Ear Diary by George Rayner-Law

WARNING: THIS PEICE HAS BEEN KNOWN TO AGGRAVATE AND DISTRESS PRE-EXISTING TINNITUS IN LISTENERS. DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

I have had tinnitus since I was 18. It has been with me in some form for the majority of my life as a listener. It primarily consists of neurological or subjective tinnitus, what is often popularly just called tinnitus - ringing or fizzing sounds in both ears. I also experience pulsatile tinnitus, where blood vessels are audible, mostly in my right ear, and muscular tinnitus, where muscle contractions in the wider head are audible, exclusively in my right ear. The latter two forms are especially responsive to stress triggers, and I sleep with a mouthguard to try and mitigate these right ear issues; this stretches the muscles, making them more relaxed in my waking life, therefore less likely to activate muscular tinnitus.

Recently, the distress I experience from my tinnitus has increased. This started with a small rupture to my right eardrum in August 2023, followed by moving house to an environment with less background (especially low traffic) noise in September. Tinnitus distress is a term used to describe the related negative impact experienced by people with tinnitus. Tinnitus distress presents at a much lower reported rate than tinnitus and is often fluctuating or contextual for people with tinnitus, affected by factors such as environment, age, anxiety, stress, and sleep status. My distress did not abate after a couple of weeks, as has happened in the past, so I had an air conduction hearing test done. This showed some hearing loss within the tested range, but no physical, or treatable, issues with my ears.

I used this hearing test to build two parallel EQ envelopes - one for each ear. I then tuned oscillators to the frequencies of my tinnitus, and used foley and sound design techniques to model pulsatile and muscular tinnitus. Informed by Pierre Schaeffer's ideas around sound objects, I documented specific moments of my experience of tinnitus in December 2023 as corresponding to his four listening functions.

The neurological nature of subjective tinnitus makes it impossible to record sonically, as there is no vibration of air particles taking place - no actual ‘sound’. It is therefore not possible for people other than the person with tinnitus to experience someone else’s subjective tinnitus. This Schaefferian framework allowed me to model some of my subjective experience so others may hear it.

This is a binaural work that takes full advantage of spatial positioning techniques to model the lack of external fixed sound source position outside both the physical skull and neurological system in neurological tinnitus. Over ear headphone use is strongly recommended for intended effect.

Any questions, or for more information please email: georgeraynerlaw@gmail.com

George Rayner-Law is a sound worker from South London.

This page is for archiving work not available elsewhere.

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