2014 01/ Sonic tonic Is music proving as powerful as a pill? Building in acoustics Concert halls as star performers We will, we will rock you The vital need to sing to your child EDITORIAL © ARCHIVE © © VERENA AHNE VERENA © © MIRJAM REITHER© Verena Ahne Bettina Benesch Marian Blaikley Verena Ahne completed Bettina Benesch is a Marian Blaikley is a her studies in ethnology, freelance journalist and journalist and consultant, then took a year off editor, who lives and who writes about the travelling the world. works in the Vienna area arts and education. Her After that she worked of Austria. She is editor special interest is music. for several NGOs before of the German edition of Before turning freelance, starting to write EXPLOREMAGAZINE. she worked for a number professionally. She is Benesch has one of years as director of Meet the now based in Vienna, daughter and believes marketing at the Royal Austria where she works that ‘life is too good not Northern College of editorial team as a science and medical to write about it‘. Music in Manchester. journalist. © ARCHIVE © ARCHIVE © ARCHIVE © © JOHNNY SAUNDERSON JOHNNY © Christian Duffin Susan Mayor Rachel Pugh – Editor Sigrun Saunderson Christian Duffin is a Susan Mayor has twice Rachel Pugh, who is Sigrun Saunderson is a freelance journalist who won the ’UK Medical editing the UK edition freelance journalist and has written extensively Journalist of the Year’ of EXPLOREMAGAZINE, is copywriter based in on health issues. His award from the Medical an award-winning health Eastern Austria. Her focus work has been published Journalists’ Association, journalist, who contrib- is on health and popular in the UK in national as well as a Communiqué utes to The Guardian, The science topics. Her work newspapers and journals award for her book on Independent, The Times has been published in including The Guardian, new drug development. Educational Supplement news-papers and The Times, The Daily Following a PhD from and The Daily Telegraph. magazines such as the Mirror, Nursing Standard University College Hospital She has worked in Universum, EMMA and the and Pulse. Christian has London, post-doctoral strategic communication Austrian Medical Journal. covered subjects such as research and several years roles for the UK’s National cancer, mental health, as a university lecturer, Health Service, for the diabetes and asthma. He she trained as a journalist BBC and for pharma- lives in Walthamstow, and editor for a leading ceutical companies. East London UK. publisher, before be- Her passion is for health coming news editor of issues and their impact on the British Medical Journal. society and equality. 2 EXPLOREMUSIC 01/2014 EDITORIAL HEARING FROM THE HEART Thousands of years ago, mankind identified, and began to harness, the power of music – a force which the English 17 th-century poet William Congreve famously said “has charms to soothe a savage breast” For many people today, rhythm It was a passion for hearing hear properly. Deaf children do and sound are as important that originally motivated not learn to speak as well as as the food they eat. People Ingeborg Hochmair to found they should. need music. We live in a world her company MED-EL. For more of sound and noise, full of than 20 years MED-EL has pro- Our ultimate goal is to overcome rhythm and melody. We even duced hearing implants and hearing loss – hence this mag- produce our very own rhythms researched new technologies azine, which focuses a spot- and sounds. Every day our from its home in Innsbruck, light on hearing. hearts beat 100,000 times, Austria. we breathe 23,000 times, we MED-EL wants to raise aware- laugh, we chat and we have The mission – then as now – ness of the value to us all of ideas. Communication is our was to overcome hearing loss. hearing – not by using bro- common bond – we are born Two decades on, far too many chures and websites – but to do so – and what makes this people are still unaware of this time by exploring differ- possible is our ability to hear. what hearing loss actually ent aspects of our sound world That is why this magazine has means. People suffering from through this magazine. been set up – with hearing at a hearing loss tend to avoid We invite you to join us for this its heart. company, speak less and gen- first edition of EXPLOREMAGA- erally find life more difficult ZINE. The current topic is mu- than they would if they could sic. Immerse yourself in it. Best wishes from the editorial team EXPLOREMUSIC 01/2014 3 FIGURE IT OUT 90% of all deaf children are Gemini 6 astronauts born to hearing parents. M. 'Wally' Schirra Jr and Thomas P. Stafford, made musical history in 1965, by performing Jingle Bells in the 90 capsule – the first music to be performed in space. By the end of secondary school, more than 3 out of every 1000 children in Australia will require assistance because of hearing loss. 3 6188,000Approximately 188,000 people worldwide have received cochlear implants. In the United States, roughly 41,500 adults and 25,500 children have them. Multi-instrumentalists rule in the rock band Gentle Giant. The founding Shulman brothers played about 23, and the rest of the 23members at least three different instruments. 4 EXPLOREMUSIC 01/2014 CONTENT We will, we will rock you! Marian Blaikley sees how lullabies and 8 nursery tunes are faring today CONTENT Hear, here! 6 News in short A vital part of life 7 Student Rosa MacMullen on her passion for music Sonic tonic 13 Rachel Pugh explores the therapeutic power of music © CORBIS Building bridges through music 17 Verena Ahne talks to psychiatrist Thomas Stegemann about music therapy The quickening art United in harmony 22 Susan Mayor looks at how older people Marian Blaikley reviews the all-inclusive art form 18 can benefit from musical input Technology in tempo 28 Christian Duffin on the science helping implant users with a thirst for the pulse From words to music 32 Enjoying music with an implant An Osmond finds his own voice 34 Justin Osmond talks to Rachel Pugh about growing up deaf in a family of rock idols Too loud, man! 36 Christian Duffin looks at what happens to hearing when the volume goes up iStcok © Built-in stereo Bettina Benesch finds out the benefits of 40 two ears rather than just one Building in acoustic perfection 25 Susan Mayor talks to acoustics experts about concert halls © TREVOR COX © CORBIS EXPLOREMUSIC 01/2014 5 HEAR HERE HEAR, ‘Rampant’ discrimination Research by the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) in HERE! the USA has revealed ‘rampant’ Feel the vibe discrimination by housing associations against hearing A three-year UK project has been Cubist approach impaired individuals seeking rented investigating the potential for vibrational accommodation in apartment feedback to help ensembles of musicians An eight-inch wooden cube may complexes. Of the 715 housing with hearing impairments, who would be an unlikely spark for a musical organisations, 86% provided less otherwise rely primarily on visual cues, revolution – but that’s the hope information to deaf individuals, to play together. The research was led of a collaboration of electronic 56% informed deaf individuals that by Dr Carl Hopkins of the University of engineers and musicians working further background and financial Liverpool, UK and Professor Jane Ginsborg towards hackable electronic checks would be necessary to at the Royal Northern College of Music, instruments that performers can determine qualification (even Manchester, UK in partnership with the easily modify to produce sounds though they are not necessary for charity, Music and the Deaf. The aim is to in surprising new ways. The hearing individuals), and 40% hung open up new opportunities for deaf people deliberately simple cube – which up on deaf callers at least once. of all ages to enjoy making music together. contains a sensor, computer chip and speaker to transform touch into sound – is the creation of Dr Andrew McPherson, whose work on ‘hackable instruments’ progresses at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), with input from London Music Hackspace. For more information see www.qmul.ac.uk/media/news/ of people with hearing loss items/se/122515.html are currently receiving treatment of people with hearing loss have never received treatment How many? More than 250,000 people live with cochlear implants world wide – 12,000 of them in the UK. 6 EXPLOREMUSIC 01/2014 MUSIC AND ME A VITAL Rosa MacMullen PART OF Rosa MacMullen Age: 19 Gap year student From: Hull, UK LIFE »I would rather do without my TV and my computer than without my iPod ®. If I could not listen to music, I would feel really excluded from the activities my friends are involved in.« INTERVIEW BY RACHEL PUGH Even though I was born profoundly deaf, I class myself as hearing, When I was younger, I found it difficult to listen to as I received a single cochlear implant in 2000, and ‘modern‘ music as the lyrics were unclear and it just a second one in 2010, like my sister did. We are sounded like noise to me. So I really got into singers both avid listeners to music and hear it to a very from the 20s to the 60s. Since primary school, Judy high quality. Garland has been my favourite artist – I can always find something in her repertoire to correspond to Music has always been a part of my life as I have my mood. As my hearing progressed, so did my love danced since the age of five, and I also did com- for all different kinds of music.