Yay!" and smiled when I read that those with an implant are "more accurately cyborgs." I've always liked having something unique, and this is definitely unique.
What's interesting to me is that even though implants have been around for awhile, the notion of cyborgs still seems so "new" when applied to humans in today's modern world, even though many instances of "bionic" people have been found in Star Trek, comics (Iron Man), movies (Terminator, anyone?) and books dating as old as 1843 (Edgar Allan Poe, among some others).
Perhaps it is that nuance of meshing man and "machine" that seems so foreign. In this age where practically every white collar person seems to have a bluetooth, where a great majority of homes have their own wifi networks, and kids as young as 7 have their own cell phones, it is still a shock to the mind to think of combining two such different organisms.
My ear right now, despite its apparent deadness is nevertheless still pulsing with warm wet tissue and energy, expediting trillions of cells a day. My body, with its own intricate system and its rapid-fire neurons, could be seen to be a form of computer.
My body doesn't speak in zeros and ones, however.
The implant does. It is hard, strong, and designed to go for my whole life without having to rebuild itself constantly as my body does every minute. IT speaks in zeros and ones. It screams in high-speed binary, highly more supreme than my body has shown itself to be.
My ears- The ears that probably have not heard below 30db ever, the ears that I used to imagine were struggling to "wake up" its nerves in some contrived yet noble attempt to restart, those ears will not be the same again. And who is to thank? Many scientists, researchers, and coders.
Not only does it take doctors to fix me, but it takes programmers to dream up and stimulate the fragility of sound.
One line of code messed up, and I will hear only the high frequency hisses of the orange electric lights overhead.
I did computer programming for a short time, and in that short amount of time, I learned how much there was to getting a program to do something as simple as produce one line of input: "Hello."
How many lines of code does it take to transform my ears?
I don't know, but I do know it takes only one line of code to make me bionic.
The military has long envisioned a possibility of meshing machine with man, to make better, faster, more dangerous soldiers. But it is the regular civilians that are making these strides more often.
It is the infant that recognizes its mother's voice for the first time. It is the old grandfather that gets an implant and can finally hear more clearer than he has in years. It is the 20-somethings that saw the whole wide world open to them, only to be dismayed at the fact their own world was closing up to them slowly due to their hearing loss. It is the people that realized their ears just weren't cutting it for them. It is me finally deciding to see what an implant could do for me, at barely 19.
We are desperately envisioning a new standard for ourselves, even if they are "ordinary" standards. We long to hear music, wind, laughter, birds, words and in the process we become more than just organic matter. In a sense: more than "human." We adjust our programs to fit with our environment. They are real programs that can be wiped out to have newer, more innovative ones placed in them. We are constantly facing being "out of date."
When I get this implant, I face the fact I WILL become part-machine. My ears could be outdated, just like my laptop will probably be obsolete in a few years. But what's more likely is even if I become "outdated," my bionic ear will continue to work.
I know many people who still use Windows 2000, and it is "outdated" by now but they have found ways to update it and for them, it works. It gets what needs to be done, done. My friends and relatives' hearing may deteriorate with age or far too many rock concerts (for some of them!) but the chances are mine never will.
This is the greatest irony- that a profoundly deaf child may hear better than them one day.
This is a marvelous age- not the silver or gold age, but the titanium age. We digitally record shows, download music in minutes, and share movies from halfway around the world. When I was one, a cochlear implant would have looked strange. Today, it might get mistaken for a bluetooth or simply another electronic device.
I can buy an iPod and connect the music directly to myself.
The sound waves will go directly through my head in zeros and ones and I can't help but imagine colorful gold and blue currents happily reaching out at rapid-fire speeds to reach my brain, where my brain translates it all. (And not in zeros or ones, but in electrical currents.)
In actuality, there is no color. There is just pure information traveling at millions of bits a second.
I am electrical, and so are you. Our body sends currents, fires off neurons, travels up the brain stem, snakes up the spine, and all in all works as a marvelously programmed up-to-date machine.
The only difference is a part of my body will speak in zeros and ones. I will become a cyborg, unable to withstand heavy magnetic fields, but able to hear far much more than I have ever imagined. Yes, magnets will stick to my head. Yes, I can hear you but maybe I still won't understand what you're saying ever, still. Is it still worth it? I hope so.
I have always been a lover of sci-fi and an appreciator of robots. Now I get the chance to become part-machine.
Some theorists cite such modifications as contact lenses, hearing aids, or intraocular lenses as examples of fitting humans with technology to enhance their biological capabilities; however, these modifications are no more cybernetic than would be a pen, a wooden leg, or the spears used by chimps to hunt vertebrates.[5] Cochlear implants that combine mechanical modification with any kind of feedback response are more accurately cyborg enhancements.
My take on it: I mentally went, "Yay!" and smiled when I read that those with an implant are "more accurately cyborgs." I've always liked having something unique, and this is definitely unique.
What's interesting to me is that even though implants have been around for awhile, the notion of cyborgs still seems so "new" when applied to humans in today's modern world, even though many instances of "bionic" people have been found in Star Trek, comics (Iron Man), movies (Terminator, anyone?) and books dating as old as 1843 (Edgar Allan Poe, among some others).
Perhaps it is that nuance of meshing man and "machine" that seems so foreign. In this age where practically every white collar person seems to have a bluetooth, where a great majority of homes have their own wifi networks, and kids as young as 7 have their own cell phones, it is still a shock to the mind to think of combining two such different organisms.
My ear right now, despite its apparent deadness is nevertheless still pulsing with warm wet tissue and energy, expediting trillions of cells a day. My body, with its own intricate system and its rapid-fire neurons, could be seen to be a form of computer.
My body doesn't speak in zeros and ones, however.
The implant does. It is hard, strong, and designed to go for my whole life without having to rebuild itself constantly as my body does every minute. IT speaks in zeros and ones. It screams in high-speed binary, highly more supreme than my body has shown itself to be.
My ears- The ears that probably have not heard below 30db ever, the ears that I used to imagine were struggling to "wake up" its nerves in some contrived yet noble attempt to restart, those ears will not be the same again. And who is to thank? Many scientists, researchers, and coders.
Not only does it take doctors to fix me, but it takes programmers to dream up and stimulate the fragility of sound.
One line of code messed up, and I will hear only the high frequency hisses of the orange electric lights overhead.
I did computer programming for a short time, and in that short amount of time, I learned how much there was to getting a program to do something as simple as produce one line of input: "Hello."
How many lines of code does it take to transform my ears?
I don't know, but I do know it takes only one line of code to make me bionic.
The military has long envisioned a possibility of meshing machine with man, to make better, faster, more dangerous soldiers. But it is the regular civilians that are making these strides more often.
It is the infant that recognizes its mother's voice for the first time. It is the old grandfather that gets an implant and can finally hear more clearer than he has in years. It is the 20-somethings that saw the whole wide world open to them, only to be dismayed at the fact their own world was closing up to them slowly due to their hearing loss. It is the people that realized their ears just weren't cutting it for them. It is me finally deciding to see what an implant could do for me, at barely 19.
We are desperately envisioning a new standard for ourselves, even if they are "ordinary" standards. We long to hear music, wind, laughter, birds, words and in the process we become more than just organic matter. In a sense: more than "human." We adjust our programs to fit with our environment. They are real programs that can be wiped out to have newer, more innovative ones placed in them. We are constantly facing being "out of date."
When I get this implant, I face the fact I WILL become part-machine. My ears could be outdated, just like my laptop will probably be obsolete in a few years. But what's more likely is even if I become "outdated," my bionic ear will continue to work.
I know many people who still use Windows 2000, and it is "outdated" by now but they have found ways to update it and for them, it works. It gets what needs to be done, done. My friends and relatives' hearing may deteriorate with age or far too many rock concerts (for some of them!) but the chances are mine never will.
This is the greatest irony- that a profoundly deaf child may hear better than them one day.
This is a marvelous age- not the silver or gold age, but the titanium age. We digitally record shows, download music in minutes, and share movies from halfway around the world. When I was one, a cochlear implant would have looked strange. Today, it might get mistaken for a bluetooth or simply another electronic device.
I can buy an iPod and connect the music directly to myself.
The sound waves will go directly through my head in zeros and ones and I can't help but imagine colorful gold and blue currents happily reaching out at rapid-fire speeds to reach my brain, where my brain translates it all. (And not in zeros or ones, but in electrical currents.)
In actuality, there is no color. There is just pure information traveling at millions of bits a second.
I am electrical, and so are you. Our body sends currents, fires off neurons, travels up the brain stem, snakes up the spine, and all in all works as a marvelously programmed up-to-date machine.
The only difference is a part of my body will speak in zeros and ones. I will become a cyborg, unable to withstand heavy magnetic fields, but able to hear far much more than I have ever imagined. Yes, magnets will stick to my head. Yes, I can hear you but maybe I still won't understand what you're saying ever, still. Is it still worth it? I hope so.
I have always been a lover of sci-fi and an appreciator of robots. Now I get the chance to become part-machine.
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