Shania Twain once said, “Music is a great natural high and a great natural escape.”

Music is often the only way you are able to stay sane in a chaotic world. Without it, your quality of life suffers.

Unfortunately, those who are hard-of-hearing struggle to be able to thoroughly enjoy the full experience of the music they love because modern music is mixed to appeal to the general public and not so much for those who are hard-of-hearing.

As a music lover, a study I came across recently in Neuroscience News caught my attention and I would like to share it with you.

What Music Mix Is Most Satisfying to Those Who Are Hard-of-Hearing?

The article references a JASA study conducted at the University of Oldenburg (Germany) focused on studying the impact of hearing loss on the enjoyment of different music mixes.

In their findings, they discovered that those with hearing loss prefer louder lead vocals, higher frequencies, and sparser mixes with fewer frequencies overall.

“Generally, hard-of-hearing listeners have reduced frequency selectivity and impaired level perception,” the paper’s author, Aravindan Benjamin, explains. As a result, those with impaired hearing prefer louder levels of lead vocals and higher frequencies when compared to normal listeners.

Individuals with hearing loss are often missing out on the fuller experience they are listening for because of the way modern music is mixed.

How Is Modern Music Mixed?

Back in the analogue days, all of the tracks (instruments and vocals) were recorded at the same time, with the various levels of each set to a certain volume. In the digital age, individual tracks, including vocals, instruments, and synthesized sounds, are all recorded separately, and then mixed into a digital master or the final product you hear.

To cater to listener preferences, the mixing process involves raising or lowering the volume of one of the tracks or amplifying the high- or low-frequency sounds from that track. For obvious economic reasons, mixing is generally tailored to suit the preferences of listeners with normal hearing.

The general mix tends to include quieter vocals and louder instrumentation, which makes the full experience of the music produced either inaccessible or less pleasing to those with hearing loss.

Can Hearing Aids Help You Enjoy Your Favorite Music More?

The article includes a brief discussion of hearing aids in relation to how they can provide some assistance to those with hearing loss when it comes to enjoying music.

Many modern hearing aids allow you to link your hearing aids directly to the device that is playing your music. This allows the listener to adjust the various volume levels to fit their own needs and preferences.

While the use of direct linking through your hearing aids improves the listening experience, especially through models produced by Widex, Phonak, and Oticon, you’re still only able to make minor volume and frequency adjustments from the default mix rather than having any control over the levels of the tracks themselves.

Consequently, even with hearing aids, hard-of-hearing listeners still do not have access to the fuller listening experience they crave.

Alternative Mixing Is the Solution

What if alternative mixing of music was provided to those with hearing challenges?

Because of the way digital music is recorded and mixed, it is possible to have alternative mixing that highlights vocals and higher frequencies and uses an overall sparser mix of frequencies to address the needs and preferences of the hearing impaired.

Consequently, sound engineers with access to the individual tracks can have a much greater impact by making their work more accessible to a broader landscape of listeners.

Another author of the paper, Kai Siedenburg, suggests that “one approach could be to offer a couple of different mixes, one for the general public and one for people who are moderately hard of hearing.”