Horace Silver - “Song for My Father”
1964
When I got hearing aids last year I thought they would: 1) make things louder, and 2) while doing so help diminish the tinnitus that had increasingly been driving me nuts. Plus there was the incentive that people who are diagnosed with hearing loss who don’t get hearing aids are fifty percent more likely to get dementia. Yikes, no thanks … I mean I recently had trouble remembering Brooke Shields’ name. So while the hearing aids did the two things above, I also noticed that they provided more depth to what I was hearing as well, when I put them on it’s like going from AM to FM in sound quality. Early one morning I turned the radio on first thing while making coffee and sports talk was playing some bumper music coming out of a break. I put my aids on and suddenly I was hearing percussion that I had no detection of just a few seconds ago. Nice.
This past April I pulled out Led Zeppelin IV on vinyl (used, Mother’s Records in Grand Forks, 1982, three dollars and change) for the first time in a few years and hoo boy: I was hearing noises (good ones), sounds, and instrumental touches I hadn’t heard in years or maybe decades. Lordy. I found a new purpose for my hearing aids — further vinyl appreciation. But in the summer, the weekend vinyl listening parties were put on hold because of my living room window air conditioning unit. How could I enjoy all the nuances of the sound with the constant droning and droning and droning of the AC? My hearing aids have different settings I can change on my iPhone via Bluetooth. For instance there is a Noisy Indoor setting this is helpful when I’m in a bar or restaurant, it helps minimize the background noise so I can better hear the voices near me. I’ve found using the Outdoors setting while running the AC unit in my living room takes down the drone some. But the Music setting has been worthless for me — lots of static and hiss.
In July I had checked out Quantum Criminals by Alex Pappademas and Joan LeMay from the library and enjoyed reading up on the history of the band and the stories behind their songs. While I had the Pretzel Logic and Aja LPs, I had the immediate urge to get a bunch of Steely Dan songs in one vinyl package and quickly scored their Greatest Hits on eBay. Problem was, once I received it in the mail Minneapolis was hit by another humid heat wave. How could I enjoy this Dan anthology with the AC blaring? One night I said bleep it and went for it. I spun it while experimenting with the different settings on my hearing aids and BINGO: the previously worthless Music setting came through, totally blocked out the AC noise, and seemingly plugged the great sounds of Steely Dan straight into my ears. My goodness. But then when I tried other artists — Prince, The Who, Sly and the Family Stone — the music didn’t sound good at all on this setting. Weird: Could it be that my Lexie Lumen hearing aids have a secret setting that only tunes in Steely Dan correctly? Maybe Dr. Wu is responsible.