1 post tagged “disharmonic hearing”

(note: for those of you wondering why I'm recording cello arrangements of Jawbox songs, please see the original post below)

Recording is going well -- Alex and I have four songs completed at this point: Iodine, Desert Sea, Tools & Chrome, and Spoiler.  I broke down and started a Myspace Music page which includes 30-second samples of some rough mixes, so feel free to add it to your Myspace friends if you're into that sort of thing.  I'll keep the major project updates on this blog, though.

Recently I set up a Google Alert to automatically email me daily blog/news updates on Cal Robbins, and it is so wonderful to see how many people in the music community are taking up his cause, organizing benefit shows, or just getting the word out.  It would be impossible to quantify the impact Jawbox (and Burning Airlines and Channels) has had on so many musicians -- I've even received emails from people in Canada and France who credit Jawbox with changing their entire perceptions of music.  Meanwhile, I've been anxiously checking Cal's blog for updates on his condition.  When I listen back to what I've recorded so far, there is an audible sense of urgency in every track.

Yesterday afternoon I had what I thought would be a major setback -- the re-appearance of symptoms of diplacusis that I had once for a period of two weeks following a very nasty cold sometime in 1993 or 1994.  Also called "double disharmonic hearing," it is the sensation of hearing the same pitch as two different tones in each ear  At the time, I (probably unwisely) ignored it and it gradually went away, and luckily it seems to have disappeared again, this time overnight.  It is such a strange and apparently rare condition that there is almost nothing written about it (it doesn't even have a wikipedia page.  is that even possible in 2007??), and it took 30 minutes of various Google searches just to find out what it is.  However, I did determine that it is caused by hearing damage, so no more earbuds for me, and when I'm recording I guess I'll only have the headphones over my left ear.  With the symptoms, it is nearly impossible to play, as one can't tell if any particular note is in tune, so I am fervently hoping it doesn't come back.