Dear Ross,
I am running a project called ‘Hearing Aids for Music’ in the UK and have been looking at the music listening experiences of HA users for the last few years.
Unfortunately, her experiences are not uncommon. HAs are designed for speech and can be problematic for music. There are strategies for improving the situation
though, including working with audiologist over time, having a music program fitted to HAs, listening practice etc.
An introduction to the project, some resources, and conference materials are available here:
www.musicandhearingaids.org
As a starting point, she could head for the patient leaflet on the resources tab which outlines why music can be challenging for HAs and provides advice and
suggested strategies to improve experiences in different listening and performance settings.
She is also welcome to contact me on
musicandhearingaids@xxxxxxxxxxx
Best wishes,
Alinka
Dr Alinka Greasley
PhD, BSc, CPsychol, PGCLTHE, FHEA
Associate Professor of Music Psychology
School of Music
University of Leeds
Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK
Email:
a.e.greasley@xxxxxxxxxxx
Phone: + 44 113 343 4560
Homepage:
http://music.leeds.ac.uk/people/alinka-greasley/
Music:
www.soundcloud.com/djlinkz
Hearing aids for music: Exploring the music listening behaviour of people with hearing impairments
Web:
http://musicandhearingaids.org/
Funded by AHRC (AH/M00368X/1)
From: AUDITORY - Research in Auditory Perception [mailto:AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Ross Alexander Hendler
Sent: 20 July 2018 03:51
To: AUDITORY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AUDITORY] Music specific hearing loss
Dear Colleagues,
I have a good friend who has moderate to severe hearing loss and although she can hear speech pretty well, thanks to her digital hearing aids, she is having big issues with hearing music. She claims that music sounds flat and distorted
and that she can't hear melodies.
She feels that part of the problem may have to do with bandwidth as hearing aids are designed for speech. She also says that if a piece of music is in a certain key such as C she will hear it as a Bb.
As a music lover this has become a big issue for her and I wanted to see if anyone might have any ideas or any engineers I might be able to refer her to.
Regards,
Ross