Cochlear Implants and Music
February 2003 - One of the common complaints of people
who use CIs is the difficulty they have with music. Now an English
engineer has announced innovations that will improve
music listening with a CI.
January 2006 - Advanced Bionics Working on 120 Channel
Processor
October 2006 - Teaching a
Cochlear Implantee to Play the Viola
June 2007 - Cochlear implants can help patients
enjoy listening to and making music
January 2008 - A Cochlear Implant Processor for
Encoding Music and Lowering Stimulation Power
February 2008 - Listening to Music with Your CI
August 2008 - Listening to Music through a
Cochlear Implant
June 2009 - Researchers work to refine cochlear
implants
June 2009 - Music and Cochlear Implants: Not in
Perfect Harmony
October 2009 - Music and the Cochlear Implant
March 2010 - Music class may benefit kids with
cochlear implants
July 2010 - Interview with Developer of Cochlear
Implant Music Appreciation Program
May 2011 - New CI Approach Improves Sound of Music
June 2011 - UK Researchers Helping Cochlear Implant
Patients Enjoy Music Again
December 2011 - A CI Surgeon's Inspiring TED Talk
About Helping His Patients to Hear Music
More on this and related
topics
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January 2006
One of the most common complaints of cochlear implant
(CI) users is that music just doesn't sound very good. Some users do
enjoy music with their CIs, but many don't. Advanced Bionics is working
on a 120 channel processor that provides enhanced music appreciation in
some CI users. The technology seems not to work for everyone, and there
are some other issues. Here's
the story.
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June 2006
It is well documented that cochlear implants do not
prevent users from appreciating music and that many wearers enjoy listening
to music. To cite a specific example, Victor Senn, a post-lingually
deafened adult, reported the following in his cochlear implant diary:
“Yesterday, I bought a CD of George Gershwin. I listened to his Rhapsody in
Blue, Lullaby, An American in Paris, and Cuban Overture. These are
wonderful music pieces." In addition to the growing body of research studies
and anecdotal accounts from cochlear implant users, there are also case
studies that support the use and esthetic gain for these individuals from
listening to music. For example, Hapel and Pahlke described a systematic
music listening program consisting of six steps that aided in the listening
process of a post-lingually deafened adult implant recipient during the
post-surgical rehabilitation phase.
Full Story
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January 2008
This 75 dB, 357 mW analog cochlear-implant processor
encodes fine-phase-timing spectral information in its asynchronous
stimulation outputs, to convey music to deaf patients. This processor
features asynchronous interleaved sampling (AIS) and uses a race-to-spike
winner-take-all strategy. This strategy ensures that sampling for electrode
stimulation occurs on only one channel at a time, thus preventing
electrode-smearing interactions. Phase-encoded, high-rate sampling of
high-intensity channels, along with lower-rate sampling of low-intensity
channels, is typically achievable. This keeps stimulation power low and
enables more natural, asynchronous stochastic stimulation of the auditory
nerve. Reconstructions of music encoded from this processor's sampled
outputs reveal significantly better fidelity compared with traditional
processing schemes, which convey only amplitude information. This
processor's power consumption is more than an order of magnitude lower than
traditional A/D-then-DSP cochlear-implant processors. Programmability is
achievable because 546 bits can alter 165 spectral and AIS parameters via a
serial interface. This article is part of a special issue on implantable
electronics.
Full Story
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February 2008
John Redden is a deaf professional musician. He can
sing on key, harmonize on key, and hear musical intervals well enough to
reproduce them. He does this with a cochlear implant, which is a computer
chip surgically embedded in his skull. The chip drives 16 tiny electrodes
threaded into his inner ear that stimulate his auditory nerves. It gets
auditory data from an external computer sitting on his ear that looks like a
hearing aid. Instead of amplifying sound, though, it digitizes it and sends
it to the implant by radio through the skin. The technology is a marvel, but
people like Redden are a mystery. The software is designed for speech, so it
only "listens" to the speech frequencies rather than the much wider range
occupied by music. The device delivers the overall shape of sound rather
than the detailed frequency information that is crucial to distinguishing
one pitch from another.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
June 2009
Duke University audiologist Molly Justus looked like
a recording-studio engineer as she adjusted a 16-band equalizer designed to
improve the performance of Joan Ernst's cochlear implant, a high-tech
hearing device inside her ear. Justus was aiming to make what Ernst heard
through the computerized device closely resemble the nuanced notes that used
to come through her trained musician's ears. A retired teacher and choir
director, Ernst is one of an estimated 36 million Americans with hearing
loss, but one of only about 38,000 who have received cochlear implants.
Full Story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
June 2009
Jana has been fitting Barry Jameson's hearing aids
since he was identified with a mild hearing loss at age 5. Over time,
Barry's hearing loss has become more severe. At 16, he scores poorly on
speech perception tests and he is getting less benefit from his hearing
aids. Barry's parents are considering a cochlear implant (CI). They've heard
very positive reports about how CIs enhance speech perception, but Barry's
parents also heard that they aren't so great for music, which Barry loves.
He has been actively involved in music at school and listening to music
always has been a favorite pastime. Mrs. Jameson would like Jana's input
regarding CI use when listening to speech and music. In discussing the pros
and cons of cochlear implantation, audiologists can draw on considerable
research evidence regarding the benefits for speech perception. With current
technology, adult CI recipients can achieve excellent word recognition in a
quiet listening environment following three to six months of implant use
(Wilson, 2000). The precise temporal and coarse spectral cues that
characterize signal processing effectively transmit the most salient
features of speech. Unfortunately, coarse spectral cues are less effective
in transmitting several key aspects of musical sounds (Kong, Stickney, &
Zeng, 2004).
Full Story
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October 2009
As a researcher, I have had the distinct pleasure of
working with numerous cochlear implant (CI) users, both children and adults.
Without exception, they are thankful to be able to hear, and for many of
them, I can barely tell they have a hearing problem at all. Some understand
nearly everything I say and can hear me just fine. Others have a little
trouble understanding speech but function as though they had mild to
moderate hearing loss and get along quite well. CI-users typically have
great difficulty hearing speech in noisy environments, being much more
adversely affected by noise than even hearing aid users. Nevertheless, the
ability to understand a spouse, parent or child, or to hear birds or one's
teacher demonstrates that the CI has been nothing short of a technological
marvel. Nearly all of our research participants say that, next to hearing
people speak, nothing is more important than being able to hear music. A
number of those who have participated in our research projects are or were
musicians. Even for those who aren't, old-time rock 'n' roll, country, jazz
or the classics like Beethoven were an important part of their lives. Here,
the implant consistently disappoints. And the accompanying question is: why?
Full Story
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March 2010
Music class may help improve certain types of sound
perception in deaf children who have cochlear implants, a new study hints.
[snip] For their study, the researchers assessed 27 children with
cochlear implants for their ability to discern musical pitch -- how high or
low a musical note is. Thirteen of the children had attended standard music
classes at the Yamaha Music School, which has centers around the world.
Overall, Chen's team found, the longer the children had taken music classes,
the better their pitch perception.
Full Story
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July 2010
SMAKA: This is Carolyn Smaka from AudiologyOnline
and today I'm speaking with Richard Reed who has developed a software
program to help cochlear implant (CI) recipients enjoy music. Richard, how
did the idea to develop this program come about?
REED: I should begin by mentioning that I'm a
cochlear implant recipient. At conferences and online, other CI users always
ask about music. My project began as a way to address some of those
questions. For a lot of CI users, once they do relatively well with speech
comprehension, improved music is next on their wish list. At its most basic,
my CI music project pulls together some of the kinds of practice materials I
wish I'd had early on in my own CI process.
Full Story
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December 2011
In this inspiring video from a TED conference,
cochlear implant (CI) surgeon and musician Charles Limb, associate
professor, Otolaryngology, Head & Neck Surgery at Johns Hopkins, explains
the challenges of CI patients hearing music and the brain research that is
being done to help restore the full range of human hearing abilities. Limb
is not only a professor and surgeon, but also is on the faculty of the
Peabody Conservatory of Music. He combines his two passions to study the way
the brain creates and perceives music. In the video presentation below, Limb
makes the case that restoring the speech understanding of CI recipients is a
great achievement, but not enough. He demonstrates the importance of music
by simulating for the audience what CI patients hear when they hear
Beethoven and other melodic sounds, from a violin to a trumpet.
Full Story and video
