If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. You'll never miss a post! Thanks for visiting!
*Note, I’m still learning Seesmic and there is no audio on this one - sorry!
This has been on my mind for a while now. I’m not really into music. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like listening, I know the words and I have a favorite band (Bon Jovi). I’m just not really into it. I’m more of a top 40 girl, since that is the most accessible music to me, it’s on the radio. I have maybe a dozen CDs, ok maybe two dozen due to my subscription to the BMG music club back in 1986, but that doesn’t count. I bought the Color Me Bad CD…see, I told you I’m not into music.
So I think of course it has to do with my upbringing in a Deaf household. There was no music, no emphasis on sound really. I find it very fascinating to read and learn about Deaf people that love music and are really into the lyrics and sound. Some of them are not hard of hearing, some of them are really really Deaf (I know I didn’t need the reallys there but it was for emphasis). I know some of them had hearing parents that were music professors or singers, but I’d love to learn more about everyone’s love of music. I’m curious, what factors brought you to be in love with music more than the average “me”?
How much is your love of music? Was music a part of your upbringing?
Coincedintally enough, as I ponder this topic for about a week, yesterday my husband (whom is Deaf) threw something at my son and I. He pointed out that music is distracting. While he complains the guys at work get distracted and don’t keep up I think he has a point. I know that sometimes when I am driving to find an address, I have to turn down the music in the car so I can concentrate. However, music does have a way of motivated to get stuff done.
And… just this morning, as I was listening to the news on the radio, they now have a study that links language with music and vice versa.
I’d love to hear all your stories, do you LOVE music? How did you come to love it? Do you LOVE silence? Is music distracting to you at times? Tell me!
May 28th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Lisa,
Yes, I love music. I like all kinds of music, although I must admit I’m not very current on what’s considered cool. Play some mellow jazz, or Motown greats and I’m a happy woman. I also like classical music, which is due to all those piano lessons taken as a child.
I do find music distracting … and my mood is greatly effected by various types of music. I’m careful not to listen to heavy, driving, wanna-kick-your-butt types of music … cause it makes me want to kick some butt.
I love the silence. I don’t get enough of it. I think I’ll shut off the TV now and enjoy a bit of it. Thanks for the reminder.
I LOVE your blog! What a great job you’ve done. Congratulations!
Regards
Judith
May 28th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
It was definitely a part of my upbringing, but my brothers aren’t as addicted as I am. It really is just something that latches onto my temporal lobes and doesn’t let go. It’s magnificent.
That said, I detest noise. I’ve got some neuro oddities going on that make my senses a bit more discriminatory that most people’s. I took a hearing test once that informed me I could discriminate pitch within 0.635 Hz, which is a bit nuts. My rhythm discrimination was similarly weird. I’ve got ears like a dog. That plus the synaesthesia makes music (and language and mathematics) like water to a desert-dweller — but it also makes ambient ugly, irritating random NOISE really irritating to me. I need to plug my ears up to sleep, and a lot of times when I’m at work or out walking, I wish I could plug my ears up without the risk of losing what people are saying to me. What I’d love are earplugs that let nothing in except speech and music. the use of leafblowers, for example, should be a capital crime.
May 28th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Judith,
I know what you mean, some of the heavy metal music, I just can’t listen to it. Isn’t it amazing that music can just put you in a mood of disgruntle or romantic!
Janis,
I’m really intrigued. Thank you for sharing your story, it shows me the real differences in hearing. I have never met someone with intense hearing. I agree about the leaf blowers, especially when I’m trying to concentrate on my blog (wink)
May 29th, 2008 at 5:37 am
(I am hearing)
The family I grew up in and the family I am raising, all are big music fans. My Dad was a song leader in college for a couple of churches, and toured with a quartet. My Mom’s favorite therapy was playing on the organ. My brothers and I all sang next to the stereo, and all my brothers have played at least one instrument.
My kids all sing, (one of them sings in key). Two play instruments, the third wants to.
I have often wondered if I would “miss” music if I lost my hearing. I would still sing, although it might not be in public anymore. I would still crank my car stereo to “VOL MAX” to feel the beat, and probably still enjoy concerts - I like to go up near the speakers for bands like Family Force 5, and as a kid Rez Band (heavy christian metal), and of course, hear the ringing for the rest of the night.
Would I miss music? I don’t know, because having experienced it, it would always be in me.
May 29th, 2008 at 6:33 am
This post got me thinking - a lot.
I just heard my wife this morning telling him that her father wouldn’t let her take piano lessons, because he hated music, and liked quiet.
And as I got in my car, and blasted my stereo, I listened and realized how powerful the delivery mechanism of music is. The Family Force 5 I mentioned - the lyrics are stupid, and captioning would prove it, but I like the music. Then one of my other favorite CD’s, Newsboys, had some songs delivered in a catchy way, but the writing of Steve Taylor is so clever on some of them, they would translate to captioning well, but would still miss some of the impact that the music delivers.
Much like some can appreciate a painting (I can’t), I appreciate music, in all it’s forms.
And it is a distraction - that is part of it’s power, promise, and potential. It brings me out of and away from negative thought patterns. I love to sing.
And when I am in my car, I also channel surf a lot - looking for new, interesting and different. That’s why I don’t own many CD’s, because I don’t like hearing the same thing over again.
Anyway, this post really got me thinking………
May 29th, 2008 at 8:05 am
Bill,
That’s terrific. I love to make thought provoking posts from time to time and that is what this was about. You actually have made some great points in your second post about the music being distracting. It’s suppose to. Doh! I didn’t even think about it that way.
You are also correct about art. I like it but not well versed in it. I think the same would go for writing (I know some authors that feel it is a sin to fold over the corners of the pages) and anything else that needs interpretation in an art form.
It’s so wonderful to have you hear and contributing to this blog. This is how I want to learn both sides of my world. I am hoping for a Deaf music lover to share in this idea.
May 29th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
codadiva, it amazes me when I stop to think about it what a horrible-sounding world hearing people have created. I mean, I could understand a deaf person inventing an edge-trimmer, but a hearie?!
And don’t get me started on the high-pressure flush toilets in most public bathrooms. I have to push the handle in my foot so I can stick my fingers in my hears first and stand there wincing until it’s done.
May 29th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
I’ve chuckled a few times thinking about your last comment. Isn’t it funny! I do the same thing in those really loud bathrooms. I really hate the sound of our air compressor when it goes into “re-charge” mode. When my hubby goes to bed and I am working on the computer it scares me out of my chair when it starts motoring up. ECK!
June 1st, 2008 at 4:52 pm
great post…see the video for my .02 as a fellow CODA.
p.s. i took your advice and flipped the color scheme at http://www.sean808080.com to black on white. your old eyes should be happy.
June 4th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Comment »
June 10th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Lisa,
Sorry this is so late to respond. My family lived in a two-flat with my father’s hearing brother up on the second floor and our family on the first. My uncle was very musical. All his kids play instuments and some even make a living from it. Of the five kids on the first floor only I had a love of music so great I taught myself to play drums and had a band for a while. I am the one that can’t sit still when a band begins to play lively music. I must dance (if the music has a beat)! I know many “hearing” people that take music for granted or just don’t like it. I can’t understand that. I also cherish the quiet. I seek out time when there is no TV, no radio, no talking, I can think when it is quiet. My cousin, who lived upstairs, wrote a beatiful poem about the silence “downstairs”, where the voice to the TV was off and no radio was on. My cousin would go downstairs in the afternoon when just my Mom was home doing ironing or what ever and just listen to the silence. It was a very moving poem and just the opposite of my experience of listening to the sounds of “upstairs” in the evening when the family would practice, entertain, whatever. there was always music upstairs, silence downstairs (except when my brothers and sisters would fight). Carl is wrong to blame music in general for being distracting his workers. The right music can increase productivity. Some corporations pipe in music because they find that workers are more productive when listening to an upbeat type of music. So my final thought is there is time for quiet and time for noise It is a matter matching the music to the mood.
Vince