Music improvement for CI users (the Bionic Ear Institute)

I never used to know East Melbourne all that well, but I seem to be spending more and more time there!

The little pocket I'm spending lots of time in is known as Melbourne's 'hearing precinct'. It includes the Eye and Ear Hospital, the Melbourne office of Cochlear and the Bionic Ear Institute. There's more to it than that – it also includes the offices of my surgeon, and nearby is the hospital where I had my operation. There are probably a zillion other 'hearing' connections I haven't discovered yet, but these are the ones I know of so far.

It sounds really corny but I get so excited when I see the street sign for Bionic Ear Lane! I peer down it excitedly, half expecting Professor Graeme Clark himself to come scuttling along, deeply focused on another amazing brainwave of his. 

There is so much incredible history in this tiny little pocket of the city, the home of the world's first multi-electrode cochlear implant,  that I always feel a little awestruck when I'm walking through the area.

I have always wanted a reason to walk into the Bionic Ear Institute (http://www.bionicear.org/index.html), and I'm pretty excited that I might soon have the chance. This non-profit research organisation has since branched out into other fields of bionics, but one of their hearing-related projects right now is focused on the improvement of music for cochlear implant recipients.

I tend to stay connected through their work on this project by following their blog updates at http://musicalbionics.wordpress.com/. I'm pretty fascinated by their current project, which has them working with six musical composers to gain an insight into the way CI recipients hear music. These composers will be taught all about the bionic ear, and the sound processing technologies it utilises, before being asked to go away and compose music especially for CI recipients. The Bionic Ear Institute are looking for CI users to volunteer to listen to the music and report back.

I'm not sure when this project will really take off but I have volunteered to help out and am pretty excited about where they are heading with this research.

Their blog features a link to a radio interview about this project, in which they mention a possible concert at the Melbourne Recital Centre in six month's time, showcasing the composer's works. (If they can secure funding.)

Brilliant!

PS: I'm conscious that the ABC radio interview linked to via their blog is not captioned. If you can't understand the interview because of your hearing loss, please let me know – I'm happy to contact the ABC / BEI and see if I can get permission to transcribe it.