1. With my particular hearing loss I can still enjoy listening to music. However I find that the sound of the violin is unbearable. I now buy records which have music played on original instruments, which I find have a softer tone than modern ones and it is a big improvement.
2. I find I don’t hear music as well as I used to. When I want to listen to a favourite record or tape I use the loop system that I normally use for the TV. I find that this helps a little.
3. One person said that they hear music as distorted sound, but they prefer this to not listening to music at all.
4. One person said that though they can hear very little now, they like to “feel” the music when their partner is playing the piano using the vibrations.
5. There is an organisation, Enabling for Music, which helps deaf people to access music through technology. Enabling for Music is an organisation that uses technology to enable people who are hard of hearing or deaf to listen to music more clearly and enjoyably. They help all age ranges from children to the elderly. Click here to visit the Enabling for Music website.
6. There are a variety of different environmental aids that may help some people listen to music. I like to use earhooks with either my CD player or my MP3 player.
7. When I got my latest hearing aids I invested in some shoes and direct input leads to connect my MP3 player to my hearing aids. (Editor: You can purchase these from places like Connevans)
(Editor’s note: there is information on some of the aids available for listening to music in Chapter 6 on Environmental Aids)
7. I like to download music from the internet to my MP3 player – some sites let you listen to the music or part of it first and I use this to see if I can hear it well enough before I buy it.
8. One person said that when they bought new CDs they found it helpful to get the lyrics and read them whilst listening to the music for the first few times. This helped them to “fill in” any bits that they couldn’t hear properly.
(Lyrics may be found online on various websites: these are two that the person above has used: http://www.elyrics.net/ and www.lyrics.com.)
9. I’ve found that I can’t hear certain types of voices very well any more. I can’t hear higher voices, so when I’m buying songs I try to go for male voices – I find I can hear these much better than female ones.