When You Hear Music in the Wrong Key
by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.
In the last e-zine, I wrote about a man that was having trouble hearing his piano on key, and how my wife hears two different pitches–one in each ear. They are not the only ones with this problem.
The day the e-zine came out, Joyce wrote:
I was most interested in your article “When Your Piano Sounds Bad,” especially your wife’s experience with different pitches in each ear. Despite my being born with a moderate-to-severe bilateral sensorineural hearing loss, I was also born with perfect pitch—the ability to identify musical notes without a reference.
I have been involved in numerous music-related jobs (playing the piano, directing choirs, directing or playing handbells, etc.) up until a very bizarre change took place almost overnight. My perception of pitches has changed. When this first happened, I would hear the song being transposed up a half or whole step even in the middle of the song (as I turned the page). It was maddening. Then it seemed to “settle” to the point that it only seems “off” when I’m a certain distance from the source of the sound. When I am in the congregation looking at the hymnal, the hymns sound as if they are in a different key than they are written. But when I go up to the piano, organ, or whatever instrument, it is in the correct key.
I can still play the piano, but always fear one day that even the piano will be in a different key as I’m playing it. I don’t sing anymore, as I never know if I’m hearing the correct key as they’re playing.
I truly wish I understood this difference in perception of pitch. If you know of any research in this area, please pass it on.
If anyone else has problems with pitch because of their hearing loss, I’d love to hear from you. I’m curious as to how common this problem really is, and if you’ve found ways to overcome it, Also, if you know of any research on this subject, please let me know.
May 13th, 2010 at 6:56 pm
Very interesting article and posts.
I am a female 59 year old lifelong musician/singer. I have a cookie bite hearing loss at the moderate/moderately severe level (on the border between the two). I’ve also had tinnitus for decades. I’m used to it. Have had Diva in-ear hearing aids for four years. I needed them long before I got them. I started singing flat more and more about 4 years ago — due to my faulty hearing and maybe allergies. I don’t know why my pitch detection sensibilities diminished then when I’d been able to match pitch when singing most of the time before that.It had not been an issue.I got hearing aids, thinking that would help. They helped me in daily life quite a bit, though I still don’t have “20-20″ hearing. Things are loud enough! Anyway, several months after I got hearing aids, my band and I recorded several of my vocals, which all turned out a quarter tone flat. This was over more than one day, several session. Embarassing. We had to fix the vocals with a pitch fixing program (I call it Fix A Flat). So I had my hearing aid volume boosted, which may have helped temporarily. Then I took a group voice class, in which I was told that I had NO pitch issues. Well, I guess I didn’t in that setting. But the issue has resurfaced, and I’m told I’m singing erratically flat 1/4 to almost a whole tone frequently. This occurs if just one guitar is playing, or if the whole acoustic band is wanking away with me singing. The other singers say it’s too hard to sing with me. I don’t know what to do. A recent audiological followup test showed minimal changes. Singing is something I’ve always been able to do. I can also hear a pitch then go to the piano and hit the key for that pitch. Occasionally music we’re playing in the band will sound off-pitch to me. It’s because of my faulty hearing, as no one else will be wincing. Most of it sounds on-key to me, though. When I tape myself singing, sometimes I can hear discrepancies, while much of the time I am not hearing any. I don’t know if it means I am missing it when I listen to myself on tape. I think that I am not off-key all the time. My audiologist and I think it’s worth trying Oticon hearing aids which don’t plug up the ear canal. So, sound will travel and resonate more naturally. Meanwhile, I am pretty depressed over this turn of events. I am still able to play my piano or accordion and be on key — thank goodness. But not to be able to sing on key is devastating to me. Any ideas out there? Vicki
July 22nd, 2010 at 8:00 am
Wow. It’s so encouraging to know that i’m not alone!
I’m 28yrs old, I’ve been playing the piano for around 10 years and perfect pitch; i had great plans for a career in Music – i guess i still do if things work put.
It’s been 4 months now since i started hearing distorted notes/key on my one good ear – (since the other has been clinically deaf for like forever.)
It’s so frustrating now. Music doesn’t sound the same when i hear it or play it. I’ve visited some of the top doctors in our area and they didn’t quite know how to deal with it since it’s not conductive hearing loss.
When i think of all i wanted to do, it’s a bit painful – but i’m still hopeful.
Right now, i’m just about to try a detox program – maybe it’ll help – i pray
Thanks and God Bless You All
[It's very hard to find anywhere on the internet where they talkabout this]
July 30th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
I also have had problems with pitch distortion. I am a flutist and I was diagnosed with autoimmune related hearing loss. Over about 15 years I have had several sudden losses of hearing in my right ear.
About 2 years ago, one day when I started practicing my flute, everything sounded wrong. I thought there was something wrong with my flute, but everyone assured me it sounded fine. My regular ENT didn’t know what to do with me, so I found another specialist.
I had a series of steriod injections into my ear. I’m not sure if these helped, but about 6 weeks later, my hearing gradually normailized.
Then about a year later, I had another episode of pitch distortion. This one lasted 8 months, but now I am hearing normally once again. Now I see a rheumatologist who has me on medication that is supposed to help with the autoimmune aspect.
When I wasn’t hearing pitch correctly, it was so frustrating and depressing. I couldn’t really describe it except that music didn’t make any sense to me anymore. I could barely recognize the simplest melodies and when you added in harmonies, it was like complete junk. It was difficult because I felt like no one could imagine what I was hearing, and also the doctors had no test for pitch.
One thing that helped sometimes was to wear an earplug in my good ear, because that one seemed to be where the distortion was happening. However, since my hearing in my unplugged ear wasn’t great, things sounded muffled but more in tune.
I am thankful that my hearing eventually returned, especially because my doctors were not hopeful that it would after so long.
August 8th, 2010 at 10:17 am
Recently I have started to notice the same problem as Keith. I am also a piano player and its frustrating to hear distorted notes.
At first I thought I was going crazy and my digital piano was going out of tune. But with a headset plugged into my digital piano and the balance set to either 100% to the left or right, it becomes very obvious that my right ear is perfectly fine. However, my left ear hears the E (key 56) and F ((key 57) as being distorted. Something about the frequencies 659-698 that is causing me trouble.
I am at a loss to what I can do.
August 8th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
I’ve been a professional entertainer for 40 years. Last year I aquired “Sudden Hearing Loss” in my right ear.,
Now I sing flat. It sounds perfect to me while I’m singing, however when I hear a recording of myself I sound awful. I feel like my life is over. I’ve tried a “Pitch Corrector” and it only corrects some notes, not all. By the way, when I do sing I can only hear my head voice, not the voice coming through the PA. Also tried an IN EAR Monitor and that didn’t help either.
Would really appreciate any feed back on this,
Thanks!
August 11th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
I am so glad to find these postings. I am a pianist and also music director/organist for a church. I was diagnosed with Meniere’s disease about five years ago which has caused major hearing loss and damage in my left ear. About two months ago, I noticed while playing for a choir rehearsal that I was hearing my own notes on the piano incorrectly. I though my own piano at home was going out of tune, after a recent tuning. Not all keys, but certain pitches were sounding flat to me. It went away after a few days but has recently resurfaced. I am trying hearing aids for my hearing loss, but seem to make the problem worse. My ENT and audiologist seem to have no idea what causes this. It is very frustrating. Are there any other good sources of information any of you have found on the web?
Thanks for any input you might have.
September 17th, 2010 at 9:41 pm
I just had my piano tune today and could hardly wait to try it out as I have not played recently.Oh dear, disaster from middle c up an octave, every note is flat. I played music I have known for years and could hardly recognize it. It was if i was playing in the minor. I wear 2 hearing aids and tried changing all the settings, but no improvement. With 2 daughters with major health problems, I have to recharge paying the piano. Wonder what I can do….Does not help one bit to play without the hearing aids…. any suggestions?
September 18th, 2010 at 6:18 am
Hi Grant:
I don’t know how to make your ears hear on pitch. Mine never have so I just enjoy the “funny” music my ears hear . My hearing also recruits at certain frequencies so the volume of adjacent keys may be double if you are going up the scale. Sounds really distorted, but that is just the way it is.
Anyway, if your hearing remains consistently off pitch–one octave sounds flat–and if you just play for your own enjoyment, you could have your piano specially detuned so it sounds right to your ears. Then you could enjoy playing again–but no one would ever want to listen to you play!
Neil
October 25th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
I’m so glad to have found this!
I was a music minor in college, and although I haven’t been doing much with music per se, I used to play the piano all the time until I had to move and sold it. My hearing, since age 6 or so, when I started to study music, had perfect pitch.
Several years ago, I noticed that I started hearing known pieces in a different key. I was wondering what wa going on. I got to a piano and confirmed what I was hearing: every key sounded 1/2 tone sharp: E sounded like F, F like F#, etc.
I asked my doctor and he said maybe the piano was off key (No, that wasn’t it, it happened on EVERY musical instrument I hear.) An ENT checked my hearing and said my hearing was better than average for my age (around 50), and he had never heard of what I was talking about. I asked some music professors I encountered about it, and they never heard of it either, and told me the same thing the first doctor told me (maybe the piano was off key, the orchestra was playing in a different key, etc.)I told them it had happened on every musical instrument I hear, and they had no idea of what could be causing it.
After sveral years with this problem and without a piano, I decided to buy a new piano. I kept on hearing the wrong notes, but kept forcing myself to keep going. This was really hard, as when I tried to play some things from memory I would get confused with the sounds I was hearing vs. the notes I was supposed to be playing. I kept on telling myself what notes I was playing as I was playing them, to see if my ear would adjust back to it, but it just made me more confused. Now I didn’t know if I was “transposing” what I really heard, or what the heck I was hearing. Practice did not seem to help, and I’m still stuck with hearing the wrong key.
It’s ben really frustrating to consult with professionals who have no idea what you’re talking about.
I’m really glad I found this post. It verifies that I’m not imaagining things.
If anyone hears of a cause and possible solution I would be really interested in knowing about it.
Best to all,
Pete
PETEHEMAIL1-INFO1@yahoo.com
October 25th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
PS:
In my case, it’s every single note, not just some notes.
November 1st, 2010 at 5:46 am
Listening to music has become a problem for me in the last few years as my hearing has deteriorated. Piano especially is affected more than other instruments. As well as losing the frequency range,in my favourite Alfred Brendl Schubert Impromptus the thing wanders maddeningly off key at crucial moments.
I play classical guitar but I do not encounter the same sort of problem with that instrument. Is it just the piano that’s affected for some reason?
March 2nd, 2011 at 2:49 pm
Finally — proof that it’s not only me that has this debilitating problem…. If you love to play music like I do (did), you will understand why this particular problem is so devastating. This is also why I hardly ever want to pick up my guitar or go to jams any more. This off-key business would just occur every now and then, and I couldn’t really play with the band during those periods wondering whether my guitar was out of tune or someone else was out of tune, or what was going on. For example the song may be playing in the key of G, but every note or chord in the G scale sounds flat, so I might plunk a note in the A scale just to test the waters, and the A scale notes would sound closer to the actual key being played to ME, but in actuality that’s when the guys would wince and give me THE LOOK. At that point I would just quit playing. After the next song or two, the problem would go away. In the mean time I would try to follow in the correct key, although it sounded off to me. As long as nobody gave me THE LOOK, I figured I was OK even if it sounded horrible to my ears. I would pass any of my lead work off to Ronnie or just shake my head “no” when it came time for any solos. This whole situation sometimes makes me almost cry because I really love to play music.
I also run into this phenomena quite a bit when listening to music on the radio or TV, especially while driving my car. It makes the songs sound so bad, I just stay tuned to talk radio. I’ve sometimes thought it was another band covering a familiar tune and they were doing a bad job of it until I listened really hard and figured out it was the original, but I was just hearing it wrong. Drives me absolutely nuts.
I have about 50% hearing loss and I’ve had severe tinnitus since 1995.
April 16th, 2011 at 11:52 pm
I am 75 and have had hearing loss in both ears for about 15 years. Several years ago I got Oticon behind the ear hearing aids. Hearing has been much better but not perfect.
Ten days ago I went to a 2+hour Elton John Concert. I hears his piano off-key the entire time. Other instruments (not dominant) sounded ok.
Tonight “The New World” sounded marvelous in the first half. Garrick Ohlsson played Beethoven in the second half and the piano sounded off-key to me.
Any suggestions.
April 26th, 2011 at 10:01 am
What I am trying to find out is what happens, or has happened in the inner ear to make note sound off-pitch and wrong. People give their problems, yet no anwser has been posted why the notes are heard distorted.
April 26th, 2011 at 10:21 am
Hi Rolf:
I’d love to know the answer too. Many things about our ears are still mysteries at this point. If I ever hear the answer, I’ll post it so all can know what’s going on–and hopefully what you can do about it to “fix” it.
Neil
April 27th, 2011 at 1:52 pm
I experienced Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss in my left ear (good ear!) 2 years ago. I am a church musician/choral director. I, too, am hearing things off key – for example when I dial a phone and wait for the person to answer, the ringing tone is a perfect 4th lower in my left ear than my right! It is so difficult for me to discern and correct the choir. The organ and piano sound weird. I also have diploccusis and tinnitis in that ear. I am sooo frustrated and have been anxious since all of this happened. One ENT said it was likely due to the damage in the cochlea and nerve (probably due to a virus) and there was nothing they could do to help me with the pitch problem. I’m trying hearing aids (for the loss in both ears) for the first time and after several visits with audiology, I’m meeting with the PHONAK rep today, too. I’m armed with questions and lots of info from musicians trying to successfully use hearing aids that I have found on a variety of places on the web! So far, the aids work great for conversation but I’m not anywhere close to being satisfied with the musical results. Thanks to all of you for postings. I certainly have felt I was crazy lately and felt very alone. The best to all of you in your journies…
May 13th, 2011 at 5:03 am
This is a really old set of comments, and may have been superseded. But I have the problem, and have come up with a theory on it. I think that hearing loss isn’t linear, but spotty–and what may be happening is that one is hearing fundamentals reduced, and emphasizing hearing of first and second overtones. Problem is, these are PERFECT intervals, not tempered–and hearing them against an octave in the same chord, which will be TEMPERED, could cause the sense of “out of tune”.
Kirk H
May 23rd, 2011 at 9:02 am
I experienced this the other night while playing in a band. What i was playing sounded a half step higher than what I was actually playing. Although a potential explanation hasn’t been spoken of here, it’s somewhat comforting to know that I’m not the only one.
June 13th, 2011 at 9:45 pm
I am experiencing virtually the same problem as Marilyn: sudden sensorineural hearing loss in my left ear (overnight) with tremendous distortion of all music except very high pitched solo instruments. I was also treated with prednisone and, when that had no effect, an steroidal injection directly through my ear drum. Nothing has helped. Everything else sounds like a jumble of distorted, out-of -tune notes in which I can discern no melody. This is especially true of instruments with complicated sound production such as an organ or piano. I cannot distinguish a starting pitch in order to sing unless I start it myself and sing a capella (I have been a musician for over 50 years). When I listen to my own compositions, which generally contain close harmony and some dissonance, I cannot distinguish anything that compares to what I wrote of remember. This is frustrating and depressing. The music is evocative of specific feelings and times in my life which are now inaccessible. I am profoundly deaf in my right ear with a constant mid-range tinnitus that, before, I was able to ignore most of the time. A major part of my life has been taken from me and, if you have any ideas, know anyone who specifically works with this type of problem, or know of any effective supplements, please let me know. I am presently taking magnesium aspartate, Vinpocetine, and a fish oil supplement but, so far, no luck.
July 19th, 2011 at 7:03 am
I have read with great interest the many e:mails from people with problems hearing ‘off key’.And like some others am glad that ‘it’s not just me’!However,I have yet to find any information as to what may cause this condition and what,if any,remedies may exist.I feel as if something has ‘broken’in my ears but my audiologist does not seem to think that a scan will show anything up.Any suggestions as to what I might do?.
July 29th, 2011 at 8:10 pm
It is such a relief to know there are others suffering with this problem. My pitch distortion started with one note – the A an octave and a-half above middle C. Of course I thought my digital piano was out of tune, which of course is not possible. That was about 5 years ago and I could still go to concerts for a few more years. I am a classical music lover. Now, however there are so many wrong-sounding notes I cannot listen to music at all – it’s agonizing noise. An additional conplication in my case: my hearing was bad enough that I was approved for a cochlear implant. The implant alters the quality of the sound which I knew, but kind of hoped that bypassing the damaged hair cells and feeding sound directly to the audio nerve might somehow correct the pitch distortion. That didn’t happen – so I’m wondering where does the problem exist?
September 3rd, 2011 at 4:32 pm
I have hearing problems (reduced volume) which is corrected with good hearing aids. However, after a visit to the shooting range (where I wore ear protection), I’ve not only lost a good deal more hearing in my right ear, but also in the left. I am a pianist, organist and choir singer (all amateur). Furthermore, certain notes in the high range now are heard off-key in the manner to the descriptions in previous comments. It’s also the case that many heard (high) frequencies are “noisy,” and some appear to be “amplified.” I can hear the shrill tones of the highest pipe organ pipes, in spite of having the usual taper-off of high frequency sensitive due to age and inheritance.
I haven’t been in this condition very long, but I am observing that listening to music which I know (and now hear parts of it off-key) tends to move my pitch perception in the right direction after a few minutes. However, this has to be relearned during every musical session. I hope this is “brain-retraining,” and I hope that if I retrain enough, it might tend to become more permanent.
Boyd Murrah
September 27th, 2011 at 11:07 am
It’s very interesting to see the amount of people who struggle with hearing
Loss . My father has been a proffesional drummer for years , he hasn’t traveled for years and to make ends meet he bought a truck to deliver freight during the day. While it made him a great living and gave him the oppurtunity to play his music and keep his job as Minister of Music at his church , however at some point he has lost some of his hearing. My thought is because of the loudness of the music from the clubs and the church and the truck is just as loud, well he has starting singing flat and he ask me work with him on pitch , I just pray that it helps him and that he doesnt get discouraged. He plays jazz on Friday and Saturday evening with a great band and just want him to be ok..I don’t know where I would be with out my piano or my voice but I’m grateful to know that he isn’t the only one..
October 18th, 2011 at 2:27 am
I am 31 years old and I can hear certain frequencies other people cant seem to hear. For example if I’m around fans or dishwasher, washer, dryer, freezers in the store.. ect. I can hear a high pitch whistle type nose come off of certain things. Running water causes like a slight echo type effect in the background. I have the echo effect and on some things and a whistle noise that only I can hear on others. When listening to the tv or radio depending on the song and the musical tones with it I can hear certain frequencies very strangely.. I have this in both ears..this problem is almost as troubling as my tinnitus. This is very hard to live with. Does anyone else have or have had this issue??
October 30th, 2011 at 1:14 am
My situation seems similar to Pete. I’ve had perfect pitch since age 4 when I began playing piano. Since I can ever remember I’ve always been able to immediately identify a pitch when I’ve heard it played on an instrument.
I am 46 years old, and in the past year or two, I have been noticing more and more errors. When playing in my band, I think I’m hearing certain notes/chords and when I join in I often find I’m in the wrong key.
When I am wrong I am almost always 1/2 tone out.
It is affecting my playing and also how I hear and experience music. Individual pitches no longer seem to have the same unique qualities and flavours that they always used to have.
I’ve read that perfect pitch goes with age just like vision. I lost my 20/20 vision in my late 30′s and now have trouble reading close up, but there are glasses available to help with this, so I’ve found that less distressing.
Anybody else experience a decline in perfect pitch with age?
I want to know what I can do to prevent it from getting any worse. I read something about Gingko Biloba, Magnesium, and Vitamin B12 as helping.
Has anyone tried these?
November 20th, 2011 at 3:13 pm
This is an interesting thread. I have been having some issues with this type of thing myself. I am going to try an experiment. I have two iPod touches with the “dog whistler” app. It is a frequency generator basically. Well….I will try taking a headphone from each iPod and go through the frequencies on each one and see if there are any discrepancies between ears. Put both on the same frequency and see if they sound the same, if not, adjust one till they do and see how far off on hertz each ear is and see if it is consistent through out the frequency range. Just a shot in the dark but…seems like i read about some hearing aids that can transpose frequencies. Maybe there could be a solution on that road. BTW I have reverse slope and tinnitus and at this point not sure how much my hearing is affected by this “hearing in a different key ” issue.
Also…I suspect the problem lies in the brain and is affected heavily by tinnitus….Maybe in the same vein as the ” phantom music” people here have mentioned. It could be the brain trying to compensate for the constant ringing in the ears…which the brain thinks is real but in reality it’s not and it is affecting the sound that that your brain perceives to be hearing.
There could be some medications that could improve this.
THC or maybe Xanax, Valium. I know thc affects my hearing tremendously.
December 6th, 2011 at 2:12 pm
I am a musician and composer. I’ve had a mild cold for about a week. Yesterday it got to that stage where your head feels very big and heavy. I woke up, today, in the middle of the night with an ear-ache on one side, and even my jaw on that same side was a little sore. I took some decongestants and went back to bed. When I woke up this morning I had less pain, but noticed that the music playing on the radio was distorted. It sounded like it was passing through a ring-modulator, if you know what that it is. If you don’t, listen to early Stockhausen music. Especially his piece “Mantra”, and you’ll understand how I was hearing music.
Upon closer inspection, it seems that the affected ear, my left, is perceiving pitches a little flatter than the right — similar to many on this board. I hope some positive news comes soon.
December 11th, 2011 at 8:54 pm
dear john,
i hear these frequencies too.
get back to me here.
it’s worse than the tinnitus. in a bad place right now.
did it stop?
December 27th, 2011 at 5:41 pm
I wrote the last time on June 13 and, since that time I have seen a number of specialists (from Yale New Haven and from Johns Hopkins) who do not know what causes the problem I am experiencing with pitch. The last person I saw is a highly regarded musician as well as a well-published ENT, and at least we agreed on what I was actually hearing, if not the cause. On low to medium range notes, I seem to be hearing the 2nd overtone instead of the root note. On notes above C4 on the piano, I hear pretty much the correct pitch, though it is sometimes flat. Our conclusion is that the reason I’m not hearing as much distortion on the higher notes is that the overtones are less evident than they are on lower pitches. I think I am able to hear my own voice internally in tune, but of course I have my doubts…
I am profoundly deaf in my right ear with relatively bothersome tinnitus, and moderately to severely limited hearing in my left ear. The last couple of experts I spoke to surmised that I may have a fluid build-up and pressure in my left ear which is causing the distortion, so the suggestions were that I take a diuretic and start a low sodium diet to see if I notice any difference in my hearing. It will take 2-3 months to experience an improvement according to the people I spoke with. In addition, I am taking a number of supplements (Vinpocetine, Gingko Biloba, Acetyl-L-Carnitine and Vitamin B-12) which are supposed to have the effect of dilating blood vessels in the brain, so as to supply more oxygen. So far I have not heard any improvement, but I do seem to be able to “will” certain pitches temporarily back to being perceived as correct, but only occasionally and never with more than one pitch at a time. I hope this helps, and hope you all get a great New Year’s present of restored hearing.
December 29th, 2011 at 3:28 pm
I have been a church organist for some years, and the first thing I noticed was that when I was trying to set up a notice for the organ technician, while I could tell that some notes on the organ sounded out-of-tune to me, when I went through the notes with the various stops, it seemed that the out-of-tune notes were following a relationship pattern that couldn’t have just been so consistent by coincidence! I decided to test my hearing on other instruments besides the organ, and found that the piano and voices sounded out-of-tune in the same way as the organ had! I then concluded that it was my ears! It isn’t that bad yet, but I have noticed that for some time, it just is not as enjoyable to do my work in music as it was in the past. I have retired now, and I will probably go in another direction. I keep trying to make things sound right, or not to be bothered by the distortion, but I think it’s getting worse.
December 29th, 2011 at 8:18 pm
It is very hard NOT to be bothered, isn’t it? I am finding out some interesting things when I play and sing. Although I’m hearing incorrect pitches on the piano, when I sing along, on something I know extremely well, I seem to be hearing correct bass notes or at least they conform to what I know is the range of my voice. The whole thing sounds generally cacophonous, but I seem to be “making” it sound somewhat more correct than it did previously. I hope that my brain is adjusting a bit to what my ears are sending. Good luck!
January 4th, 2012 at 7:41 am
I last posted on July 19th 2011.my audiologist says the I hear notes “off key” because the micro hairs that line the coclia are damaged (ie..flattened)so if you imagine these hairs being like piano keys then it is like having some of the keys missing when you hear sounds.I play an arranger keyboard on which I can select the sounds with frequencies that I can hear fairly accurately.The more I play,the more I find my brain compensating….so I believe it is possible to “train my brain” .This is of course OK with music/songs/melodies etc.that I know,but new pieces are very difficult if not impossible to interpret.So I think I just have to persevere and hope that this problem does not get worse!
January 21st, 2012 at 11:01 pm
Very interesting thread.
I am a professional singer in my 50′s and teach voice. While in mid-career during my forties, I started to have pitch problems. Having first been tested while in college, I was aware that I had minor hearing loss, the deepest being 30db at 4hz. I went to Toronto to the Listening Centre which is based on the work of Dr. Alfred Tomatis who is considered the Christopher Columbus of the ear and took a 60 course of listening training which helped me tremendously. A decade later, I experienced the onset of tinnitus quite suddenly and now wear two Phonak hearing aids. Curiously, my ENT did not recommend them to me since- on paper – my hearing loss should not warrant them- or so he thought. However, wearing them has made it possible for me to continue my career, giving me a sense of ‘stereo’ back. My point here is that even a small degree of hearing loss has an effect on how the voice and other instruments are perceived.
What I am trying to say here is that the medical profession really doesn’t understand or do much research into performance and musical ability with regard to hearing and audiological concerns. I know this because I attend voice conferences where the main interest is still in issues related to the larynx and the vocal tract. The ear is not considered very much. It’s role is singing and hearing of music is still not very well understood.
Back to Tomatis. His work – I believe- is revolutionary and could be helpful to many people to pitch discrimination issues. He wrote a book titled “The Ear and the Voice” which gives the reader an excellent sense of his work.
Suffice it to say, I credit the training I received in Toronto with giving me back my career- and- I hasten to note- my voice.
While I cannot speak for him, I believe Tomatis would say that the inability to hear ‘in tune’ is related to the ability of the two muscles within the ear to function at their optimum. And this speaks to a great truth: most audiologists and ENTS don’t understand that hearing and listening are not the same thing. One is an passive matter while the other is active.
Tomatis’ Listening Training exercises the muscles of the ear, and helps them to learn to focus again. It is however, not a cure for deafness. It is worth considering re this discussion.
January 21st, 2012 at 11:08 pm
I want to make my point as clear as possible.
My experience tells me that hearing loss is one issue, while the other is the ear’s ability to focus on sound. (This – I know from my word with singers- can be trained.) All too often audiologist’s believe these two functions are the same.
January 21st, 2012 at 11:17 pm
Hearing aids my boost the sound, but they can’t get the muscles in the ear to discriminate. This takes time and training, and is very much the work I do as a voice teacher. It is what Tomatis’ Listening Training helped me do.
February 20th, 2012 at 10:43 pm
Thanks for your insight, Daniel. I have also been looking into Tomatis training because the theory makes a lot of sense. The idea of exercising the damage hair cells and the two muscles you speak of is a positive move that I can make, rather than relying on passive means. I am certainly willing to put in the time, but I want to make sure that I am working with a reliable practitioner. I live in Connecticut, within fairly easy driving distance of NYC. Anybody have a suggestion?
February 22nd, 2012 at 12:41 pm
I discovered this forum about a month and a half ago. Right after I had my go around with five doctors. Three EMt’s and an audiologist and nurse and my dentist. All didn’t know what was going on with my hearing .. The tinnitus has had me on the ropes for over ten years and I’ve learned to live with it. Most of my life I’ve been a mechanic(now retired)cars, Heavy equipment and fork lifts . Some times I was involved in many situations with loud banging ,hammers, explosions and on and on. But here is the problem,I’ve also been a musician and singer for well over 40 years.I’ve been in numerous bands and volume never really seemed to bother me, until a party we played(with my band) new years eve. It seems I picked up a middle ear infection(sinus) and all turned south after that,the tinnitus kicked up louder and when we had the next band job we started to play and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing . Everyone sounded off key. To loud ,my guitar sounded out of tune and my voice was off pitch. I was devastated. ,the night dragged on , I couldn’t explain it and people just looked and Whaaa.But since the doctors had no explanation of what was going on, as an ex mechanic I decided to try and fix this problem or find the cause.. As it turns out through many hours of fishing around I have hyperacusis. This describes what all in this forum may have. No one told me what to do for this ,so I’m self prescribing. I’m on T-Gone for Tinnitus (a homeopathic)and I’ve started Universal Sound Therapy ,For tinnitus and hyperacusis.These are cd’s and all you do is put on the head phones and listen . It all seems like witchcraft I know ,but of all the studies that have been done the last 50 years. I think these guys have something . So I’m going to give it my best and try to get back to square one.If things improve I’ll make another entry. Good Luck B.B.
April 12th, 2012 at 4:17 pm
About a week ago i began to develop a head cold. It started with a sore throat and coughing and got worse and i then developed ear pain. Saturday night April 7, into Sunday morning, at about 2a.m., I experienced the worst ear pain, and worst pain in general that I ever had in my 20 years of living. A nurse once told me for ear ache to pour a little peroxide into your ear and lay on your side for 10 minutes to clean it, then flip over to let it drain. Since I did that, my ears have been fine but about 2 or 3 days ago, either Monday or Tuesday, I noticed that the song I was listening to on my iPod sounded higher than it usually did. I listened to a couple other songs to see if I was right. They all sounded about a half step higher than what they are supposed to. I thought maybe it was just my headphones but through out the passed couple of days I noticed that I have been hearing everything in a higher key. (my computer, the door bell, the microwave). It is harder to tell with human voices but everything that always sounds exactly the same each time sounds higher. I have not looked into it yet but I plan on it because I am a singer and this is becoming a problem for me. Good luck to everyone with the same problem, Julianne.
April 20th, 2012 at 12:25 pm
I’m 63, have read almost all of the comments above and can say that, for years, I’ve been experiencing the same sensations: out of key pianos, violins, flutes and even some singers, mainly females. I used to go to classical music concerts, but, today, the orchestra’s instruments seem to be out of tune one to another, I loved to hear my records of Trisha Yearwood and Bonnie Raitt, for instance, but it seems to me that, today, the same records and performances don’t sound as good as yesterday.
I have a hearing loss in both ears, mainly due to been working in noisy environments for years (steel plate equipment factory). Never tried hearing aids cause I don’t think they would fix the problem. I have a band, sing and play base guitar and, often, I don’t like some passages or riffs of my friend’s guitar solos. In some musics I’m affraid of singing out of tune.
I was born and live in Brazil and never was successful in explaining this problem to doctors (nobody knows what you’re talking about!).
Finally today, I had the idea of search in english in Google an found this site. For the first time, I’m telling of my problem to people who, I’m sure, will understand. If you know of someone in Brazil that reads this lines and could help me, please write to me. Thank you so much. Ricardo
May 9th, 2012 at 10:40 am
Firstly, please excuse if this rambles or gets overly-wordy at any point; I’m typing very much train-of-thought-ish.
I’m a part-time jazz singer/musician and also suffer the problem where my right ear hears about a half-step below my left (my heart goes out to those of you who have it far worse!). I’ve had the problem for some time now, although I find that my brain generally filters it back into a coherent note when I hear music in both ears (a bit like how it can resolve the stereo eye images into one, I guess). I’m uncertain whether it has improved ever so slightly or not over time (I think it may have), but it’s definitely still there. Sometimes I do find myself wondering if I’m hearing differently on each side when on a singing gig or a separate bass gig, particularly if I’ve got a foldback speaker on one side and Front of House speaker feed hitting me on the other but again, if I concentrate on hearing the overall sound in both ears at the same time (as opposed to the two separate signals), the problem is less of an issue. I also find the more I worry about it, the worse the problem; sometimes it’s better to just go on instinct and throat muscle memory. I find I notice it most if I’m listening to audio from a speaker or a live source in one ear and a headphone signal of the same in the other, as there’s isolation between the two so I don’t get to ‘blend’ the signals.
In terms of treatment, I relate to the frustration expressed here. Most ear specialists I’ve been to just ran hearing sensitivity tests (ie, for detecting hearing damage) but when it came up as no problem, they were stumped (apparently diplacusis can be a symptom of this (or possibly vice versa?), but I suspect they were running those tests by default as opposed to chasing a relevant lead). Having said that, none of them tried anything that would look in to measuring the actual problem itself, such as mapping the problem across the frequency spectrum in either ear. Having done very simple tests at home using a tone generator and different harmonics of A, I’ve found it’s most pronounced for me in the 220-440Hz range and less so continuing upwards. 110HZ seems either too low to pick a pronounced difference or the effect is diminished in that range too (interestingly, when on a singing gig, I reference my pitch off the bass (which is playing the harmonies); perhaps this makes it easier because they seem less affected?). I find it interesting that the problem is not a consistent % shift across all frequencies, but targeted at a limited range; I’m assuming that there’s some kind of physical factor in my ear/sinuses etc that’s causing some kind of phase interference primarily in that wavelength range and harmonically less so in the others. I’ve also noticed that my right ear generates a harmonic overtone when listening to simple sine tones, whereas the left does not; it would be very interesting to try to find out if there’s a most significant key at which all these problems occur (and at which pitch).
I also suffer a very, very mild tinnitus at a very high frequency; it’s like hearing the really soft high-pitched whine that the old CRT TV’s used to make, but I’m not sure if this is related or not.
Like everyone else, I wonder about the cause too and one question that I think is worth asking is: did you notice any other physical changes for yourself around the time the problem started to appear? Or perhaps an accident? The only ideas thrown up at me by the specialists was that it was allergy based (ie, resulting in swelling of the sinuses & Eustachian tubes) and that it would fade, but this seems unlikely (unless I’m permanently reacting to something; not impossible, I guess, but anti-histhamines had no impact, so I’m guessing that’s not it). The various articles on-line mention that physical trauma could be a cause; unfortunately I didn’t know this when I was seeing doctors about it, as I would have mentioned there are two physical traumas that I believe may have/are contributing to my state: (i) I fainted about 5 yrs ago and banged the left hand side of my head on concrete (from a standing position!) & (ii) I clench my teeth rather tightly at night from stress which causes me terrible headaches and I’m sure a minor swelling in the jaw muscles (which are very close to the ear). I use a mouthguard to take some of the pressure off, but it only helps a little.
I’m also now wondering if my condition is not Meniere’s Disease, given the various references to one accompanying the other. I do experience very occasional spells of the rotational vertigo referred to in articles on Meniere’s (interestingly, most commonly after a particularly bad night’s teeth-clenching), so now that’s got me wondering.
Daniel (Post #33 above) mentions muscle re-training for the ears, and I’m also wondering about whether brain re-training isn’t also a possibilty (as per the notions of brain plasticity discussed in Norman Doidge’s book: “The Brain That Changes Itself”; if the brain can be re-trained to create new brain-maps for body movement after stroke damage, perhaps we can do the same with hearing?).
I’ve found that when comparing simple tone pitches alternately in each ear using headphones (ie, where only one ear is ever getting the tone at any one time), by remembering the tone I just heard in my good ear, I can ‘focus’ my brain to adjust what the bad ear’s saying that it’s hearing and cause the perceived pitch-offset to diminish a bit so that it’s harder to pick the difference. I also suspect that the regular singing I do on gig helps, as it forces me to focus on and tune both aurally and mechanically into the correct pitch.
I’m also curious about post #17 (Kirk): interesting theory, will have to look into that.
Incidentally, here’s an interesting article I found online; haven’t finished digesting it yet, but if someone makes full sense of it before me, let us all know!
http://www.isa-audiology.org/periodicals/1962-1970_International_Audiology/InternatAudio,%20%20Vol.%202,%20%201963/No.%202%20%20%28159-270%29/Gotze,%20%20InternatAudio,%20%201963.pdf
Best wishes in shared frustration,
Paul
May 10th, 2012 at 11:27 pm
Wow–Paul’s description above nailed my ears if in reverse. I hear a ring tone in my cell phone a whole step flat compared to the right. Seems to come and go. Am a church organist. Was worst with softest stops–loud stops did not bother me. Middle C and B below middle C greatly distorted. Has mostly cleared up now–at its worst I was hearing notes of the lowest octaves far off in the distance, if at all. ENT thinks it is Meniere’s but I do not have dizzieness. Am having an MRI tomorrow to rule out other possible problems like MS.