Coming Soon

I have a tentative interview with worker for the deaf and hard of hearing to talk about what I've been going through and why sounds disappear for people like me. It should be pretty interesting. I'm going to put the audio up on the blog.

Also, I'm trying to organize an event at Different Fur with the band, engineers, doctors, audiologist and hopefully some people who know a lot about my hearing aid.

I've also hired an editor to come in here and grammar check. She can hear out of both ears. I'm going to introduce her to bone conduction hearing and we'll see if she notices anything significant about sound when she tries it out for a few weeks. She'll be posting whatever happens in the process. I don't think too much will happen in terms of her hearing changes in tones or melody lines but I'm interested none the less.

Also, If you have SSD and have never used bone conduction please email me. I want to lend you my headphones to see if the same things occur. When I was buying the domain name the dude on the phone told me about his friend who had SSD. I think his name is Sue, I remember because we were joking about the Johnny Cash song. So Sue, if you're out there. Please contact me. If you're interested anyways...

I had a really great jam session yesterday with Quell (drum machine) and Schaffer (keys) and I'll post a clip later today.

Time for an experiment.

OK, forget it. Craig's list keeps flagging me for removal. I've got other plans.


Hey there,


The way I used to hear music compared to how I hear it now is far too different for me to not try and discover what exactly is happening (or not happening). I'm looking for another person who is and has been deaf in one ear for their entire life. I want to show them stereo and document what they hear and how sound changes with the help of bone conduction. If you know anyone who is near the age of thirty who meets this profile then please send them this link.


http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/crg/1622240345.html


Thanks, I hope we get some calls. This could be interesting. Stick around.

It's not you, it's me.

I've been wasting a lot of time. Let's get this right. 'Been trying to find a way to capture how I heard songs before I could hear the full spectrum of sound in both ears. When I first became able to hear in stereo I heard a whole bunch of new things. Every time I played a record I noticed a new pitch or effect or shimmering tone, and tracking the evolution of my ability to hear was a thrill. The one part of the whole process I failed to examine was the process itself. I didn't pay attention to why it took me three weeks before I could hear everything. I never even questioned it. Until now.


So, I've been trying to show you music in my ears. Not going to happen. I have spent a good amount of hours going through all the kinds of music I own, transferring it to mono, then being totally confused because I can hear everything, it just sounds a little less interesting. I expected sections to vanish. They didn't. I was wrong every time.


I'll never be able to hear like I did ever again. Lately, I've been noticing that the more I use the bone conduction head phones, the more sound I've become aware of. I can't just transfer something into mono expecting half the sounds to disappear. I knew this was true when I began to hear what I thought was stereo in the car.


When I began to hear more and more sounds without the headphones, I looked back over the past few weeks. I remembered that on the box that the bone conductors arrived in stated that it took about two to three weeks for them to work in full. It all became simple then.

(I am not happy about this)

The brain has tons of memory, it uses its memory to develop auto responses. There are many things we don't think about because we simply don't have to. The sub-conscience can do a good amount of work while our perception of the situation remains else where. I don't think about it before I open a door, I just open the door. My sub-conscience knew about the door and sent out a dispatch that told my arm to open the door when I got to it. Meanwhile, I was humming a tune trying to decide what I wanted to eat for lunch.


This is a little hard for me to stare in the face; my sub-conscience is/was a lazy fool. He basically gets his panties in a bunch when he hears cool effects, then he decides that the sounds are too much work for him to deal with. Then the little rat hides them from me. That slacker has been trashing all the sound that was too lazy to process.


So, I stormed into his office and slapped him around with bone conduction, he jumped up off his ass, cleaned his office and started filing all his work where it belongs. It took him three weeks to get his act together.


This so explains the rush of discovering new sound.


Why was it so intense learning how to hear all these sounds? Why would I get so emotional? Why did it take three weeks? Why are the sounds that weren't there before present everywhere without the headphones? My left ear didn't magically repair itself, impossible. UGH!

(My poor undeveloped mind, sigh.)

It was always possible for me to hear this way. I just had to realize that it was possible for me to hear those sounds. That is why I can them anywhere now.


I have always said that the best place to hide is in plain sight.


I asked my audiologist about it in an email.

Your theory is pretty good. The brain is constantly assessing sounds as "important/dangerous to me" versus "environmental sounds that I don't need to pay attention to" such as the computer humming or the fans turning. If it's not an important sound to the brain, you won't necessarily be aware of it until you make a conscious effort to listen for it or if it changes in some way that the brain thinks is important and focuses on. Since you've spent so much time thinking about sound and the different ways you are hearing monaurally versus with bone conduction headphones, your brain is hypervigilant to new sounds.Possibly you are becoming more cognizant of sounds since we've started paying attention to your hearing over the past few months and you're more consistently using the bone conducted headphones. It will be interesting to see the benefits you experience when we hook up the processor and give your brain back the sensation of binaural hearing.

I'm a little shocked. Sounds were always there. I didn't know how to hear them.


Does anybody out there know anything more about this?


Tell me.


I don't know if what I'm currently hearing now is stereo anymore.

Audio Angel Tracking Clarinet for "Gave You Easy"

02-23-2010

02-22-2010

This stuff is way trickier than I'd thought but I learned some stuff. The guys and I got together and decided to take a deeper look into this whole thing. 

First, PU2273 and I tried setting up a small set of computer speakers and recording it with one microphone that would represent my good ear. If I face the mic to the right, mimicking where my ear is, maybe sections of music will vanish, resembling how I've heard music for the past thirty years. I'm basing these dimensions roughly on how my stereo set-up used to be at the office. The  computer moniter having a speaker on each side, right where they are supposed to go for all you normals (now I keep both of them five feet way from me on my right). Hopefully, this will show how a lot of music disappears when you can only hear with one ear. 

I don't really have any real knowledge of what sound is. I'm just sort of trying to figure it out on my own I guess. I should maybe do some actual research, I will I swear, but I'm gonna have a little fun for the time being. Anyhoo, St. Vincent has some amazing stereo on her first release Marry Me, I'll share a small clip with you in both stereo and what I recorded from her song; Landmines. 

(I want to make a point that what I am looking is for the lifelessness in music that I knew)

Clips for Mono Experiment - St Vincent - Landmines  by  Timothy Renato Pizza

{Nothing really disappeared. Totally not what I expected to happen at all.} 


Afterward, we were a bit perplexed, we were not yet entirely defeated, so we decided to kick back and rock a quick jam.

After that, we sat around scouring through my music looking for something really cool but we got really frustrated because we couldn't find a neat enough example for you. PU2273 was so flustered that he felt it proper to pull his old "Speak & Math," that he himself personally bent. And I decided to play the Fish-mas Tree and 
"Thing-a-ma-goop." 

(We thought it went well. Sorry neighbors)

Afterward, we tried doing a few more stereo to mono transfers. I learned some stuff about phase cancellation. That was happening to the song when I rerecorded it this way. Why is nothing that try working?

Quell showed up right when we learned that during the transfers this phase cancellation thing was happening to some effects. He brought up a very 

valuable point.

At that point it was really late and we'd had a pretty good time trying to figure this stuff out. In a few day's we'll talk about Binaural sound.

Oh, and Audio Angel, we would have loved to invite you Dearie, but you know the rules:

Maybe I've figured it out...

I was saying something in a previous post about losing mono and wishing I could find a way to show all of you how a single sided deaf guy hears music. I'm going to conduct an experiment this evening involving several speakers and a microphone. I think this idea will most definitely work. So, please do check back tonight or tomorrow. I'll have diagrams, pictures and most importantly; answers.

02-16-2010

Sometime soon, hopefully this week I'll be planning out the big day. Experiments have always been entertaining and educating so I figured that it would be the best way to approach the BP100. This devise is now part of me. I want to know it. I want to know everything there is to find out about the super-cool sound machine that makes me normal (audibly). And so, I thought it would be fascinating to have a small get-together in the studio. I'll have my team of engineers, musicians, physicians and technicians assembled to travel through a series simulated scenarios involving recording, live sound, and mixing. This is a good thing. I have many questions, which will all be posted and maybe even answered here on this blog. I've started Sound Became Color so that I can keep records of everything I do while I learn how to hear correctly over the next year or however long it may take to develop properly. This unexpected adventure has been amazing so far but has yet to be complete. Everyday things change. I get the unit soon. The implant is healing. Waiting really is worse than the surgery.

Losing Mono

By listening to all of this stereo music I've noticed that when I hear it again in a normal speaker setting I can hear more than I could before. Maybe my brain knows how to look for it now? But I swear it's getting better. I just wish I could think of a good way to capture what I heard before everything changed on me. It's important for some reason and whatever that may will eventually surface and drive me totally bonkers in the process. Stay tuned.

I got the cleaning kit. I now have a brush for my abutment. Needs to brushed flossed daily (after the healing). I also got this wallet card that explains me to security and doctors for MRI procedures. This is all so SCI-FI, I think I'm dreaming sometimes. Hmmph, easy come easy go...

02-10-2010

 Tonight I'm doing a little bit of an experiment. But please bear with me for just a minute here, I have to rant for a minute or two (or most of the night). During this Mono to Stereo transformation I've become really intimidated by music. I'll tell you why. I've been hearing a significant portion of music that few understand. I don't fully grasp it myself, and have only recently been able to articulate my new feelings of awkwardness towards music caused by stereo.  The first reaction that presented itself was a complete sense of insecurity and humiliation in a section of myself that I'd never dreamed penetrable.  The songs that were the scores to my memories, safe places in my mind that hold the melodies which fuel my ambitions have been hiding things from me. Now, in full stereo, my 'heart songs' have a place where they can shine in new powerful forms that can control the listener and sometimes effect emotion. The sound dances. It runs from side to side, up and down and in many other unexplainable directional feats that add suspense and flavor. When I found stereo I felt left out. Ditched. Honestly, It was an overwhelming downer that opened a lot of doors to all these trains of thought. After a few weeks of total confusion I thought that maybe a debate could simplify all of this conflict (for me anyhow). My problem comes down to Quality. And yet, Melody still found its way into my heart and interest. So here goes nothing.

Quality Vs Melody 

Even though my ears are busted why have I constantly turned to music as a main focus of interest? If the quality of sound that I've been dealt is poor, does this mean that melody is what drives my desire to play instruments learn more about music?

I want to learn why and maybe even show you how broken music spoke to my heart and still managed to fascinate me as much as it does now and will always continue to do so as long as my time will allow.

To show you what is happening in stereo on a more visual platform I've taken a small screen shot of what an actual audio file looks like. I've imported a song into Protools where I can manipulate the audio later on to hopefully show you how I hear now naturally. But first let's take a quick look at the facts. There they are below, a few bars of stereo audio.

The top row represents the channel for the right speaker, and the bottom is the channel for the left speaker (the 'left and right' could be the other way around, it's pretty late and I think you get the idea). If you compare the difference between the two you will notice different shapes in each channel. That is because different sounds are coming out of each channel. I think that some of these sounds can only be heard in the combination of the two channels together. This is where SSD (single sided deafness) works it's horrors and it's magic all at the same time.

..........{ a few solid hours of trying to get this right with Protools } ...

It's now 3:42  am and I've been switching back from stereo to mono on Menomena's "Water" from Under an Hour. Having SSD, I'm starting to understand that I don't even hear in full mono. Actually, now that I think about it, I mostly hear the right channel. I do the majority of my listening to music in headphones, so yeah I mostly hear the right channel. I listen to the right side a couple times and switch the headphones around and check out the left side when I'd get bored of the right. I could feel things happening (vibrations) in my left ear, so I'd piece it together from memory or if it was really cool I'd crank it up in the car (my favorite place for listening).

Now, in stereo, it seems like albums become a projected atmosphere in the environment of the listener. I've noticed that in panning techniques (how sound develops a sense of arrangement or direction) it can feel like you are sitting at the drum kit when each drum is carefully placed in the left to right spectrum. I can kind of understand how left and right channels work but how is an element of front and back formed, is it volume and reverb that creates spatial definition? I have so many questions. Reverb used to be just an echo-ish effect. Now reverb moves notes around, often on the sly, giving new meaning to placement of the instruments all together. 

4:55 Mental Note: 

I've been doing all of my listening tonight with a crazy series of gadgets, not my natural right ear only default setting. I have something called a 'Boostaroo,' and yes, it has a picture of a kangaroo on it. This little guy is sort of a router for sound. You plug the little Roo into your ipod or any audio direct line out. It has three headphone output jacks on it that amplify the music by near twice the decible amount. I wear three different types of headphones (hang on I'll take a photo). It's sort of funny, so many wires.

First, I put on Bone Conduction Headphones. They go on like any pair of wrap-around-the-back-of-the-head-and-over-the-ears kind of headphone except the speakers do no do cover the ear, they rest on on your temple right before the opening of the ear. Then I put a pair of ear buds in. Finally, I clamp on a huge pair of DJ headphones, this not only adds extra bump, but it holds the other two pairs of headphones in place. The only way to explain the quality of the sound by wearing all of this is to describe it as the clarity of thought. The Bone Conductors launch sounds through the bones in your head, not your ears. There is only a skin barrier from the sound to the bone. It's like your skull structure acts as symphony hall or opera house. Those rooms are built for sound and it seems only natural that the bone structure of the skull could have been designed accordingly. At this point, with the amplification of the mighty Boosteroo, sound vibrations from the conductors over the temples bypass the ear drum and resonate in the skull and are heard by the middle ear. Music becomes far more personal. It's closer somehow. Feel free to be consumed by any sound of your choice at your leisure. Personally, I can't do over two albums in a day. My head swirls. I'm still developing a sense of direction maybe. I have also been noticing that my awareness of sound is heightened in general by listening this way regularly. It comparable to the frustration of learning to write with your non-dominant hand. This can be intense psychologically and spatially. It has easily generated numerous emotions, uncontrollable tears, fright (this apparatus must be unearthed), and few to several near car accidents. I don't know if what I'm doing is healthy or safe, but it's fun. 

...ok, back to the study. I picked two songs. I've picked a clip from each one. I bounced out a Stereo version, one with just the right channel, and one in mono. It's not quite as clear as an example as I'd like to present. A lot of things come into play with what I hear depending on distance, which direction my ear is facing, and many other factors. Maybe this will at least show you a little bit of how I've lived for the past twenty-nine years. Maybe I won't figure it out tonight but I will find out why all my guitar pedals sound different and why I could never hear a talk box the right way until I put these headphones on.

Here are the clips. 

The first group of three clips are from the song "Water" on Menomena's; Under an Hour which was released in 2005.

The second group of three clips are from the song "Cut That City" on The Mar's Volta's; Tremulant EP released on April 2, 2002

 clips for my blog; Sound Became Color  by  Timothy Renato Pizza 

Earlier I brought out the debate of Melody Vs Quality. Melody sings to the heart. Quality is in the ear of the beholder. What you hear in song is yours entirely. It isn't necessarily what the next person hears. Melody drives the imagination and sound guides life. Own what you hear. Enjoy sound. It's important.

Besides, all of these questions and investigations can only keep me occupied for so long, somewhere around seventy days from now I'll hear sound totally differently and from a whole new perspective. One that isn't broken and one that doesn't involve conventional hearing or even human ears for that matter. How long can/should I dig up my audio-past and tear it apart? Who knows how long that will remain purposeful? Presently, I have a titanium rod in my skull mending with bone as we speak. It's gonna do even more to sound than I can imagine. Stick around. 

02-07-2010

It's Super-bowl Sunday today and that means peace and quiet around here. Seems like everyone else in the building is off somewhere screaming at a television set someplace. I've had people at my house since Thursday night. It's been an exciting few days around here. The Surgery for the BAHA system was a huge success. I hardly feel this abutment in the back of my head at all. When I wake up I've been a little confused to find this plug on the back of my head ( I posted a pic of it in the previous post).  Seriously, I've had stubbed toes that were more painful. I haven't even been taking the pain meds that often. I thought I was going to be on my back all week. Not the case, I'm going back to the office tomorrow. I really don't think there will be any comfort issues with this implant.

I have a few interesting blogs coming up when I get a chance to write a little more. I have a list I want to add to the Menomena post. I wrote down all of the times in the songs where I heard things differently so that if you have the album you can check out what I'm writing about. I'll try to see if I can post audio clips here as well. 

I'm also going to be writing about using the BP100 in a professional recording environment. More on that soon.  

So that was different.

A little woozy but I think it went ok

Menomena - Under an Hour

This album is the second effort of Portland Oregon's band, Menomena. It has an interesting background. They wrote this record for an interpretive dance group which they performed live (you can see it here). It contains three songs which are each around ten minutes long. The songs build lovely melodies that tease and build suspense throughout the listen. It does not have vocals. I chose to write about this record because it's transition from stereo to mono has re-categorized itself in ways that change why I decide to play it. I'd always listen to it at work because it keeps a nice positive flow throughout the record. It was great, it seemed like wonderful simple instrumental stuff that I could zone out to while entering accounting data at the office. In stereo, it has a whole new life. Stereo seems to be playing the role of possibly what maybe compared to the lead guitarist in any conventional band. Usually the role of the lead guitarist adds all the little fills and solos that steer any song from monotony. Stereo plays this role by carrying all of the extras, the ones that make notes dance with one another. To be able to hear everything at once gives everything a totally different perspective. For example, harmonic hits on a guitar can have two different sounds combined to make one really interesting sound, the first sound would be from the line out of the guitar and the second sound could be a microphone near the hole in the body that not only picks up tones but it picks the sounds that the instrument's player makes with his fingers on the strings, add a little reverb to this and the instrument sounds totally different to me because the stereo reverb comes from both sides while the direct line from the guitar is in panned to the middle, I only hear the direct line, depending on what channel it is in. I'm not sure if I even hear full mono. Anyways, this record has wonderful stereo theme that builds suspense and dances through each melody, perfectly making itself (in my opinion) another member of the band. I still have some trouble discerning which side the sounds move to and from but I hear everything now and it is truly inspiring.

Ten Days...

I decided to do it. On february the fifth of 2010 will be going down to 6th and Geary Street Kaiser Hospital, where I will be getting a titanium rod implanted behind my left ear. After it heals in hopefully two months (two months of no headphones or loud music at shows etc) the Audiologists at Kaiser will be giving me a B.A.H.A BP100. This device has a microphone on it that will send sound vibrations through the titanium rod, bypassing my left ear, and finally, sending it to my middle ear. I won't be deaf anymore. I'm excited and nervous as you can most definitely imagine. Surgery is a bitch but I have to do it.


I also have a stack of papers with tons of audio notes that I really want to post hear. I have tons of things to talk about. Just to name a couple amazing stereo finds; Menomena's Under an Hour, St Vincent's Marry me, Becks; The Information, all of them sound entirely different now.

I also want to talk about how the element stereo is as present as any band member on some records and discuss why maybe a large amount of people don't really acknowledge or seem to notice stereo. When I started asking questions a lot of people seemed to have difficulty articulating what was happening between the channels

Ten days and counting.

See you soon

Kid A - Radiohead

This is whole different record now. The vocals sound so different. There are some sounds I've never heard before (ever) in this song. They come in really lightly after the vocals and are unique. I can't really explain what it sounded like, maybe like a door slam. I have no idea what the hell is going here. This is awesome. Chills. 'This is really happening.'

De Loused in the Comatorium - The Mars Volta

This was a hard decision. I do remember pacing around for a few minutes before I could hit play. This Apparatus Must Be Unearthed really freaked me out. I was driving up by Alamo Square and had to pull over because I was getting dizzy from whatever the hell was going at 4:28. I could be wrong but it sounds like backwards drum, the crash sounds crazy and pan really fast, it sounds like a sword or a whip, that fast air sound. Cedric sounds so weird with all those vocal effect. I can't hear over half of them. His voice wobbles between channels and becomes robotic. It's sinister. The effect reminds me of talking through a fan while pretending to be Darth Vader. The rhodes sounds great, I don't remember it from before. I could see thinking it was a guitar riff maybe. It's really great hearing everything at once.

This Album left me feeling at a loss. I was then only beginning to realize that whole element of stereo is just as present as any member of the band. An intriguing amount action is happening between the two channels. The guitars sound so different. So bright and move all around, it's like the sounds from rhythm and lead are dancing, heh, I guess they are technically.

Dark Side of the Moon - The Flaming Lips, Henry Rollins and Peaches (Stardeath and the White Dwarves) (12-26-2009)

This was sort of funny. I'd just gotten the headphones on Xmas. I didn't have the booster unit so i had a towel tied around my head because it held the little things as tight to my temple as I could get them. I was wandering around the suburbs of my family's neighborhood at one a.m. in tears trying to make it as loud as possible. I didn't know what to do. I was dizzy and in shock. It was wonderful.

The record, it is amazing. The bass on it deserves a hug, it is the hardest dance fuzz beats, sort of like Go-Go dancing with a straight razor maybe or just pure good ol'fahion sleaze harnessed in a melody. It's got a confidence to it that seems to love the desperate side of things. Pink Floyd's original version is love. Every tenth of every second holds secrets and light. It's aware and waiting to strike sounds upon you. It has become an entity to people of all ages and yet the Flaming Lips seem to give in to it and do it their own way. It's honest and it tells the same story, but the feel is gritty and disturbed, the gritty comes hard and lies in the drums and bass. The "gritty" in this feels directed outward from the listener, it makes you crave more and more. Pink Floyd's tells you the story, when I listen to the Lip's, I'm telling the story. Dig?

01-09-2010

Well, I have a little time now. This whole experience has filled me with all sorts of emotions. I will gladly admit that I've lost my shit numerous times over the past few weeks. I've found myself pulled over on the side of the road in tears. I've felt betrayed in some ways as well. I've had all these records define different eras of my life and become my friends. I know that for a set amount of time I can count my friend to take me someplace I trust. I know that no matter what these albums are an hour of what ever musical image captured in time so that they can relive their story. I've payed the bends (Radiohead) numerous times, listened to it twice and thrown it out the window of my moving car, I will not explain. I know that if I'm really down I can turn on Vaya(at the drive-in) and feel human again. I know these records and they know me. Now, after all of this stereo I don't even know these records anymore. They have this life to them that I haven't seen and a lot of it is unexpected. Beauty, yes. But it's just so much. Some of the albums I am weary about hearing in stereo. I just don't want them to change. The music I've written was written in mono for the way I heard it when I wrote it, right now I can't imagine seeing some side of it that I never knew. So I won't be listening to any of it for a little while or maybe ever. It's just weird. I'm grateful for this. It's way more powerful than I could ever imagine. Where do I start now?




I'm keeping track of the albums I've re-listened to in stereo. Feel free to post suggestions.

Here Goes.

01-08-2010

I've been deaf in my left ear my whole life. I've listened to a lot of music. Now with this small amplifier device, bone conduction head phones, and ear buds I can hear stereo, I've dreamed about this my whole life (even more than having a super power). An interesting thing about the new headphones; I don't want to ever listen to music without them. I listen to NPR on the road and have total silence at the office. The only music I hear is from distant cars or televisions. I plan out my stereo listening for after dinner usually. I try to do two albums a day. My head feels weird after about an hour or two depending on what I'm hearing. When I have more time I'll try to list what I couldn't hear before and wether or not it made me fall over etc.