alonewiththemoon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alonewiththemoon) wrote2004-06-16 10:50 am
alonewiththemoon) wrote2004-06-16 10:50 am
shimmy til the music is gone
Two days after my big show my feet still hurt but I am happy with how it went. Some things certainly could have gone better (there was a lot of tension between various personalities in the days leading up to the show, and it hadn't entirely dissipated by Monday, which affected us all), but all in all I'm proud of what we did. Can't wait to see ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
canongrrl's photos!
Saturday night we have a gig in Burlington, MA. It's our first paid gig, which is cool, but I'm a little anxious about the show. It's an African fashion show, which is cool and all, but I hope the promoters understand that we aren't remotely African and that the crowd is cool with this too. Our dresses, should they arrive in time, will be from Egypt and the music is from Egypt but we are about as caucasian as it gets in appearance. I suspect it will all be okay in the end, but I don't know enough about it not to be nervous.
On Tuesday, the day after the show, I went to have an audiogram done. I've been having a strange and often uncomfortable flinching sensation in my right ear, unsettling enough to make me go see the doctor about it. It only affects me if I am in either a very, very quiet place or a very, very loud place and somebody speaks to me or a drum is hit--it's as though my ear is struggling to separate the distinct sound from the silence or the background din. I'll mention here that I have never heard that well out of my right ear, so if you talk at me from my right side in a club, chances are I can't hear you. The audiogram was an interesting experience. You sit in a soundtight (and therefore airtight) room with headphones on and listen to tones and repeat words. If you are in the booth I was in, you are also creeped out by the Donald Duck Halloween mask hanging in the corner; presumably it's there to comfort children in the booth, but it does not at all comfort adults with overactive imaginations who have seen too many horror movies. I will now listen to Matmos' song Spondee very differently now, having done that very exercise in the course of the test. I'll probably listen to that whole album differently.
Anyway, the end result was that I am showing early warning signs of tinnitus, both in that flinching and in the loss of some of my upper range hearing. I am trying not to be too freaked out by this because it is pretty common--Blixa Bargeld speaks of his tinnitus very matter of factly and it obviously hasn't prevented him from following his career in music. My dad has had it for a few years now and he also continues to listen to and enjoy music. And if I become religious about wearing earplugs in noisy situations now, I will be able to stave off my ears' deterioration for longer. There was some good news in all this too, in that I have quite acute hearing in most ranges.
But the fact of the matter is that I am pretty freaked out by this. Music is an integral part of my being. The music of my two subcultures is a crucial part of who I am, and I am a dancer. How can I not hear?
canongrrl's photos!Saturday night we have a gig in Burlington, MA. It's our first paid gig, which is cool, but I'm a little anxious about the show. It's an African fashion show, which is cool and all, but I hope the promoters understand that we aren't remotely African and that the crowd is cool with this too. Our dresses, should they arrive in time, will be from Egypt and the music is from Egypt but we are about as caucasian as it gets in appearance. I suspect it will all be okay in the end, but I don't know enough about it not to be nervous.
On Tuesday, the day after the show, I went to have an audiogram done. I've been having a strange and often uncomfortable flinching sensation in my right ear, unsettling enough to make me go see the doctor about it. It only affects me if I am in either a very, very quiet place or a very, very loud place and somebody speaks to me or a drum is hit--it's as though my ear is struggling to separate the distinct sound from the silence or the background din. I'll mention here that I have never heard that well out of my right ear, so if you talk at me from my right side in a club, chances are I can't hear you. The audiogram was an interesting experience. You sit in a soundtight (and therefore airtight) room with headphones on and listen to tones and repeat words. If you are in the booth I was in, you are also creeped out by the Donald Duck Halloween mask hanging in the corner; presumably it's there to comfort children in the booth, but it does not at all comfort adults with overactive imaginations who have seen too many horror movies. I will now listen to Matmos' song Spondee very differently now, having done that very exercise in the course of the test. I'll probably listen to that whole album differently.
Anyway, the end result was that I am showing early warning signs of tinnitus, both in that flinching and in the loss of some of my upper range hearing. I am trying not to be too freaked out by this because it is pretty common--Blixa Bargeld speaks of his tinnitus very matter of factly and it obviously hasn't prevented him from following his career in music. My dad has had it for a few years now and he also continues to listen to and enjoy music. And if I become religious about wearing earplugs in noisy situations now, I will be able to stave off my ears' deterioration for longer. There was some good news in all this too, in that I have quite acute hearing in most ranges.
But the fact of the matter is that I am pretty freaked out by this. Music is an integral part of my being. The music of my two subcultures is a crucial part of who I am, and I am a dancer. How can I not hear?
no subject
f I become religious about wearing earplugs in noisy situations now, I will be able to stave off my ears' deterioration for longer.
I'd suggest trading in your earbuds for a pair of big clunky noise-canceling earphones (this will keep your Walkman from further damaging your ears), and investing in top of the line earplugs (the custom-molded kind that has a normalized frequency response, for live shows and clubs.
no subject
I actually use earplug headphones now rather than earbuds--they do cancel out a lot of noise, and as a result I'm able to play music much more quietly on my walkman (and sleep way more soundly, perhaps a little too soundly, on the T). I'm trying to figure out what to do about earplugs in general--the custom-molded ones would cost me $130 through my doctor's office, and I'm worried about promptly losing them (or ferrets putting them away in a safe place). The audiologist also told me about the triple-phlange style that run about $15 and said those would be an acceptable option, so I think I might start out with a couple of pairs of those. If I can prove to myself that I won't lose them, then I can graduate on to the expensive ones ;-)