Could your antidepressant be the culprit behind that persistent ringing in your ears? Explore the various causes of tinnitus and find out how to manage this common yet complex condition.

Unraveling the Mystery of Tinnitus

Tinnitus, the persistent ringing or buzzing sound in the ears, can be a frustrating and debilitating condition for many individuals. While the causes of tinnitus are varied, one often overlooked potential culprit is the use of antidepressant medications. In this comprehensive article, we delve into the connection between tinnitus and antidepressants, as well as the broader spectrum of factors that can contribute to this perplexing condition.

The Link Between Antidepressants and Tinnitus

Antidepressants, while essential for managing mental health conditions, can sometimes inadvertently trigger or exacerbate tinnitus. Not all antidepressants are equally implicated, and the severity of the tinnitus can vary from person to person. If your tinnitus is indeed caused by your antidepressant, switching to a different medication may provide relief, though it’s crucial to do so under the guidance of your healthcare provider.

Exploring the Diverse Causes of Tinnitus

Antidepressants are just one potential cause of tinnitus. Other factors, such as prolonged exposure to noise, blood vessel disorders, diabetes, allergies, and even age-related hearing loss, can also contribute to this auditory phenomenon. Interestingly, recent research has suggested that higher amounts of caffeine may actually be associated with a lower risk of tinnitus in some individuals.

Determining the Underlying Cause

Identifying the root cause of your tinnitus is the first step towards effective management. Your healthcare provider will work with you to explore your medical history, medications, and any underlying health conditions that may be triggering the ringing in your ears. This comprehensive assessment is crucial in guiding the appropriate treatment approach.

Coping Strategies and Treatment Options

If the underlying cause of your tinnitus is not easily identifiable or treatable, there are various coping strategies and treatment options available to help you manage the condition. These may include the use of masking devices, counseling, or relaxation techniques. By working closely with your healthcare team, you can find the most suitable approach to alleviate the impact of tinnitus on your daily life.

The Diverse Types of Tinnitus

Tinnitus is not a one-size-fits-all condition. There are four distinct types of tinnitus, each with its own unique characteristics and underlying causes. Understanding the specific type of tinnitus you are experiencing can help your healthcare provider tailor the treatment plan to your individual needs.

Navigating the Road to Tinnitus Management

Dealing with tinnitus can be a complex and frustrating journey, but with the right guidance and support, it is possible to find relief and improve your quality of life. By working closely with your healthcare provider, exploring the potential role of medications, and utilizing various coping strategies, you can take control of your tinnitus and reclaim your sense of well-being.

Subjective Tinnitus: The Most Common Form

Subjective tinnitus is the most prevalent type of tinnitus, where the symptoms can only be heard by the affected individual. This form is often caused by exposure to excessive noise and can appear and disappear suddenly, with some severe cases persisting indefinitely.

Neurological Tinnitus: Linked to Auditory Disorders

Neurological tinnitus is typically associated with disorders that primarily affect the brain’s auditory functions, such as Meniere’s disease. This type of tinnitus is rooted in neurological factors rather than purely auditory ones.

Somatic Tinnitus: Connecting the Senses

Somatic tinnitus is related to the sensory system, with the tinnitus symptoms being caused, worsened, or otherwise connected to the individual’s sensory experiences. This form of tinnitus highlights the intricate relationship between the auditory and sensory systems.

Objective Tinnitus: The Rare and Treatable Form

Objective tinnitus is a rare type that can actually be heard by an outside observer, usually due to involuntary muscle contractions or vascular deformities. This is the only form of tinnitus that has the potential for a permanent fix, as treating the underlying cause can effectively stop the tinnitus.

Musical Tinnitus: When Melodies Emerge

Musical tinnitus, also known as musical hallucinations or auditory imagery, is a less common type where the individual experiences simple tones or layers of tones that come together to create a melody or composition. This form of tinnitus is often associated with hearing loss and prolonged tinnitus.

Pulsatile Tinnitus: A Rhythmic Accompaniment

Pulsatile tinnitus is a rhythmic tinnitus that aligns with the beat of the heart. This type of tinnitus typically indicates a change in blood flow to the vessels near the ear or an increase in blood pressure, and may require specialized medical attention.

Navigating the complex world of tinnitus can be a daunting task, but with a comprehensive understanding of the various types and causes, as well as the guidance of healthcare professionals, individuals affected by this condition can find the path to effective management and relief. By exploring the potential role of medications, identifying underlying health factors, and employing various coping strategies, those living with tinnitus can reclaim their sense of well-being and quality of life.

Tinnitus causes: Could my antidepressant be the culprit?

Ringing in the ears (tinnitus) can be caused by a number of medications, including some antidepressants. Not all antidepressants cause tinnitus. If your antidepressant is the cause of your tinnitus, switching to another medication may solve the problem, but don’t quit taking your medication without medical guidance.

Antidepressants are a less common cause of tinnitus than are other types of medications — such as aspirin, anti-inflammatories or some antibiotics — or underlying health conditions.

Causes of tinnitus include prolonged exposure to noise, blood vessel disorders, diabetes, allergies and other medical, neurological or mental health problems. While caffeine has traditionally been thought to be associated with tinnitus, some research has found higher amounts of caffeine to be associated with a lower risk of tinnitus in some people. Tinnitus also can be caused by age-related hearing loss or a buildup of wax in the ear.

You’ll need to work with your doctor to determine whether your antidepressant or something else is causing your tinnitus. Your symptoms may go away when the underlying cause is treated.

If the underlying cause isn’t clear — or treatment doesn’t help — you may benefit from a device similar to a hearing aid that may help mask the ringing. A change in medication, counseling or certain relaxation techniques also may help you cope with tinnitus.

Oct. 07, 2020

Show references

1. Henderson MC, et al. Tinnitus. In: The Patient History: An Evidence-Based Approach to Differential Diagnosis. 2nd ed. New York, N.Y.: The McGraw-Hill Companies; 2012. http://www.accessmedicine.mhmedical.com. Accessed May 9, 2018.
2. Dinces EA. Treatment of tinnitus. https://www.uptodate.com/contents/search. Accessed May 9, 2018.
3. Sertraline. Micromedex 2.0 Healthcare Series. http://www.micromedexsolutions.com. Accessed May 9, 2018.
4. Paroxetine. Micromedex 2. 0 Healthcare Series. http://www.micromedexsolutions.com. Accessed May 9, 2018.
5. Dinces EA. Etiology and diagnosis of tinnitus. https://www.uptodate.com/contents/search. Accessed May 9, 2018.
6. Tinnitus. American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. http://www.entnet.org/content/tinnitus. Accessed May 10, 2018.
7. Glicksman JT, et al. A prospective study of caffeine intake and risk of incident tinnitus. The American Journal of Medicine. 2014;127:739.

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The 4 Different Types of Tinnitus

Hearing Things? No, You’re Not Crazy.

People experience tinnitus in a variety of ways: in some, a simple head shake will make the annoyance vanish; others, however, describe the condition as debilitating. Though research is ongoing, currently there is no cure. But relief can comes from a variety of treatments.

Common, Constant, Treatable, and Manageable

Tinnitus sounds different to everyone, so it makes sense that there are four different types: subjective, objective, neurological, and somatic.

Tinnitus is a fairly common medical malady that presents in a variety of ways. Simply defined, it is a phantom ringing, whooshing, or buzzing noise in your ear that only you can hear.

The Four Different Types of Tinnitus:

1. Subjective tinnitus: The most common form of tinnitus. Subjective symptoms can only be heard by the affected individual are usually caused by exposure to excessive noise. This type of tinnitus can appear and disappear suddenly, and may last 3–12 months at a time. In some severe cases, it may never stop.
2. Neurological tinnitus: Usually caused by a disorder, such as Meniere’s disease, that primarily affects the brain’s auditory functions.
3. Somatic tinnitus: Related to the sensory system. This form is caused, worsened, or otherwise related to the sensory system.
4. Objective tinnitus: A rare form of tinnitus that may be caused by involuntary muscle contractions or vascular deformities. When the cause is treated, the tinnitus usually stops entirely. This is the only form of tinnitus that can be heard by an outside observer, and the only type that has the potential for a permanent fix.

Some Subtypes of Tinnitus:

• Musical tinnitus: Also called musical hallucinations or auditory imagery, this type is less common. Simple tones or layers of tones come together to recreate a melody or composition. Musical tinnitus tends to occur in people who have had hearing loss and tinnitus for some time, though people with normal hearing or increased sensitivity to sound can also have musical hallucinations.
• Pulsatile tinnitus: A rhythmic tinnitus that aligns with the beat of the heart. It usually indicates a change of blood flow to the vessels near the ear or an increase in awareness of the blood flow to the ear.
• Low-frequency tinnitus: Perhaps the most confusing type of tinnitus because sufferers aren’t sure whether the sound is being produced internally or externally. Often, the tones correspond to the two lowest octaves on a piano and are described as a humming, murmuring, rumbling, or deep droning. This type of noise seems to affect people most strongly.

What Causes Tinnitus?

Typically the cause of tinnitus is uncertain. If there is no damage to the auditory system, your provider will look into these possible causes:

• Jaw joint dysfunction (TMJ)
• Chronic neck muscle strain
• Excessive noise exposure
• Certain medications
• Wax buildup
• Cardiovascular disease
• A (generally benign) tumor that creates a strain on the arteries in the neck and head

Tinnitus can be managed through strategies that make it less bothersome. No single approach works for everyone, and there is no FDA-approved drug treatment, supplement, or herb proven to be any more effective than a placebo. Behavioral strategies and sound-generating devices often offer the best treatment results — this is partially why distracting the individual’s attention from these sounds can prevent a chronic manifestation.

Some of the most effective methods of tinnitus management are:

• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
• Tinnitus retraining therapy
• Masking
• Biofeedback

There are countless treatment options, but they vary in effectiveness depending upon the type of tinnitus. More than 50 percent of those who experience tinnitus have an inner-ear hearing impairment, meaning that a connection between tinnitus and hearing loss is likely. Though wearing hearing aids helps ease tinnitus (they amplify the sounds outside, making the “inside” sounds less frequent), they are not the only method: careful diagnosis by a professional with years of experience creating solutions for tinnitus sufferers is essential.

Learn more about tinnitus.

what is tinnitus? Get the facts about tinnitus

Tinnitus is noises in the head, not related to any psychiatric condition. The noise can be heard anywhere in the head or in one or both ears. So far there are no scientific proven cure for tinnitus.

What is Tinnitus?

Imagine a constant ringing, buzzing or whistling in your ear, 24 hours a day. It is called tinnitus. You never get a break. It is always there. Nobody else but you can hear the noise because it does not come from any external source. Although you are the only person who can hear the noise it is not a result of your imagination.

Types of tinnitus

Tinnitus can vary a lot between individuals; therefore you can find many different types of tinnitus. Tinnitus varies considerably in intensity and type. Some people describe tinnitus as high-frequency whistling sounds while others perceive tinnitus as a buzzing noise or a sound similar to butter sizzling in a frying pan. But some experience, instead, a thumping sound in the same rhythm as their heartbeat. This is called pulsatile tinnitus.  Read more about the types of tinnitus.

What does your tinnitus sound like? Is it like our examples? Or does it sound different? Listen to our examples of tinnitus.

Causes of tinnitus

What causes tinnitus? The causes of tinnitus may vary. But the most common cause of tinnitus is exposure to noise. But tinnitus may also be cause by e.g. drugs, diseases, stress and head injuries.  Read more about the causes of tinnitus.

If you experience tinnitus, you might also have a hearing loss. So, if you have tinnitus, we recommend that you get your hearing checked by a hearing professional.

How many suffers from tinnitus?

Nobody knows how many suffers from tinnitus. Almost all of us experience tinnitus temporarily; perhaps for a few hours after a concert or any other occasion where our ears are subjected to noise. But for some tinnitus becomes persistent and/or increases. The majority of people who suffer from tinnitus find it very disturbing and uncomfortable.

According to ATA, The American Tinnitus Association, 45 million Americans are struggling with tinnitus. In Germany the “Deutsche Tinnitus-Liga” estimates that 19 million Germans have experienced tinnitus, and that 2,7 million Germans have persistent tinnitus, of which 1 million have very severe tinnitus. The British Tinnitus Association estimates that 10% of the UK population suffers from tinnitus.  Read more about the prevalence of tinnitus.

Consequences of tinnitus

Many who suffer tinnitus experience side effects of their tinnitus. This may include psychological, physical and social problems. Some also experience stress, fatigue, emotional problems and depression.  Read more about the consequenses of tinnitus.

Cure for tinnitus

Can tinnitus be cured? Many offer a cure or a treatment for tinnitus and some offer products against tinnitus, but so far there are no scientific proven treatment or cure for tinnitus. But different types coping strategies may help people to live with their tinnitus.

More young people with tinnitus

Tinnitus is common in people over the age of 40, but is becoming increasingly prevalent in younger people, as well, because of increased daily noise levels, including those caused by the unrestrained use of MP3s, iPods and other personal stereos.

Tinnitus and hearing loss

Many people who suffer from tinnitus may also suffer from hearing loss. Although tinnitus is more common among people who suffer from hearing loss, anyone can suffer from tinnitus. It is also possible to suffer from major hearing loss without contracting tinnitus at all.  

If you experience both tinnitus and hearing loss and you begin to use hearing aids, you will find that hearing aids may both improve hearing and reduce the irritation of tinnitus.

Read more about the relation between tinnitus and hearing loss

I have tinnitus

Do I have tinnitus?

More information about tinnitus

In this section of hear-it.org you can find more information about tinnitus.

Tinnitus Steals the Sound of Silence

By Jonathan Cryer, MD

If you are bothered by a high-pitched sound, buzzing, or shushing in one or both ears, you may have a condition called tinnitus, which effects a majority of the population at some point in their lives.

Can other people hear the annoying sounds I’m hearing?

In most instances, other people cannot hear those annoying sounds. There are two types of tinnitus, subjective and objective. Subjective tinnitus, which is the most common type, describes sounds that only the person with the condition can hear. Objective tinnitus produces sounds that your doctor can detect during an examination and may have any number of causes, from vascular malformations in the head to a bug trapped in the ear.

What causes subjective tinnitus?

The most common cause of tinnitus is hearing loss associated either with advancing age or exposure to loud noise. It’s not uncommon for people who are annoyed by the sound in their ears to be unaware of their hearing loss: they first learn about it during evaluation and testing.

Another common cause of tinnitus is medication. People using nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medication such as ibuprofen or aspirin often experience ringing in their ears.

What should I do if I have ringing or other noise in my ears?

If you have either intermittent or constant ringing in one or both ears, it’s a good idea to mention it to your doctor. While these noises are usually benign, your doctor may send you to an ear, nose, and throat specialist (otorhinolaryngologist) for further evaluation. Tinnitus does not often represent a serious medical problem; however, it can be a tremendous nuisance. Depending on the individual involved, tinnitus can have a significant impact on quality of life.

What happens during the evaluation?

The doctor will take your medical history and give you a physical examination, which may include a neurological evaluation and an audiogram (hearing test). If the history and physical uncover anything other than common tinnitus, the doctor may suggest some blood tests and an MRI to survey the brain and inner ear. In reading the MRI, the doctor will pay particular attention to the eighth cranial nerve, which conveys information on hearing and balance from the inner ear to the brain.

How is tinnitus treated?

There are several treatment options for people with benign tinnitus. While it is usually difficult to make the noise stop entirely, there are strategies that can help diminish the impact tinnitus has on a person’s life. Many people gain relief by simply masking the noise to cover up the tinnitus. Running a radio on low static or turning on a white noise machine at night can help you get to sleep. Some white noise machines resemble hearing aids and fit into the ear.

Some people find that biofeedback and habituation techniques are helpful in managing tinnitus. By working with someone trained in these techniques, patients can learn to compartmentalize the tinnitus and live with it more compatibly. For some people, merely learning that the tinnitus is benign and not something to worry about provides sufficient relief.

How can I avoid tinnitus?

Long-term use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory pain medications is associated with tinnitus. Let your doctor know if you are taking this type of pain medication; he or she may be able to adjust your medicine to reduce or stop the tinnitus.

Tinnitus that accompanies hearing loss is something we can avoid by avoiding acoustic trauma. If in your professional or recreational life you are exposed to a lot of noise, take the precaution of wearing ear plugs or some other type of hearing protection. When you are mowing the lawn, weed-whacking, skeet shooting, hunting, or riding a motorcycle, protect your hearing.

Some people don’t worry about hearing loss because they don’t understand that losing our hearing is not just about having our internal volume turned down. Hearing can become very distorted; sounds and voices can become tinny, unpleasant, and strange. The best prevention is protection.

Dr. Cryer is an otorhinolaryngologist (a doctor who specializes in ear, nose, and throat). He trained at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where he completed medical school, followed by a surgery internship and residency in otorhinolaryngology and head and neck surgery. He serves on the medical staff of Cayuga Medical Center and is in practice at Cayuga Ear, Nose, Throat—Head and Neck Surgery.

Ringing in the Ears (Tinnitus)

Do you have ringing in your ears?

This is called tinnitus.

How old are you?

3 years or younger

3 years or younger

4 to 11 years

4 to 11 years

12 years or older

12 years or older

Are you male or female?

Why do we ask this question?

The medical assessment of symptoms is based on the body parts you have.

• If you are transgender or non-binary, choose the sex that matches the body parts (such as ovaries, testes, prostate, breasts, penis, or vagina) you now have in the area where you are having symptoms.
• If your symptoms aren’t related to those organs, you can choose the gender you identify with.
• If you have some organs of both sexes, you may need to go through this triage tool twice (once as “male” and once as “female”). This will make sure that the tool asks the right questions for you.

Did the symptoms start after a head injury?

Yes

Symptoms began after a head injury

No

Symptoms began after a head injury

Do you think you may have an ear infection?

Pain and discharge from the ear are the usual symptoms of infection.

Yes

Possible ear infection

Have you had an injury to your ear in the past week?

The ear can be injured by a direct hit, a very loud noise (like a gunshot or firecracker), or an object being pushed into the ear.

Do you have a severe earache?

Is the problem getting worse?

Yes

Tinnitus is getting worse

No

Tinnitus is getting worse

Do you have any new hearing loss?

Is the ringing in your ears a new symptom?

Are you nauseated or vomiting?

Nauseated means you feel sick to your stomach, like you are going to vomit.

Did it start suddenly?

Yes

Tinnitus began suddenly

No

Tinnitus began suddenly

Is the ringing only in one ear?

Yes

Tinnitus is in only one ear

No

Tinnitus is in only one ear

Do you think that a medicine may be causing the ringing in your ears?

Think about whether the symptoms started after you began using a new medicine or a higher dose of a medicine.

Yes

Medicine may be causing symptoms

No

Medicine may be causing symptoms

Have you had any ear symptoms for more than a week?

Yes

Ear symptoms for more than 1 week

No

Ear symptoms for more than 1 week

Many things can affect how your body responds to a symptom and what kind of care you may need. These include:

• Your age. Babies and older adults tend to get sicker quicker.
• Your overall health. If you have a condition such as diabetes, HIV, cancer, or heart disease, you may need to pay closer attention to certain symptoms and seek care sooner.
• Medicines you take. Certain medicines and natural health products can cause symptoms or make them worse.
• Recent health events, such as surgery or injury. These kinds of events can cause symptoms afterwards or make them more serious.
• Your health habits and lifestyle, such as eating and exercise habits, smoking, alcohol or drug use, sexual history, and travel.

Try Home Treatment

You have answered all the questions. Based on your answers, you may be able to take care of this problem at home.

• Try home treatment to relieve the symptoms.
• Call your doctor if symptoms get worse or you have any concerns (for example, if symptoms are not getting better as you would expect). You may need care sooner.

Many prescription and non-prescription medicines can cause ringing in the ears (tinnitus). A few examples are:

• ASA, ibuprofen (such as Advil or Motrin), and naproxen (such as Aleve).
• Some blood pressure and heart medicines.
• Some antidepressants.
• Some cancer medicines.

Vertigo is the feeling that you or your surroundings are moving when there is no actual movement. It may feel like spinning, whirling, or tilting. Vertigo may make you sick to your stomach, and you may have trouble standing, walking, or keeping your balance.

Seek Care Today

Based on your answers, you may need care soon. The problem probably will not get better without medical care.

• Call your doctor today to discuss the symptoms and arrange for care.
• If you cannot reach your doctor or you don’t have one, seek care today.
• If it is evening, watch the symptoms and seek care in the morning.
• If the symptoms get worse, seek care sooner.

Seek Care Now

Based on your answers, you may need care right away. The problem is likely to get worse without medical care.

• Call your doctor now to discuss the symptoms and arrange for care.
• If you cannot reach your doctor or you don’t have one, seek care in the next hour.
• You do not need to call an ambulance unless:
  • You cannot travel safely either by driving yourself or by having someone else drive you.
  • You are in an area where heavy traffic or other problems may slow you down.

Make an Appointment

Based on your answers, the problem may not improve without medical care.

• Make an appointment to see your doctor in the next 1 to 2 weeks.
• If appropriate, try home treatment while you are waiting for the appointment.
• If symptoms get worse or you have any concerns, call your doctor. You may need care sooner.

Ear Problems and Injuries, Age 11 and Younger

Head Injury, Age 3 and Younger

Ear Problems and Injuries, Age 12 and Older

Head Injury, Age 4 and Older

Tinnitus | Causes, Symptoms (Buzzing in Ears) and Treatment

What is tinnitus?

When you can hear sounds inside your head that are created by your hearing system, not your environment, the condition is known as tinnitus. It could be ringing, humming, pulsing or hissing. It is more prominent in quiet areas or at night. It usually has no particular cause but can be treated.

You can’t turn it off or move away from it, so it can be spectacularly annoying.

How bothersome tinnitus is varies vastly between different people or in the same person over time. It may be there a lot of the time, happen occasionally, or fluctuate between the two. It can involve one ear or both.

Tinnitus is a symptom rather than a disease. 

Why do I have it?

There are a number of reasons for tinnitus. The most common situation is that it often comes as an unwanted ‘added extra’ when you develop age-related hearing loss. It may also occur as a consequence of exposure to loud noise, or from working in a noisy place for a long time. Sometimes it is a symptom of other medical conditions, such as Ménière’s disease, ear infections or inner ear conditions. Occasionally it’s caused by a build-up of wax in the ear (although usually this affects your hearing or you are aware of a blocked feeling in your ear rather than tinnitus). Sometimes there is no obvious reason.

Tinnitus symptoms

Tinnitus is an abnormal noise (or noises) that you can hear. However, the noise does not come from outside your ear. The sorts of noises that people hear include:

• Ringing.
• Buzzing.
• Whistles.
• Roaring.
• Humming.
• Machine-type noises.
• A pulse or beat which is at the same rate as your pulse.

Tinnitus can be either constant or come and go. It can vary in loudness and character from time to time. You can hear the noise or noises in one ear, or in both ears, or it may be difficult to pinpoint where the noise seems to come from.

The noise is often more prominent when you are in a quiet place. For example, when you are in bed and trying to get to sleep. It may also be more noticeable when you’re tired.

Some people with tinnitus are also more sensitive to normal everyday sounds. For example, some people with tinnitus find that a radio or TV is painfully loud when it is at a normal volume for most people.

For most people with tinnitus, nobody else can hear the noise. In one very uncommon type of tinnitus (objective tinnitus), the noise can be heard by another person listening very carefully. This is not the usual type of tinnitus and it is rare. It is usually due to a problem with blood or blood vessels, making them pulsate differently to usual.

Pulsatile tinnitus

If you have this condition, the tinnitus sounds like a pulse. It is usually due to a problem with the blood circulation (such as carotid stenosis, a narrowing of the carotid artery as it passes through the neck). This type of tinnitus can sometimes be heard by other people (that is, objective tinnitus). It beats in time with the pulse (synchronous). Sometimes you can develop a pulsatile tinnitus which is not in time with the pulse (non-synchronous). An example is palatal myoclonus, a condition in which the muscles of the palate go into spasm.

How common is tinnitus?

Tinnitus is common and can occur at any age. Most people have an occasional episode of tinnitus after going to a loud concert or disco. For most people, this is temporary and soon goes. As many as 1 in 10 people have persistent tinnitus that is mild and not very troublesome. However, about 1 in 100 people have tinnitus which persists most of the time, and severely affects their quality of life. 

Tinnitus causes

In many people with tinnitus, the cause is not known. Tinnitus often develops at the same time as the hearing loss of older age.

Tinnitus can be caused by age-related hearing loss, or by being exposed to a noise – like working in a loud factory or being in the armed forces. Often no particular cause is found. Very rarely it can be caused by anaemia, a thyroid problem, medications like aspirin, or a problem in your brain.

In many cases

What seems to happen is that signals are sent from the ear down the ear nerve to the hearing part of the brain. The brain interprets these signals as noise. It is not clear why these signals are sent from the ear. The noise may also originate somewhere else in the hearing nerve pathways in the brain.

In some cases

Sometimes the tinnitus is caused by another condition. For example:

• Tinnitus often develops at the same time as the hearing loss of older age.
• Ménière’s disease. In this condition you develop attacks of dizziness (vertigo), hearing loss and tinnitus. It is due to a problem of the cochlea – a snail-shaped chamber filled with fluid, in the inner ear.
• Exposure to very loud noise. Some people develop persistent tinnitus after being subjected to loud noise for a long time. For example, after years of working in a loud factory. Sometimes permanent tinnitus persists after a one-off loud noise experience. For example, following a rock concert.
• As an uncommon side-effect of some medicines. For example, aspirin, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and quinine.
• Following an ear or head injury.
• Wax blocking the ear.
• Some other ear disorders such as otosclerosis.
• Some uncommon diseases of blood vessels, brain or nerves can cause tinnitus. In these situations you are likely to have other symptoms or signs such as nerve weakness, etc. However, rarely, tinnitus may be the first symptom to develop.
• Tinnitus can sometimes be a feature of a lack of iron in the body (anaemia), thyroid disease or diabetes.
• An ear infection. The tinnitus tends to clear when the infection clears.
• Psychological factors may have a role to play. For example, mild tinnitus that is not bothersome may become more bothersome if you become depressed, anxious or stressed.

Tinnitus in one ear

A tumour called an acoustic neuroma occasionally causes tinnitus; this is usually persistent and in one ear only. If you get the noise only in one ear, it is particularly important that you consult a doctor, so this can be ruled out.

How is tinnitus diagnosed?

• There is no definitive test for tinnitus: the diagnosis is based on what you experience.
• Your doctor may organise a hearing test.
• Occasionally a specialist ear doctor may do a brain scan.

Tinnitus tests

When you go to see the doctor, first they will have some questions to help them understand your tinnitus better, and to help them find the cause of it, if there is one. The doctor will usually examine your ears and the nerves around your face and ears.

A hearing test is usually done. In the common type of hearing test, sounds of varying frequency are played to you through headphones. You press a button when you hear a sound. This results in a graph being produced which shows if you have any hearing loss and, if so, which type of hearing loss. Along with the hearing test, you will often have tympanometry, which is a test of the eardrum and the bones of the middle of your ear. A probe is placed in your ear (which feels much like when the doctor looks inside your ear), a tone is produced and the pressures changed in your ear. The response is then measured.

An underlying ear problem can usually be ruled out by this examination and hearing test.

Further tests such as a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan of the inside of your ear, and sometimes your head and neck, are done in a few cases, although this is not necessary for most people with tinnitus.  In some cases, a blood test may be done. This might be to test to check that you don’t have a problem with your thyroid gland, anaemia or diabetes if any of these are suspected.

Tinnitus treatment

In most cases there is no easy cure. Some people are helped by understanding the problem and knowing that they do not have a serious underlying condition. You may be offered a session with a healthcare professional where your condition is discussed (tinnitus support).

There are no good medications for tinnitus but many things can help (see below).

Is there a tinnitus cure?

In a small number of cases there is an underlying cause which may be corrected. For example, if a side-effect of a medicine that you are taking is causing tinnitus then a change of medication may cure the problem. If earwax or an ear infection is the cause then again, once this is cleared, the tinnitus settles.

Antidepressant medicines called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have helped people in whom the tinnitus causes anxiety and/or depression. SSRIs have been tried for tinnitus in people without anxiety and depression but studies suggest they are not effective.

In most cases there is no easy cure. Some people are helped by understanding the problem and knowing that they do not have a serious underlying condition. With time, the tinnitus may become less of a problem as you adjust to it. In addition, the following often help.

Alternative sounds

If possible, avoid being in quiet or silent rooms. You are more likely to focus on the tinnitus and be distressed by it if there is nothing else to listen to. Other more pleasant sounds can be distracting and help to make the tinnitus less noticeable. This is sometimes called sound therapy. For example, listen to the radio, TV, or stereo. Perhaps leave a window open so outside sounds are more evident. Some people wear a sound generator, although research studies suggest they are not very helpful. It looks similar to a hearing aid but makes a pleasant sound which helps to mask the unpleasant tinnitus noise. Some people use CD or MP3 players to listen to pleasant sounds. 

Bedtime

Tinnitus is often most noticeable when you are quiet and trying to get off to sleep. If you play a radio or stereo it can help to mask the tinnitus noise until you drop off to sleep. (One with a timer is best so it switches itself off when you are asleep.) Some people connect a radio or stereo to special pillow speakers which go under the pillow. This enables them to listen to the music or radio without anyone else being disturbed. Some specially designed pillows have speakers actually inside the pillow itself which you connect to your radio or stereo.

If you find getting off to sleep a problem, see the separate leaflet called Insomnia (Poor Sleep) for more details.

Hearing aids

If you have any deafness, even just a slight hearing loss, a hearing aid may help. The aid boosts normal sounds which you may not otherwise hear. These may override the tinnitus noise.

Stress anxiety and depression

Some people become anxious or stressed by tinnitus. This can make things worse. You may benefit from learning ways to relax and to combat stress. There are other leaflets in this series which offer advice on easing stress and anxiety. If you become particularly anxious or become depressed it is best to see a doctor for advice on treatment.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a brain-training psychological therapy which may also help you deal with the effect tinnitus has on you.

Are there specialist tinnitus clinics?

Some ear departments have specialist tinnitus clinics. These offer such things as counselling, advice on sound therapy, relaxation techniques and other advice on ways to cope with living with tinnitus.

Tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT) has been used in the past, but recent research suggests it is not very helpful. It has largely been replaced by CBT. 

What is the outlook?

Many people with tinnitus improve, with or without any treatment. Between 2 and 5 out of every 10 people with tinnitus improve within five years. Even if it does not go completely, it can become less severe or less frequent. How troublesome tinnitus is tends to go up and down.

For some people, tinnitus is just a little annoying. On the other end of the scale, for others it can really reduce their enjoyment of life. It may:

Why you can ‘hear’ words inside your head

Why do we include the sounds of words in our thoughts when we think without speaking? Are they just an illusion induced by our memory of overt speech?

These questions have long pointed to a mystery – one relevant to our endeavour to identify impossible languages — those that cannot take root in the human brain. This mystery is equally relevant from a methodological perspective, since to address it requires radically changing our approach to the relationship between language and the brain. It requires shifting from identifying (by means of neuroimaging techniques) where neurons are firing to identifying what neurons are firing when we engage in linguistic tasks.

Consider this simple question: what is language made of? Sure, language consists of words and rules of combination, but from the point of view of physics, it exists in two different physical spaces – outside our brain and inside it. When it lives outside our brain, it consists of mechanical, acoustic waves of compressed and rarefied molecules of air – ie sound. When it exists inside our brain, it consists of electric waves that are the channel of communication for neurons. Waves in either case. This is the concrete stuff of which language is physically made.

There is one obvious connection between sound waves and the brain. Sound is what allows the contents of one brain, as expressed in words, to enter another brain. There are, of course, other ways for two brains to exchange linguistic information – through the eyes, via sign language, or through tactile systems such as Braille or the Tadoma Method, for example.

Sound enters us through our ears, traveling across the tympanic membrane, the three tiniest bones in our body known as the ossicles, and the Corti organ in the cochlea – a snail-shaped organ that plays a crucial role in this process. This complex system translates the acoustic signal’s mechanical vibrations into electric impulses in a very sophisticated way, decomposing the complex sound waves into the basic frequencies that characterise them. The different frequencies are then mapped onto dedicated slots in the primary auditory cortex, at which point the sound waves are replaced by electric waves.

Umka and Armored car Sounds in your head lyrics translation

Deutsch translation of Sounds in your head by Umka and Bronevik

Kauf gras, Aufmerksamkeit

Auf den Ausdruck der Augen des Verkäufers

Und nur für den Fall, erinnere dich daran, wo esber text

Deutsche de Ür. of Sounds in your head by Umka i Bronevik

Buying grass note

The expression of the seller’s eyes

And just in case, remember where it was

English translation of the lyrics

French translation of Sounds in your head by Umka i Armored car

En achetant de l’herbe, faites attention

Sur l’expression des yeux du vendeur

Et juste au cas où, souvenez-vous où c’était

Traduction des paroles en français

Greek translation of Sounds in your head by Umka and Bronevik

Αγοράζοντας το γρασίδι, δώστε προσοχή

Στην έκφραση των ματιών του πωλητή

Καιτατουτο υπραιτ

Ελληνική μετάφραση των στίχων

Italian translation of Sounds in your head by Umka and Bronevik

L’acquisto di erba, prestare attenzione

L’espressione degli occhi del venditore, even ognicra’n.

E

Italiano traduzione di testi

Portuguese translation of Sounds in your head by Umka i Bronevik

A compra de grama, prestem atenção

A expressão dos olhos do vendedor

E no caso, lembre-se de onde estavaç 9000ã3 Portugoues de traduas letras de músicas

Spanish translation of Sounds in your head by Umka and Bronevik

Comprar hierba, prestar atención

En la expresión de los ojos del vendedor

Y por si acaso, recuerda dónde Español de los acaso, recuerda dónde Español de estaba

of Sounds in your head by Umka and Bronevik

Çim satın alma, dikkat

Satıcının göz ifadesi üzerinde

Ve her ihtimale karşı, nerede olduğunu hatırla

Bronze in your head Music

Sközlerçin tü0006

“I” is your sound | Musical life

Music is everything that sounds around.This phrase, once thrown by John Cage, determined the optics of sound perception as a parameter of external for many years. Composer Olga Bochikhina thinks differently: sound is what happens inside . “I wanted to paradoxically combine two irreducible, from the point of view of Cage, lines: music as audible (that is, existing in the surrounding world), and music as an inaudible substance (that is, existing only in“ the mind and feelings of a person, ”she says The author embodied her thoughts in a performance called in↔out, which took place at the Gnesins Academy on October 14 and 16 at the Gnesin Contemporary Music Week festival.

The curators of the project Tatiana Yakovleva and Irina Sevastyanova, together with the composer, designated the genre of performance as ID . Like an identifier from the digital world, Olga Bochikhina focused on the study of the mechanism of sound perception and invited listeners to audit what sounds inside. Is this even possible? Depends on the openness of the audience to experiments with their own perception.

There is no entry point to the performance: you find yourself in a semi-dark hall and see only the screen.Gradually, the screen begins to fill with small cells of Zoom – one of the most popular applications after the lockdown. In small windows people appear who are moving somewhere. You perceive their individual words, sounds, gestures. All this is mixed up in your head. It gradually becomes clear that all these different people are moving towards Gnesinka – the place where the performance takes place. The screen goes blank.

At the entrance, each spectator receives a colored bracelet – now everyone is divided into several groups in accordance with the color of the bracelet.Each group has a guide – a person who will accompany the group throughout the performance. The journey begins.

Documenting an ID performance is a meaningless activity, just as it is impossible to capture the live flow of a performance in general. The following text can be read in any order, like multiple routes in an ID performance. You will never guess which you will get, how everything will turn out in your head and what you will feel in the end.

Room with musicians 90 100

Several musicians are sitting in a semi-dark gallery, forming a circle. Spectators are seated behind their backs. At first, musicians play one single sound, transferring it from instrument to instrument. From this matter, from fragmentary and uncertain phrases, the madrigal Gesualdo suddenly emerges. The madrigal’s instrumentation is unusual: there are “imaginary” voices that play one or the other part. At a press conference, Bochikhina said that this step was inspired by the experiments of the Italian contemporary author Salvatore Sharrino.

Unclear transitions and unsteady boundaries, Renaissance music, playing with the acoustics of space – all this changes your perception. In the instructions before entering the room, it is said to choose one musician and focus on his part, to go through this sonic path with him. Music is what sounds around.

Dmitry Efremov , performer: “A walk is the starting point of a performance. You go and try to remember everything that sounds around. You place some accents, you “write down” this background in your memory.But when you are in a dark room, you must distance yourself as much as possible from the audience and other performers, distance yourself from the surrounding sounds – many performers came in earplugs.

I tried to concentrate on myself and overcome everything I heard on the way to Gnesinka. Staying in a dark room is both a recollection through memory reduction, and a search for something deep – that which is hidden inside yourself. Most of the time I stared into emptiness and tried to reproduce it through sound.For me, there were no specific sounds in the physical sense, rather you are trying to document visual images. ”

Dark room 90 100

You enter a dark room and hear individual sounds. Some are harsh and piercing, others are soft and pleasant. You can move around the room: come closer to the sound sources, or vice versa – move away, so that all these sounds mix and fill your head. Try to record everything you hear.

Olga Bochikhina , author of the ID-performance: “A dark room is a place where a person can“ show himself ”, as photographers do.You are a white piece of paper on which shadows or images suddenly begin to appear. Or maybe they are not there or should not be. Therefore, in this situation you are both a developer and a manifestation. This alchemy is possible here. ”

Room behind glass

You enter the sound engineer’s control room and through the glass you see people dipping their hand into five different boxes. A microphone is connected to each of the boxes, and you can hear how each one sounds. You can work with this sound: remove frequencies, turn off the volume of some and increase the volume of others.We want to identify the events taking place in the process through the understanding of the boundaries of the internal and external. Sound is what sounds in between.

For the composer Olga Bochikhina, the ID-performance has become a personal story: “Before it seemed to me that the best way was to“ live inside ”. I looked at people who “live outside”, and it was wildly frightening. Then I found a balance, which John Cage beautifully articulated in one of his lectures. He talked about an empty room into which you bring yourself. You are not disturbed by the surrounding sounds – you are listening to yourself.You project yourself and thereby learn more about your self. ”

Room with boxes 90 100

You enter a room with five boxes. Their contents are hidden from view, but there is a hole in each of the boxes. You need to come up and put your hand in there. What’s inside and can the contents be mixed? This is a question about the boundaries of your self. Sound is what sounds inside.

Denis Dobrovolsky , viewer: “After the performance I wanted to discuss it with someone.But I ran into the problem that I have no words for this. More precisely – there are thoughts, but there are no suitable words. This moment became interesting to me: something happened that is difficult to verbalize, which means something valuable, and you need to pay attention to it. After some time, I came to the conclusion that ID-performance for me is the path from participant to actor. At first I was an object with which something happens, then an object that does something on its own, and finally myself. Those who simultaneously observe these two roles and experiment with consciousness. “

The journey (like this text) ends. In↔out is just a formula through which the creators of an ID performance invite you to be alone with yourself and hear yourself. “I” is your sound.

“LIVE IN YOUR HEAD” – Theater “Old House”

“LIVE IN YOUR HEAD”

June 18, 2020
Maria Kozhina Petersburg Theater Magazine

In Anton Malikov’s performance, as in Hauptmann’s text, the action is triggered by an event outside the brackets – the death of Matthias Clausen’s wife, after which the usual order of things for the characters collapses.Working with the first versions of the play, 1922 and 1928, previously unknown to the world theater (playwright (adaptation of the text) Mikh Pabian, editor Anulya Vavzhinyak, translators Alexander Filippov-Chekhov, Olga Chekhova), the director strays far from the “classical” interpretation. He is only partially worried about the story of an old man who is trying to start a new life and along the way, like Shakespeare’s King Lear, is faced with the betrayal of children and is deprived of everything he has. Malikov, with the interest of a psychoanalyst, examines what happens to the main character, who is unable to come to terms with the loss: what are his fears, manias and psychosis; why his memories, visions from the past, become part of reality, overshadowing the present.The director finds Matthias in a period of internal decay, when life turns into a semblance of life, becomes a surrogate. As in “Misunderstanding” by Albert Camus, staged by Malikov in the “Old House” a year and a half ago, in the play “Before Sunset” he deals with existential dead ends in which a person finds himself.

Do you know the state when you want to spend as much time as possible in a dream, because living in a world of illusions is more interesting than in reality? Something similar happens to Matthias Clausen (artist of the theater “Red Torch” Vladimir Lemeshonok), obsessed with the idea of ​​resurrecting the past, returning time, which seems happy to him from today.But, as Klamroth (Vitaly Sayanok) constantly repeats, the clock hand cannot be turned back. The hero Lemeshonka wanders in the corridors of his mind, bringing out inner demons. He gets stuck in a matrix where strange human beings live that act like clockwork. Ottilia (Yana Sigida), rocking the child, as if on command, bursts into loud, feigned laughter; Egmont (Alexander Vostrukhin), with smooth, serpentine movements, as if enveloping those around him; Paula (Natalya Pivneva), as if on click, begins to scream and twitch from side to side in a hysterical fit.The world created and destroyed from within is like a jenga, in which Matthias’ children play with their mother in the video – they build a tower, removing the bars from its base until it falls.

Matthias’s jubilee, when friends and family members gather, is reminiscent of a group psychotherapy session. In a spacious room – a space filled with cold bluish light – the participants sit in a circle. Under the supervision of Dr. Steinitz (Anatoly Grigoriev), they alternately talk about the tragedy that happened several years ago, and then, with their hands raised up, they turn to the higher forces, to the spirit of the mother of the family.But do all these characters really exist or do they appear in the imagination of the protagonist? The question of how real is happening inside the performance remains open. Anton Malikov creates a torn structure, which is made up of dissimilar elements, as if not connected with each other. As soon as one manages to grasp the logic of the development of events, it immediately slips away, so any answer to the question posed will turn out to be only a version. The director leads the viewer through a maze of tangled semantic connections, from which at first glance it is impossible to get out – the road constantly winds.All that remains is to follow him, try to solve the rebus, put the puzzle together, even if the result is a completely different picture, different from the director’s intention.

The remark that Matthias never had children, which sounds in the audio recording of his conversation with a lawyer, is uttered by him quickly, in a businesslike manner, in forwarding, as if outside the dream world – where reality can be recorded – he really is lonely.The rest of the characters appear as images, pictures in his head. Mattias is constantly aware of someone else’s presence. someone is watching him from the other side of the glass wall at the back of the stage. In the hero’s fantasies, these figures become voluminous. He gives them the ability to think and feel, so his painful condition is transmitted to them. Next to Matthias, there are people “with a shift”, with an inner defect. Even the devotion of Bettina (Larisa Chernobaeva) turns into something unnatural, pathological.She puts on a white mask that resembles a death cast (the mask replaces the portrait of Clausen’s wife, which is referred to in the play). She impulsively kisses her father on the lips, wanting to take a place not intended for her. It seems that the invented characters are getting out of control, gaining freedom of action. Moreover, they appear not only in the presence of Matthias, but also exist autonomously. Dr. Steinitz can be both outside the situation, observing patients, and inside, turning into one of them. By changing the position of the action, he entangles the threads of the plot, which makes what is happening even more ambiguous.

Matthias’s mental disorder is gradually worsening. Unconnected episodes-vision, separated by light effects, replace each other, like random thoughts snatched from the depths of the subconscious. Black and white stripes on the walls. The sound of a rushing electric train. Feeling of breakneck speed, although you are not moving at all. It is noisy and ringing around. But it seems to be a hum in my head. Fearfully. Other people’s fantasies are now your own. You fall somewhere into emptiness, you reset to zero.No thoughts. You are left alone with yourself, stunned, disoriented. Fearfully. You fall out of stage reality, you fall out of your reality. There is nothing. Only this black and white rattling. Change of frames.

Sensations of the present and the past arise with the appearance of Inken (Sophia Vasilieva), in which Matthias sees the reincarnation of his wife (Vera Sergeeva). True, the similarity between women is exclusively external – a light wig, an artificial detail, thanks to which a purely technical replacement of one person by another occurs in the hero’s illusions.The blonde Inken in a flesh-colored suit is a material that can be crafted into anything. Although it seems that in this coordinate system it is she who is given the choice. Twice the heroine breaks off the connection with the world that she could call her own: when at Matthias’s birthday party she says goodbye to her mother (Khalida Ivanova), when she fiercely argues with her (or with herself, uttering remarks both for herself and for her). In the symbolic actions performed by Inken-Vasilyeva, in the way she repeats the movements of Matthias’s wife, literally turning into her copy; in how, obeying the hero, obediently becomes in the pose of “Wounded Niobe”; in the way he shrinks in pain when he puts on her a wedding ring – the heroine’s refusal to live her own life is expressed.Matthias sacrifices her to his utopian idea.

While Sophia Vasilyeva the director offers a detailed external drawing of the role, in the work of Vladimir Lemeshonok, the nuances of internal states are important. Matthias’s attitude to Inken reveals a complex, sometimes contradictory, structure of human nature. Tenderness, solicitude, touching awe. Suddenly rigidity, imperiousness, desire to possess. Slow, meditative movements become abrupt. Energies pass into each other.What is happening is mesmerizing, hypnotizing. This is what happens when you look at the dancing flames. Thoughts float, dissolve. You watch them from the side. You only manage to catch their scraps. The content of the text becomes secondary. Watching the vibrations of the air.

In the slightest changes in intonation, facial expressions, plastics, one can feel how Lemeshonok accurately conveys the character’s inner life. At the beginning of the play, Matthias Clausen seems to be a dispassionate person, unable to feel anything, as if he is under the influence of anesthesia.An internal fire flares up gradually. But along with real feelings, living energy, something frightening and repulsive awakens in the hero. As if in oblivion, Matthias, like a broken doll, drags Inken across the floor when he cannot believe that his dead wife is in front of him. Something manic, sadistic slips in this – this is how the executioner tortures his victim with pleasure. But suddenly, literally at one moment, closer to the final, a strong man, able to subjugate another to his will, turns into a weak old man with a face deformed after a stroke, who cannot move without assistance.The sudden loss of independence is perceived as the return of the hero to reality, accompanied by the realization of the illusory nature of the world around him, the collapse of false hopes and the acceptance of himself alone, helpless. The movement of stage action is the way of Matthias-Lemeshonk to the understanding that his idea of ​​a fix is ​​unattainable, that artificially created circumstances cannot make him happy, that a semblance of life cannot replace real life, which means that his existence has no meaning.

Faithful servant Winter (Elvira Glavatskikh) – an allegorical figure in the play: either the spirit of the family, or the embodiment of fate – embraces Matthias like a mother, makes him sick, lulls him, while Dr. Steinitz, in an ecstatic frenzy, gives him numerous injections.What is happening is associated with the euthanasia procedure, that is, the voluntary withdrawal of a person from life, when he can no longer endure physical and mental suffering – in a sense, suicide. I remember another role of Anatoly Grigoriev – Gustav Shtrom from “Alice’s Travel to Switzerland” directed by Sergei Chekhov. Moreover, Switzerland is mentioned in the play “Before Sunset” as a place where you feel free, including free from life. Only if Chekhov’s Shtrom is a person from the outside, then Malikov’s Steinitz is a part of Matthias, as if separated from him.While Klausen falls asleep for the last time in Winter’s arms, Grigoriev’s naked hero stands behind a glass wall at the back of the stage, escaping from the world of other people’s ideas.

The sun is setting below the horizon. Purple light floods the scene. The man is dying. Man is born. And you shrink with pity. And at the same time you feel joy. Tears cover my eyes. Pluto from the Disney cartoon jumps on the screen. Flakes of snow slide along the walls.How beautiful! How much air! Terrible dreams are left behind. Now only calmness, serenity.

Photo: Frol Podlesny

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90,000 Balalaika sounds for desperate souls – Culture of the Urals

The string sounds of the old balalaika penetrate inside. Like seeds, they sow you, gradually, each of your cells.As on a fertile land: scatter, drown. Slowly, slowly, they gradually sprout. And you feel the vibration. He touches the instrument there, on the stage, far from you, but the distance seems to cease to exist, it shrinks, soon disappears altogether. It is impossible to resist intercourse, and there is no need to. You already understand that it will hurt, tears burn your face, you are shaking in a fever … but it soon becomes easier. You are recovering. Suddenly you realize that physical liberation renews a soul that has been bleeding or stale for a long time and, it seemed, forever… This is how he heals with his music, unlike any balalaika player in the world, Alexei Arkhipovsky. So he fostered with incredible strength and Yekaterinburg listeners at the April concert in the Central Committee “Ural”. My acoustic therapy was preceded by a conversation with Alexey.

– Alexey, the soundcheck has been dragging on a lot. The harsh Ural climate does not allow the balalaika to come to its senses, to tune in?

– No, the point is different. In my format, few people play. And each time the peculiarities of the sound of different halls emerge.Of course, it also matters that the instrument goes to a different place, to a different climate, but to a much lesser extent.

– After all, you hear the balalaika differently than the listener. What do you think of in order to level this difference? How do you invent recipes for sounds? Are there masters who can help you to relieve the sound from overloading with electronic influence?

– If in the halls there were speakers of such quality as in my house, for example, then we would have one picture. But, since each hall, as I said, has its own characteristics, then they all sound different. This, by the way, is also a kind of improvisation, because the sound dictates completely different conditions of existence.However, even if I have to work with bad speakers, I don’t stop feeling and playing, and these feelings are close to what the audience gets. In fact, this is an old stage thing – what the viewer gets is what the artist feels on stage.

– What is the most important thing for you in sound?

– Biological. When sound does not affect the mind, but the body.

– What does your music depend on: its creation, sounding?

– From very different things.But creation and the very process of creativity is a mystery for me too. I don’t know how it happens, how the right thing comes in. I think I’m groping, sniffing sounds in search of their honesty. Then the works only add up.

– That is, artworks always have honesty, truth in every atom?

– Yes, the truth, which gives rise to a certain resonance in your body, in your psyche.

– It turns out that what we hear is always your transparent thoughts, true, your state of mind?

– Sometimes transparent, sometimes cloudy.Various. But mine are those that are my content and my creation. And it is not at all necessary that at a concert these sounds-thoughts will be the same as at the moment of birth. All works have some kind of dependence on everything. Let’s say, from the situation that is developing at the moment. Everything is always different. I create them anew every time.

– What do you think about when you play, when you are on stage?

– If I think about something, it means that I can’t play. If everything goes as it should, I seem to disappear, dissolve, I am not.There is music and audience. It is very important. When there is a resonance with the audience, it intensifies the music, its direction of movement. It changes from what processes are happening around. I feel these vibrations, the music feels and changes according to the energy.

– Is the authorship of the works that the audience hears at concerts belongs to you or your instrument?

– I do not separate myself from the instrument – we are one whole, we create everything together.

– You basically play your own improvisations.How is it remembered, how does it fit in your head?

– I would say that this is a fixed improvisation. It is in the hands from the moment it is born. That is, by revealing it to the light, I receive a certain key. Then, when I pick up the instrument and start playing, I insert this key, remembering what the music was originally made of. It all depends on the moment, the source from which it flowed out.

– This means that all the important improvisational points are always in the head, always remembered.After all, as far as I know, you do not fix the notes?

– Right. I never write down notes. Everything remains in the head.

– How perfect is the balalaika pickup in your hands? Guitarists have gone this way five decades ago. But with the balalaika, you are probably the first in the country to start doing this kind of improvement.

– I don’t think the guitarists were able to achieve the ideal along the way. And with the balalaika, perhaps someone has tried something similar, but so painstakingly, I suppose, I really did it first.I started working with guitar masters as they already had sufficient experience. Well, lately I’ve been doing everything myself. We have our own developments with development prospects. For example, now we need to find time to make a better sensor based on new materials. At home I have a whole laboratory-workshop: soldering irons, microscopes, ophthalmological instruments, everything that may be needed!

– Do you enjoy this skill?

– Gives pleasure when possible.But to be honest, I’m not ready to do this all the time. Jealous time spent doing such things to the minutes at the instrument.

– Does the viewer’s perception change under electronic transformation?

– If it was just an acoustic effect, I would swing the air just with a soundboard. Now I have a balalaika deck and speaker decks – they are also an acoustic instrument of influence. I connect the viewer with wires. So these are also nuances of acoustics.

– Can your instrument, your balalaika throw out an unexpected trick? If so, what to do about it?

– Anything can happen.The balalaika is alive. But all the accidents that arise in the supposed ideal performance must be deduced in laws, and then they become artistic.

– Do you know everything about your instruments?

– If so, I would be bored! The instrument has a lot of light and dark sides. But this is not only about the balalaika, but about our connection with it. What happens to me affects her and vice versa. Here, as in a conversation, in a dialogue.

– Do you have two instruments?

– Three.One balalaika from 1902, now after a three-year restoration it will return to me from Novosibirsk. But it looks like it will have to be redone. Nalimovskaya balalaika of 1915 also recently underwent renovation. I hope that she will live on. Here at the Yekaterinburg concert I play on Galinis in 1928.

– Are three instruments not enough for an artist who plays so much, is constantly in contact with the balalaika?

– There are a lot of three instruments! I would like to have the only Il Cannone (K.W: Il Cann o ne “Cannon” [it.] Is what Nicolo Paganini called his favorite violin) and no more.

– But for one balalaika is this an unbearable load?

– Yes, it’s hard for her. Because the humidity, and different road conditions, and temperature conditions … a lot. And, probably, they were not created for such tough use. My instruments are under heavy strain.Considering that this is a century-old tree, which was already a hundred years old when it was taken in order to make it. It dries out, has its own ultimate strength. Loads, including vibrational ones, kill her.

– To prevent the balalaika from dying, not being killed, does she need a rest?

– Probably, you just need to monitor her condition, try to treat her. Although she gives out the best sounds, being in a dying state. When you treat her, she plays fresh, but not so interesting.

– From what emotions, habits, roots is the balalaika woven?

– I think that all the climatic features of Russia are sewn into it, which also absorb the mental nuances of the Russian character. Much of the timbre of the instrument in a very correct design resonates precisely with the Russian people.

– You give a lot of concerts abroad. How do foreigners perceive balalaika today?

– Earlier, very often I came across an associative series imposed by a certain lubokness.But, since now I am in a completely different creative niche, I see that they are accepted in a different way. My music is not a brand of Russian popular print, but high-quality music.

– Who are you playing for, who are you addressing? What is your listener in character, state, emotional background?

– This is a difficult topic. In fact, I am happy when I find myself in someone who is in despair.

– What should you do for him to make him feel better or to get out of despair? Perhaps there is another purpose?

– If beauty does not save the world globally, then it obviously touches people somehow.So the beauty of music creates harmony, restores.

– What makes you move forward?

– I want to be needed by people.

– Are there musicians whose work you are interested in, those from whom you draw something for yourself? Or are you always on your own?

– Of course, I am the product of all musical history. I cooked in it, listened to it and absorbed it. Therefore, all this inevitably sounds in my work. I am not a supporter of the division of genres, rather, the division into living and dead musicians, in the sense of talented and commercial.However, sometimes the commercial can be very talented.

– What drove you through life at different times? What was the starting point for you, the impetus for development?

– I liked Paganini very much in my youth. I do not mean how he is broadcast, but his personality, his inner world, the way he is in letters, in biographical sketches, in how his favorite violin Il Cannone Guarnerius sounds. Rachmaninov, in my opinion, is the best pianist of all times and peoples.Glenn Gould, of course, is beautiful with his perfectionism and mathematics. But virtuoso mathematics is about music, about its accuracy. For the most part, Gould deliberately created this mathematics. Rachmaninov’s shamanism seems to elude precise measurements. But, born to both, shocks and inspires.

– When you went on a solo road, was it scary? How did you decide to throw yourself into this unknown?

– It was crazy, of course. None of my colleagues could have imagined that concerts could be performed on a solo balalaika.Usually: played for 10 minutes – thank God if it captured the attention of the viewer. But an hour and a half on stage is a frenzy! But always, all my creative life, I was given the opportunity of solo performances, albeit small ones. This was the case with Zykina and the Smolensk Orchestra. And I liked this genre of monologue, then there was a desire only for such a statement, in another way I no longer saw myself, did not feel. I took a chance, closing my eyes. Now I consciously do not want to return to anything else.

– How was the quarantine year? I understand that you are now resuming your concerts, but it was probably very difficult.How did you use this time for yourself?

– Yes, it was very difficult. I tried to do something at home, tried to work. But exclusion from the social sphere is irreparable. Still, musicians should participate in a big life, get a response not only from their loved ones. It is vital for us to play in public. It awakens motivation, true feeling, understanding of movement, and much more. It also multiplies the correct hormones, which have been greatly reduced this year. Emotionally much better now.It became easier when it became possible to play for a hall that was 25-50-75 percent full. Well, in the last two cities in the hall, finally, not a single free seat! The audience is extremely important to me.

– What are your wishes, plans? Should the listener finally wait for your recordings?

– There will definitely be an attempt to record everything on tape, namely on analog tape. Well, then you can on vinyl, and anywhere. I really hope that everything will work out. In any case, in May I will go to the studio, I will try to record everything that I play in the halls without compromise, exactly the way I see and feel it.

Material by Ksenia Sheinis, photographs by Kirill Dedyukhin / Kultura-Urala.RF.

Cover photo arkhipovskiy.com.

Life hack: how to get rid of an obsessive melody in your head

• Tom Stafford
• BBC Future

June 28, 2017

Photo author, Getty Images

Photo caption,

This melody again! How to get rid of her?

Why do some songs get stuck in our heads for a long time and what we need to do to stop playing there, says columnist for BBC Future psychologist Tom Stafford.

Some melodies are attached to us for several days, or even months. They are spinning in our heads for no reason, and we just can’t get rid of them.

There is even a special name for such a melody in English – “earworm”. And anything can get attached: from the last hit of Lady Gaga or Coldplay to (what a horror!) A simple song from the Eurovision Song Contest.

For a psychologist, the most interesting thing about this phenomenon is this: we obviously cannot control part of our mind.

An obsessive melody arises in the head without any warning and refuses to obey when we order it to disappear.

These “parasites” live in the part of our brain that is responsible for repeating sounds.

All people have musical memories, but they are not formed in the same way, researchers from Goldsmith University in London have found. Scientists have collected more than 5 thousand samples of haunting melodies.

Indeed, the melodies that get stuck in the head are usually simple and with a repetitive theme.But it is interesting that different motives cling to different people.

Music Hook

Neurologist Oliver Sachs wrote in his book Musicophilia that intrusive melodies are evidence of “how sensitive and helpless our brain is to music.”

Repetition is inherent in music – perhaps that is why some melodies are so hard to get rid of. The chorus (or a piece that is easy to remember) begins to repeat itself endlessly in our brain, like a jammed record.

Photo author, Getty Images

Photo caption,

As soon as someone reminds you of the parasite melody, your “earworm” instantly comes to life.

Some people just need to sing the whole song to get rid of the parasite melody. Others say that this method does not work at all.

Another peculiarity of a piece of music is that – unlike physical objects – it is always the same.

Objects are very similar – for example, fences.However, we even look at the same fence every time from a different angle or under different lighting.

But load the song into your player or smartphone – and the sounds you hear every time will be exactly the same.

Repetition generally plays an important role in the process of memorizing something. So it is perhaps the endlessly repeating elements within one song that plow deep tracks in our minds. Paths in which the “earworms” settle.

On the other hand, the melodies we call intrusive are not just repetitive.Usually they have something special, unusual – what makes them attractive, makes them pay attention to them, a kind of musical hook that we are caught on.

Perhaps that is why they remain in our head, otherwise they would be lost among other musical memories.

Jukebox Riot

Sometimes you don’t need to hear the melody itself – if someone just mentions it, your “earworm” instantly comes to life.

This proves that haunting melodies are a phenomenon of long-term memory, and not an instant echo of what you just heard.

But that’s not all. Scientists have discovered additional components in our short-term memory that hold images or sounds. One of them is the “inner eye”, which captures visual information, the other is the “inner ear”, which we use, for example, to memorize phone numbers.

Obsessive melodies fall here. Instead of running through our heads for the day or other less important thoughts, our inner ear fixates on a combination of a few chords or a couple of lines from a song.

Photo author, Getty Images

Photo caption,

Music affects our brain in an amazing way

The part of our brain that usually obeys us without a murmur suddenly begins to rebel. It turns into a broken jukebox that plays the same melody over and over to us, which we didn’t order at all.

Modern psychology recognizes that our brain is not a whole mechanism. Sigmund Freud spoke about this. And although recent discoveries in this area have partially refuted his theories, in at least one thing he was right.

Awareness of our own “I” is not the only thing that happens in our consciousness. Our mind is a complex world, about which we still do not know everything and which we do not fully control.

Wedge wedge?

Fortunately, psychologists have already learned a little about taming a naughty mind.

Think about the “polar bear effect”. Try not to think about this bear for at least a couple of minutes yourself, or give such a task to a friend whom you would like to torment a little.

The paradox is that when you try not to think about something, you constantly check whether your brain has stopped thinking about it, which means that you are remembering the same polar bear again.

To stop thinking or “not thinking” about a polar bear, you have to switch to something completely different altogether.

In the same way, you can fight an obsessive melody. When a song starts spinning non-stop in your inner ear, a simple order to stop is not enough (on the contrary, it will make the situation worse).

It is much better to focus your inner ear on another task. Try to remember another song – better one that is also easy to remember.

For example, if you are hooked on Toxic Britney Spears, try singing Can’t Get You Out Of My Head by Kylie Minogue (a good title for this is “Can’t Get You Out of My Head”).

According to my theory, two “earworms” do not get along at the same time. Although, perhaps, it will be different for you.

To read the original of this article in English you can visit the website BBC Future .

Jungle in the head – Newspaper Kommersant No. 101 (5851) dated 09.06.2016

Festival Theater

In Vienna, within the framework of the Wiener Festwochen, a new performance by Briton Simon McBurney was shown. It became an event of the festival – even against the background of this year’s unusually rich program. From Vienna – ALLA SHENDEROVA.

“Director from Krokodilov Street”, as McBurney was nicknamed in Moscow, where his “Krokodilov Street” by Bruno Schultz became a legend back in 1993; the creator of one of the most unusual theaters (which, however, does not have its own premises in London) McBurney cuts each performance according to new patterns, the common in them is the perception of the world that poets have.However, McBurney does not write poetry, replacing them with autobiographical prose. He is musical, his brother Gerald, who graduated from the Moscow Conservatory, helped him in the play “The Noise of Time”, where the director investigated the fate of Dmitry Shostakovich. And if you set a goal, you can find something in common between that performance (in 2005, “The Noise of Time” was shown here), before which the audience was asked to applaud – allegedly the BBC is recording, and the current “The Encounter” (translated as “meeting” ). In both, the audience was mystified, and both at first can be mistaken for a regular stand-up.

The thinnest movie actor, Simon seems to have taken part in his production for the first time. “The Encounter” is a solo performance, although you instantly forget about it: not only the stage, but the whole hall is filled with the voices of the characters (Garte Fry and Pete Malkin are responsible for the sound). But the big stage is almost empty – on the left is a table with bottles of water on it. In the center is a huge microphone in the shape of a human head. The most unusual thing about the design by Michael Levine is the grooved back wall. Either it is a copy of a soundproof coating, in which a bottle is tightly stuck, in a moment of despair the hero threw against the wall and turned into a twinkling guiding star.Either a high-tech device onto which the video mapping is projected. Most often, the wall resembles a screen – either a radar, or some kind of device that scans the brain. Actually, not only the screen, the whole performance is arranged in such a way that it is not completely clear whether the hero is wandering through the inner jungle of his consciousness or talking about a real adventure that happened in the forests of the Amazon with a National Geographic photographer named Lauren McIntyre and described in Petru Popescu’s book “The Shining Amazon. “.

“I want to tell you a story,” a short man in a baseball cap addresses the audience.He takes a videotape from the table – “this is the only place where my father stayed.” Then he accidentally breaks it: the audience laughingly discovers a whole box of videotape – apparently, the cassette is not beating for the first time. Asks the audience to put on headphones: “Now I am in your left ear, now in your right ear, now in the middle.” Laughter again: the sound comes from the headphones, but it seems that it rushes around the hall – as McBurney rushes around the stage, arguing that time does not exist, and immediately complaining that he lost his watch and does not know when to start the story.And without a pause: “In it I will exist in three dimensions: I am now, I am six months ago, and I two years ago, when I thought up this performance.” In fact, there will be more temporary layers: the photographer landed on the shores of the Amazon in 1969. How many months or years he spent among the mysterious Majoruna Indians is unclear. The story of how Lauren, seeing the leader of the natives, ran after him, and then could not find anyone to show him the way through the thicket, interrupts the voice of McBurney’s daughter (then she was five, the performer explains), who was awakened by a noise: the father was picking up sounds for the performance.

The Indians take the watch from Lauren, the monkey smashes the camera. McBurney rustles with film – this sound replaces the steps of the hero, who went with the Indians to hunt a leopard and woke up many days later. The climax happens during a fire – by this time the hero finds a native who understands Portuguese. He explains that the tribe decided to reset to zero – to burn all belongings and migrate. McBurney’s voice replaces the screams of the tribe galloping around the fire, but it’s not enough – it seems that the tribe has settled right in your head.Inside it, fire is cracking and the forest is rustling – McBurney breaks the bottles, having time to shout about what would happen if they decided to reset to zero, say, in Washington. On the back wall, a huge shadow crumbles like a falling skyscraper. Suddenly, the noise seems to be compressed, turning into the tinkling of an invisible typewriter – this is Lauren composing letters to the deceased leader. It is unclear how the hero managed to return to civilization. McBurney seems to be talking about how he lived to see 2003. However, facts are not important. The fact is that even at the beginning of the adventure, Lauren begins to think that the leader, who does not know a single European word, is talking to him telepathically.But the speech in the play is not always legible: the viewer, like Lauren, soon ceases to understand what the voice says in the headphones, and what is born in his, the viewer’s, imagination. One cannot help but recall that McBurney’s theater is called Du Complicite, that is, “complicity” or “partnership”. A partnership of the era of new technologies. Or, on the contrary, the old ones, because telepathy is an ancient thing. From the stupor, the hall is brought out by a bright light and McBurney, offering to take off the headphones. Standing at the usual microphone, he reports that six months ago he also visited the Majoruna Indians: “They asked me to convey that they exist.”

Opera without words and “ballet” on the sand shown in Voronezh – Rossiyskaya Gazeta

A series of performances based on the works of Andrei Platonov was created for the festival named after him. An express opera was performed at the Voronezh-1 station. In the basement of the former shoe factory “Progress” – we talked with the audience face to face with excerpts from Platonov’s letters. On the embankment of the reservoir – they danced a parable about the conquest of nature and tried to dig a foundation pit – which, as in the story of the same name, will not be useful to anyone.

Unusual for Voronezh performances – theatrical, but not taking place on stage – attracted the attention of many townspeople. Some of the curious (admittedly smaller) attended the performances personally. Part – I studied it from spectacular photos and videos in social networks. The most active participants in the discussion, as usual, “heard the ringing.”

Most of the copies were broken about the performance “The Foundation Pit”. It was invented by Polina Kardymon from Novosibirsk – a director by education, a participant in conceptual art actions. The idea was simple: try to dig a hole in a vacant lot with a shovel for nine hours in a row for three days to read “The Pit”.Platonov’s heroes are preparing a place for the foundation of a huge house (read: a bright future), and their work in the end turns out to be fruitless. The essence of the performance was that Polina knew from the start about the futility of her efforts. At the end of the third day, the bulldozer was supposed to push the earth back into the hole.

The girl was preparing seriously: she did exercises for the back for two months, studied the “retirement sites” with advice on how to dig so as not to ditch the lower back. On the morning of June 4, Polina dressed in white, arrived at the dam of a railway bridge (the railroad is one of Platonov’s important motives), thrust a shovel into the turf … Then the responsible officials appeared and announced that excavation near the tracks was prohibited.In order not to ditch the project completely, they bargained that Polina would dig one day without going too deep. On the site of the failed excavation, a small mound of cobblestones was laid. You can watch the recording of the performance on the Platonov Festival YouTube channel. A reason to think about why something is always preventing us from realizing a beautiful dream,

The most populous performance turned out to be “Inhabitants of the Hometown”. Dozens of Voronezh residents were not too lazy to arrive at the Voronezh-Kurskiy station at 23 o’clock to take a train ride to the central station and listen to avant-garde music there.

Experts called it a site-specific opera (that is, an opera composed for a specific place and beyond it impossible), but for an inexperienced audience it was perceived as the same performance: something happens, the sound comes from all sides, and the images that can fill action with meanings, are born only in your head.

It was invented by young guys from the “Geometry of Sound” project headed by composer Daniil Posazhennikov and artist Anna Kostrikova. They pushed away from Platonov’s post-war story with a leitmotif of hope: “What was destroyed and perished necessarily reappears in the world, and appears in a more perfect and beautiful form than it had existed before.”

Voronezh was destroyed a little less than completely during the war. The Germans thought that they would not restore it. But people returned to the ruins, the city revived. He turned into a strong, sometimes self-satisfied, sometimes still unkempt millionaire. “Let’s imagine that the time we live in is the revival that Andrei Platonov dreamed of. Let’s go through the station and find ourselves in the city of the future …” – suggested the directors.

The South Eastern Railway Directorate allocated two passenger cars for this occasion.You should have listened carefully to the sounds that made up the performance on the train. But the audience was in joyful excitement and drowned out all other noises. However, nothing remarkable happened in the carriage, and fences flashed outside the window. When people poured out onto the platform and calmed down, Voronezh choristers (conductor Olga Shcherban) and a duet of machinists, who sounded beeps according to the score, entered the business. A sad accordion complemented them.

Beautiful dissonances drew the audience further – into the tunnel to the exit, past conventional flower girls and real policemen.Those leaving were dozing in the waiting room as if nothing had happened. The audience was seated in the foyer. In the center there is a chamber ensemble (harp, mandolin, violin, trombone …), along the perimeter and in the gallery above there are vocalists. In the dim light, the space resembled a baroque cathedral – with a high ceiling, stucco on the walls, a stained-glass window. Music without words was still full of dissonances, some kind of bird cries, creating a feeling of vague anxiety, but also a lofty, almost religious expectation. The pathos was knocked down by the on-duty announcements in the loudspeakers: “Fast train number …” In the final, everyone went to the station square, and the vocalists sang something like an anthem of a new life.

Another plastic fantasy on a Platonic theme was composed by the choreographer from Yekaterinburg Anna Shchekleina. “Novaya Zemlya” unfolded on the sand near the reservoir, against the backdrop of the panorama of the Left Bank. The dancers of the Chamber Theater embodied visual images gleaned from the writer, while reading individual capacious phrases from his stories. The core of the production was the idea of ​​conquering nature, the triumph of man over the elements and building the future.

The performance “The time that I will borrow from you will not be long …” was, unlike the others, completely built on working with text.It was organized by the already mentioned Polina Kardymon. Artists of the Chamber Theater and the Young People’s Theater chose from Platonov’s letters those passages that “echoed” in them, and on this basis they created monologues. They should have been spoken almost continuously, automatically. Fortunately, the actors still brought some play, reincarnation to this process – otherwise it would have been more productive to let the visitors read the texts silently.

Ten people in the basement of the Progress art space, against the background of expressively peeling walls, recited their excerpts, and the audience could sit down to any of the performers and listen to a fragment of any length.The stay time was limited to 40 minutes, so it was almost impossible to go through all of them. Each spectator got his own performance, depending on who he got to and from what place in the monologue.