Using Tinnitus as a reference note?

Harmony & Theory
#1

So Unfortunately for me, and I’m sure many others, I’ve developed Tinnitus playing with others in practice and live… I could complain a lot about it but it’s best to try use it.

The pitch I hear in my head is very piercing and relatively consistent. It’s very high. But as I say quite consistent. I wonder if it’s possible to use this pitch as a reference note, so If I develop my relative pitch enough, I might have a consistent tone to jump off of, and turn a constant annoyance into a music advantage?

Does anyone else have any thoughts on that?

#2

Depends on the frequency - my Tinnitus is 13khz - which is pretty much unusable as a reference note lol - roughly g#9 - but it’s not a pure note - it’s more more like metallic noise with a peak around 13khz. Maybe some people have lower usable frequencies?

#3

I think this sounds like a great case for an actual science experiment! Why don’t you test it and see how ‘consistent’ it is ? :slight_smile:

#4

I can say that mine also seems consistent and high pitched which I think is very high B flat. I’ll check again tomorrow and see if it’s the same. Good idea !

#5

Mines around E#9 or F#9 but it’s white noise so not really an identifiable pitch. I guess the question is: is the pitch you have discernible as a note, and can the ear use something in the range as reference? There may be literature on that, might be worth digging in.

#6

Curious, how can you measure the frequency of it? Isn’t tinnitus a noise that only you hear?

Regarding the OP, my guess would be that it’s unlikely the noise will jave a peak at a “standard “ note, more likely to fall somewhere in between

#7

I do a lot of DSP/Synth work - and just rigged up a osc and matched the freq!

1 Like
#8

Possible, tho I don’t think that matters too much, as you can still use inbetween notes to practice intervals. And with experience I’d imagine you can just understand the pitch is off a few cents n adjust?

In my head I can roughly match the pitch and then hum it down a few octaves to get a more useable note.
I’ve not put the work into trying it though. I’m still getting a grip on intervals tbh

#9

Interesting discussion. Mine sounds like a high pressure air leak and it’s only in my right ear (I think that was the side facing the speakers when I saw Van Halen :upside_down_face:)
It’s gotten worse the past year and has nearly driven me insane with insomnia until I found this Beltone app for my phone.

I’ll have to find out the approximate Frequency :wink:

#10

Sounds a lot like a question from some Adam Neely’s Q&A :smile:

1 Like
#11

I have tinnitus. I’m mostly habituated now but it still sucks some days. At any rate it doesn’t interfare at all with my ability to hear or create music, it’s hard to describe but it’s like a “ghost sound” like a real sound like the kettle boiling or a car going past can drown out another real sound, but my tinnitus doesn’t follow the same laws as real sounds. I can hear very quiet things over my tinnitus, and I can hear my tinnitus over very loud things, it’s weird

I wouldn’t be able to do this cause my tinnitus is more like static, like the pitch constantly changes, plus different days have different volumes, no two days are the same, even different times of the day are different

Would be an interesting experiment for somebody who has constant tinnitus though, I’ll be watching this thread

#12

One thing I find interesting is if you do that palms over your ear and tap the back of you head thing. It get quieter for a short time.

Like how does that work? There must be something going on there that could lead to fixing it, but I can’t find anything about it. It’s probably the back n forth of pressure in the ear effecting it somehow

1 Like
#13

I went to a lecture on a Tinnitus conference about a year ago. Little fun fact, NZ where I’m from spends more per-capita than any other country on Tinnitus research according to this guy.

He said something, I’m not getting political here, but he said that a few people have mentioned to him that they took MDMA and it made the ringing stop, and they’re looking into that, but it’s all annecdotal and some people think it might make it worse so who knows

Given that there’s a lot of rockstars in here maybe some people have experience with this drug, I don’t, but some people in here might

#14

MDMA stops the ringing! - lmao - it really really messes with your hearing - both directly and the mental translation your brain conveys. I’m a teetotal/no drug person now tho! but I have done it in the past, decades ago, a fair few times. I wouldn’t bother with it or any other drug TBH. If you want to see what it’s like - watch the movie “Rise of the footsoldier” - there’s part where the main dude is a bouncer and he takes some - and it’s probably the best movie depiction of the initial effects of that drug on your hearing, that you’ll ever see/hear - it’s so spot on!!

#15

Idk anything about mdma, I’ve done dmt tho and that produced the same type of ringing as tinnitus.
Tobacco can make it way louder.

#16

interesting - not done dmt - wanted to a long time ago! - but gave up on the whole drug thing a long time ago. The mdma thing I think is partly blood pressure and partly brain message shenanigans.