About

First, a couple of definitions:

Tinnitus is the perception of sound in the absence of an external source, which can be permanent or temporary. This can take the form of a ringing, or a hissing or buzzing sound, it can be intermittent or constant, affecting one ear or both.

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In March 2020, I was working in Manchester, UK with the Hallé Orchestra on a piece exploring Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. We performed to audiences whose nightly numbers dwindled as Covid-19 panicked its deadly way into our communities and collective consciousness. Our final performance came the evening before the UK government advised against attending theatres and cinemas. The following week all performance spaces were closed, ending the theatre industry – among others – as we had known it for the best part of three centuries. 

During this fearful new reality, the tinnitus I had been living with for 15 years became exponentially worse. Since I couldn’t escape it, I decided instead to lean into it – what it is, how it develops, how we must live with it and how, at times, we cannot. 

Music was the catalyst: I wanted to learn more about the experience of current professional orchestral musicians who have tinnitus, if any would come forward. Many people – particularly musicians – don’t talk about their tinnitus. It is a hidden disability, and is misunderstood, not least by the people who live with it. The spoken and written reflections of Bea and Tom – both thoughtful, natural wordsmiths – held great power. I enjoyed hearing these musicians talk, and seeing them write. The expression of their relationship to music led me to conversations with Debby, whose early adulthood was defined by her love of indie music as a fan. Music has had as great an impact on her life as that of any professional musician. She lost her hearing in one ear through illness and has since lived with tinnitus in that same ear. 

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I read – and re-read – research papers authored or co-authored by Sven.

I read phrases like ‘map-plasticity’ and ‘tonotopic organisation’ and began to visualise something from a great height, like a monumental table-top campaign-map populated by shifting model armies, forever responding to the movements of their opposites. The neuroscience became a landscape onto which we could project ideas of isolation, escape and stigma, notions and expressions of lived experience. A place where we could reflect on the beauty and awesome complexity of the brain, its capacity for change and how it shapes our behaviour.

I was drawn to the idea of tinnitus being a part of this extraordinary structure. 

Once I understood the neuroscience – put crudely, the idea that my tinnitus was being deployed by my brain as a repair to a perceived problem – I could find moments of detachment from it, from the distress of it. It was a relief. In a strange way, I began to forgive my brain its mistake – it has the best of intentions.

From this, I saw potential for an audio intervention, designed to be listened to as an escape from tinnitus, driven by a belief that knowledge can be healing.

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Close collaboration with composer James was crucial. The idea for the project began with music, and music needed to fill those gaps between words that may let the tinnitus back in. The music needed to be responsive, empathetic, storytelling. The soundtrack is deeply rooted in themes of movement, travel and overlapping realities. 

 Similarly, sound design needed to be gentle, rhythmic, and have comforting or immersive moments that are most likely to mask the tinnitus. My aim is for the listener to drift with the piece rather than be directed by it, and to empower an individual who has hyperacusis to find the discrete sound and tone levels with which they are most comfortable.

The project, therefore, is inter-disciplinary. The intention is for art to bring empathy to the science. The hope is to demonstrate understanding as a coping mechanism, to advance the philosophy that, in terms of brain health, knowledge is healing.

More than anything, I was trying to create something curious and dream-like that distracts from the noise, if only briefly.

Dominic Gately

 2021