Dark Listening

Starting with Composing the Tinnitus Suites (2011—present): this project revolves around an instrument I invented called the Lady’s Harp, a 20 foot long ecosystem of piano wires, pickups, transducers, and mixer feedback. My Harp’s long, sustained tones don’t exactly represent tinnitus, but resonate alongside it. With my Lady’s Harp, I can cover tinnitus up with sound, and reveal the ringing again, to create the perception of ever-changing harmonies. But having tinnitus isn’t just a sound—it’s also a very emotional experience, because, well, everything you hear could just disappear, especially if it gets worse. In other words, having tinnitus is not just hearing your ears ringing, but fearing your ears ringing even more. After ten years with the Lady’s Harp, I wondered if I could notate Tinnitus Music for other instruments. Masking Songs deals with the principle of auditory masking and suppression, in which the perception of acoustic sound is affected by other sounds. This is explained by the “critical band” principle in psychoacoustics, which describes ranges where sounds can interfere with each other. However, my research into the work of neuroscientist Pawel Jastreboff revealed that tinnitus does not respond to the critical band principle, and thus sounds of similar frequencies are of no use towards masking it. Instead, sound at any frequency set at the proper dynamic threshold can mask tinnitus. In Masking Songs, I applied these principles in notation, and my tinnitus appears “on the page” for the first time. Tracks 1 and 3 feature The Daxophone Consort (Daniel Fishkin, Cleek Schrey, and Ron Shalom) Track 3 also features Science Ficta Viola da Gamba Consort (Doug Balliett, Loren Ludwig, Zoe Weiss) Track 2 was performed solo by Daniel Fishkin on the Lady’s Harp. Track 4 features ensemble mise-en playing alongside archival recordings of Composing the Tinnitus Suites (2008-2011), of the first Lady’s Harp.