Music - Do I hear what you hear?

I love to listen to music. Growing up I would often listen to music with my hearing aids off and headphones on. Yet I often wonder if I hear the same as other people hear. I know that my hearing loss is not a straight line, I hear some sounds louder than other sounds. This must alter the music that I hear to some degree.

Most of the time I listen to music through my hearing aids. My hearing aids alter the sound that comes into my ears. I know that some sounds are a lot more mechanical to me when I'm wearing my hearing aids then when I am not.

All this leads me to the conclusion that I have no idea how music really sounds. I remember watching American Idol and asking my husband if the person was singing good or not. I simply cannot tell.

I do know what I like and don't like. In the end that is all that matters. As curious as I am to what the difference is between my ears and "normal" ears it's not an answer I would ever obtain. And if I did I might not enjoy the same sounds that I do now.

There is only one aspect of music that I know would be different if I didn't have a hearing loss: base. I can't stand base. My ears are very sensitive and base hurts. In my car I have the base turned down as far as it will go. The few rock concerts I have gone to leave my ears ringing and numb for a day or more after wards. Today it seems a lot of people my age really enjoy base while I run fleeing in the other direction.

I'm sure some of this comes down to aesthetics. But when dealing with a hearing loss how much is the loss affecting the aesthetics? I already know I avoid base more than I would if my hearing was fine. It's a mystery that shall remain buried.

The Battle of Batteries

Hearing aids run on batteries. They are small, watch sized batteries. The smaller the hearing aid, the smaller the battery. So small that for an arthritic hand they are often extremely hard to manipulate.

There are several different sizes of batteries. Most know them by numbers, I know them by color. This is more than likely due to getting hearing aids at such a young age. To this day I refer to my batteries as brown and orange rather than 12 and 312 (I can't tell you which number belongs to which color). And no one ever knows what I'm referring to.

The life of a hearing aid battery is short: 1-2 weeks on average. If a hearing aid is weak or running at full power it's battery life will be shorter. This is why I am concerned my left hearing aid has an issue: it's going through batteries at a faster rate than normal.

A hearing aid has several different ways to indicate low battery life. For my old analog hearing aids the sound would get softer and softer. These hearing aids had a volume control on them, so I would end up with the volume all the way up before I realized the battery needed to be changed. Some hearing aids will just become quiet when the battery dies. My newest ones beep. When this happens I often turn schizophrenic. The first beep tends to scare me and cause me to jump. The second beep is supposed to come a minute later but often comes immediately. I can be heard saying "all right, all right" mid sentence when my battery starts dying as a start to grab a new battery.

When I was a teenager I once dropped a new battery into a friend's backyard. We had a search party rummaging through the grass looking for the tiny battery. It was the only one I had on me and I was so very happy when it was found!