Featuring Science Ficta and The Daxophone Consort.
Daniel Fishkin, 2019

Contrary to the masking of external sounds, it is possible to abolish the perception of tinnitus sounds by pure tones of a similar intensity regardless of their frequency (Feldmann, 1971). This proves that “masking” of tinnitus does not involve a mechanical interaction of basilar membrane movements, does not depend on the critical band principle and, therefore, has to occur at a higher level within the auditory pathways. Consequently, the elimination of the perception of tinnitus by another sound should be labeled suppression rather than “masking,” as is commonly used. Unfortunately, Feldmann’s fundamental discovery has been widely disregarded, resulting in focusing attention on masking rather than suppression and in producing tinnitus instruments tuned to the dominant perceived pitch of tinnitus.
Tinnitus Retraining Therapy, Pawel Jastreboff, 2004

Masking Songs (excerpt)

from Shaeffer/Cox and Composing the Tinnitus Suites
performed on the Lady's Harp

performers: Samuel Budin, Anastasia Clarke, Daniel Fishkin, Oliver Jones, Matt Marble

produced by Zachary Dunham

http://dfiction.com/composing-the-tinnitus-suites-2012/
http://www.trespassagain.com/SCHAEFFER_COX.html

Masking Etude

This piece is a transcription of an earlier work, Composing the Tinnitus Suites (2008-2011), which I created on the Lady’s Harp, a 20 foot feedback instrument which utilizes guitar pickups, pressure transducers and long piano wire.

I wanted to test whether I could make work in the series of my Tinnitus Suites project, but without needing to do a site-specific sound installation. Also, I felt the original recording calling to me in its tonal clarity. Using Fourier analysis, I approximated the harmonic content of the Harp’s strings and transcribed it for the six instrumentalists of ensemble mise-en. This work could have been done more quickly with a computational process, but I did it all by hand, and savored the chance to slave over each measure. Though I used my computer to do the Fourier analysis, I only wanted the ensemble to play what I was able to hear, and bear responsibility for the notes I selected from the spectrum of the original piece.

Composing the Tinnitus Suites: Mise-En Transcription

from "Masking Songs" (2020-23)

Masking Songs deals with the principle of auditory masking, in which the perception of a sound is affected by another sound. In lieu of a medical cure for tinnitus, auditory masking/suppression is one of the primary means for attenuating the perception of phantom sound. However, depending on what one is trying to mask, from the sounds of the acoustic world to the phantom sounds of tinnitus, the means of sound occlusion are formally distinct.

Obfuscate and discover the conscious music-making activity of other players. The primary goal is to achieve suppression and “unveiling” of sound you create. Tinnitus Scholarship names this relationship as “signal vs. masker”: signal is the ever-insistent phantom perception of tinnitus, and the masker is that which can suppress it—acoustic sound.

Off Center Frequency Listening

Composing the Tinnitus Suites is not a strict series of musical works but a gerund, a disposition toward life, and a thing that happens when I play the Lady’s Harp, which you see before you today. Starting in 2011, I see this work as ongoing, and part of a lifelong oath I made to make the Tinnitus Suites as long as my ears ring.

The last episode of Composing the Tinnitus Suites was three years ago. What happened? Somehow, to my surprise, during that time, my tinnitus invaded my listening reality much less than in the past. Was that the reason for this project’s three-year break? Sometimes days would go by without hearing my ears ring. And, when I would notice them ringing, it was like an old friend stopping by, or to risk being metaphysical, like I was getting a message from God.

Just four weeks ago, I was composing late at night. I was wearing headphones, which is already a cardinal error—I knew this was a bad idea, but I was Icarus at 3 am, soaring towards perfection on triangle waves. Anyway, you can guess the rest of the story: The sound got out of my control, somehow, and I blasted both ears at full volume. I tore off the headphones and wept. My head felt stuffy and everything sounded close. I regard these incidents—acoustic trauma and subsequent panic—totally differently now, for I know that I can worsen the perception of damage by focusing on it, by worrying about it. In other words, having tinnitus is not just hearing your ears ringing, but fearing your ears ringing.

I’ve chosen to live my life in sound, and it’s tempting to think of this event as an occupational hazard, but I don’t think I’m alone in feeling the struggle for sonic agency. I went to bed, and hoped everything would resolve in the morning. But when I woke up, while my left ear had normalized, my right ear was totally frayed—it hurt to hear myself talk. It still hurts, actually.

Episodes like this are major narrative developments in Composing the Tinnitus Suites. They are important reminders that things are not as they seem, that the pink days, weeks, and years passing without HEARING TROUBLE are just a momentary reprieve. That I’m already losing my hearing, perhaps too slowly to notice, but still, embedded inside a process.

Maybe I don’t hear it sometimes, but Tinnitus is always there, and if it isn’t changing, I am changing, coming with the days, closer to it.

Composing the Tinnitus Suites: 2020

Daniel Fishkin - daxophone
Cecilia Lopez - percussion
Dina Maccabee - daxophone
Cleek Schrey - daxophone
Ron Shalom - daxophone


Ryoanji (1983) is based on the famous stone garden in Kyoto, Japan that contains fifteen stones of different sizes laid out on a bed of raked sand. John Cage wrote the piece for percussion obbligato, or an ensemble of twenty, and any number of soloists: oboe, voice, flute, contrabass, and/or trombone. The dry, repetitive percussion represents the raked sand. The solo parts are graphical scores derived from Cage’s tracing of various stones, so that all the solo parts exclusively produce glissandi. Cage never wrote any music for daxophone, but I thought that daxophone might capture the microtonal essence of the piece. The daxophone is resolute in its refusal to intonate precisely.  Thus, the attempt to produce a linear glissando with the dax produces a notched gurgle, a broken curve that might resemble the outlines of the rocks in the score.

John Cage Ryoanji - excerpt b (transcribed for daxophone quartet)

This piece is a transcription of an earlier work, Composing the Tinnitus Suites (2008-2011), which I created on the Lady’s Harp. I wanted to test whether I could make work in the series of my Tinnitus Suites project, but without needing to do a site-specific sound installation. Also, I felt the original recording calling to me in its tonal clarity. Using Fourier analysis, I approximated the harmonic content of the Harp’s strings and transcribed it for the six instrumentalists of ensemble mise-en. This work could have been done more quickly with a computational process, but I did it all by hand, and savored the chance to slave over each measure. Though I used my computer to do the Fourier analysis, I only wanted the ensemble to play what I was able to hear, and bear responsibility for the notes I selected from the spectrum of the original piece.

Composing the Tinnitus Suites: 2008-2011 (mise-en transcription)

Daniel Fishkin: daxophone, voice, delay
Zach Dunham: drums, voice

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