The music thing
Hi, my name is Jody, and I'm a Nano-holic.
Some people (read "kids") are able to fill up their iPods overnight, stuffing them with complete CDs for the full oeuvre of Dirty Old Bastard. My experience has been more laborious and selective, but no less fun.
I now have 185 songs on my 5 gig iPod Nano (and the memory isn't quite half-full). The vast majority are, by choice, songs I know well. It's easier for me to lock into the melodies and keys when my memory is allowed to fill gaps. And these are many gaps. Despite the quantum leap provided by AB's 120 software, certain music still sounds incredibly off-key, especially the instrumental parts. The nuances become muddled.
The cool thing is that the CI is so locked in to voices that a song's vocals become the lifeline. Johnny Cash's cover of Nine-Inch Nails' "Hurt" is a good example. The guitar intro,when I first heard it on the Nano, came across as compressed notes that could land anywhere on the scale. But when Johnny started to growl, I dug into my memory and locked in where his voice should be. Once I had the vocal "placed," the guitar and piano parts developed anchors, and the song fleshed itself out.
Yeah, in many cases it actually takes some concentration to pull a song together -- the first few times I hear it. But just as often, I can relax and just like let it flow over me.
Modern sound mixing is not necessarily CI-friendly, I've found. I've tried a few songs that came along after my hearing loss, and with many of them I have to fight through several layers of tracks, which, probably because of their density, sound scratchy and hissy to me. I gave up on Daughtry's "Home," but am still playing with Amy Whitehouse. That said, I totally get Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats." Fun tune!
Not suprisingly, older songs with simpler production values (most of the Beatles, "I Can See Clearly Now" by Johnny Nash) are very pleasureable.
Also, since the highest pitches are the most challenging to me (they either warble, sound scratchy or, if high enough, vanish altogether), lower-pitched deliveries, both vocally and instrumentally, are more fun right out of the box (Tom Waits, Janis Ian, Michelle Shocked, Southern Culture on the Skids). But I've got some screeching rock that's a kick, too (one of the best is a guitar jam by Zappa, Steve Vai and others called "My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama").
The overarching thing, of course, is the pure pleasure of music returning to my life. I plug in while I'm gardening or computering. Sometimes I'll just listen for a while as I read in bed (I'd prefer not to fall asleep with it on, but it's happened). It's brought a smile to Sara's face; she know how much I missed it. My smile is just as wide, if not wider.