Hear Here!
14 January 2008
Deafness Research UK is delighted to be teaming up with the Royal Philharmonic Society, Classic FM and a number of other prestigious partners for a major new cultural and educational initiative for 2008.
Hear Here! will involve live events, broadcasts and interactive multimedia events throughout the year – all designed to get people thinking about the experience of listening to classical music.
How and why do we listen? What does it mean to us socially, emotionally and in other ways? And what does it mean if we lose the ability to listen? This exciting and imaginative project will explore all these questions and more.
Being able to hear and enjoy music is an important social and cultural activity for many people. Losing one’s hearing can mean the devastating loss of a source of pleasure and relaxation, increasing the sense of isolation already felt as the world goes quiet.
In a series of interactive features appearing monthly throughout 2008, the scientists supported by Deafness Research UK will be talking about recent advances in the work they do at the country’s top research institutions.
We’ll be looking at the science of sound and the mechanics of listening, the impact of our environment on the listening experience and the effect of new audio technology on our ability to hear. We’ll also investigate the way in which memory, familiarity, change and preconceptions in the hearing brain affect us and we’ll find out how children learn to listen. Finally we’ll see what is being done toward the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of all forms of hearing impairment, from age-related hearing loss to the latest in cochlear implant technology.
This month, to start us off, Professor David McAlpine, Director of the University College London Ear Institute gives an overview of the scope of hearing research, we've got an auditory illusion of musical pitch (The ever-decreasing glissando) and there's a chance for you to test your musical listening skills with Professor Tim Griffiths' research group at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne.
