
This was over more than one day, several session. Things are loud enough! Anyway, several months after I got hearing aids, my band and I recorded several of my vocals, which all turned out a quarter tone flat. They helped me in daily life quite a bit, though I still don’t have “20-20” hearing. I don’t know why my pitch detection sensibilities diminished then when I’d been able to match pitch when singing most of the time before that.It had not been an issue.I got hearing aids, thinking that would help. I started singing flat more and more about 4 years ago - due to my faulty hearing and maybe allergies. Have had Diva in-ear hearing aids for four years. I have a cookie bite hearing loss at the moderate/moderately severe level (on the border between the two). I am a female 59 year old lifelong musician/singer. For example, a man found that sometimes when he took Pregabalin his ears would hear music at the wrong pitch. The anti-convulsant drug Pregabalin ( Lyrica) can also cause pitch distortion. this pitch distortion didn’t occur.Īnother man reported, “I take Atenolol daily for hypertension and it seems this contributes to my loss of pitch (strangely bass notes only) when gigging in my rock band?” For example, a man found that when he took Atenolol at higher doses his ears heard music at the wrong pitch. See my article “ Propranolol and Distorted Pitch Perception“.Īnother beta-blocker, Atenolol ( Tenolin) can also cause hearing music in the wrong pitch. You can read about several people’s experiences in my article “ Carbamazepine and Lowered Pitch Perception“.Īlso, the beta-blocker, Propranolol ( Inderal) also causes pitch distortion. The drug Carbamazepine ( Tegretol) causes music to typically sound a semitone lower that it really is. Since I wrote the above, I’ve found four other drugs that can cause messed up pitch perception.

I’m curious as to how common this problem really is, and if you’ve found ways to overcome it, Also, if you know of any research on this subject, please let me know. If anyone else has problems with pitch because of their hearing loss, I’d love to hear from you. If you know of any research in this area, please pass it on. I truly wish I understood this difference in perception of pitch. I don’t sing anymore, as I never know if I’m hearing the correct key as they’re playing. I can still play the piano, but always fear one day that even the piano will be in a different key as I’m playing it. But when I go up to the piano, organ, or whatever instrument, it is in the correct key. When I am in the congregation looking at the hymnal, the hymns sound as if they are in a different key than they are written.

Then it seemed to “settle” to the point that it only seems “off” when I’m a certain distance from the source of the sound.

When this first happened, I would hear the song being transposed up a half or whole step even in the middle of the song (as I turned the page). I have been involved in numerous music-related jobs (playing the piano, directing choirs, directing or playing handbells, etc.) up until a very bizarre change took place almost overnight. Despite my being born with a moderate-to-severe bilateral sensorineural hearing loss, I was also born with perfect pitch-the ability to identify musical notes without a reference. I was most interested in your article “ When Your Piano Sounds Bad,” especially your wife’s experience with different pitches in each ear. The day the e-zine came out, Joyce wrote: They are not the only ones with this problem. In the last e-zine, I wrote about a man that was having trouble hearing his piano on key, and how my wife hears two different pitches-one in each ear.
