One of the saddest failings I have had to face as I’ve aged is the deterioration of my hearing. With the help of modern technology creating sophisticated hearing aids, I can hear what people are saying or birds are singing, but sadly only via a microphone. I miss the subtlety of a live performance of Beethoven’s last quartets—which he composed miraculously when he himself was stone deaf. Without the two tiny speakers in my ears, everything is indistinct. With them, it is artificially clear. My life has become a radio broadcast.
My artificially enhanced hearing does have its uses, however. In a crowded restaurant, I can use my mobile phone to reduce the background noise and focus on the conversation at my table. Or vice versa. My husband would have been relieved: I would no longer have to tell him to stop talking so that I could better hear a row going on at an adjacent table—“earwigging” as he called it. I could just change my settings.
Our attitude to sound has changed in my lifetime. Silence is no longer golden. I suspect my old school’s motto of “quietness and confidence” will have been dropped. My grandchildren seem unable to function without a background of music, but modern pop music is anathema to me. It tortures me in shops, cafés and as it blares from passing cars. I once asked my local club if they would turn it off while I tried to read, and they said playing it was company policy, so they could not. Besides, people liked it. There were five other members present and, when questioned, two really disliked it while the other three alarmingly had not noticed it, so used are we to constant brainwashing by bad music.
I believe all this probably started with some clever entrepreneur propagating the notion that Muzak increases trade. I remember going to the sedate Jaeger shop in Regent Street, a stately emporium mainly serving ageing women who like to shop in peace, only to discover the plague had spread there too. I expressed my dismay at the noise and left without buying anything. I felt some guilty satisfaction when the shop closed soon after.
Because we spend so much time ignoring background noise, I fear we may be losing our ability to listen. I notice it in conversation: as I speak, I often observe the person I am addressing thinking about what they will say next, which, because they are not listening to me, makes for a rambling dialogue. It could be that what I am saying is boring, but a discussion about that would be better than complete non sequiturs. We definitely converse less than we did in my youth. Texting a few words or an emoji is much easier.
I think we are losing our ability to listen and observe without being part of the action. We want to join in. This is notable in theatres, where audiences have been known to answer their mobile phones during the play. Shows with audience participation are very popular. When I went to see the stage version of Wicked, the man next to me settled down with his sandwiches and vacuum flask, and said he hoped I wouldn’t mind him singing along as he had seen the show several times and knew all the songs. I was delighted to hear that it meant so much to him, so I suffered his off-key rendering in silence, but I had actually paid to hear my talented colleagues performing on the stage.
At pop concerts, some members of the crowd just scream non-stop when their favourites perform; they don’t hear a note of the music. I believe this mindless hysteria is what stopped the Beatles doing concerts.
During classical performances, I love audiences breaking the fusty rules about not applauding between movements, but I hate it when, at the end of a deeply moving performance, some idiot spoils the magic of a united silence by their desire to be the first to shout “Bravo!”. If a coffin goes by, be it the Queen or auntie Mabel, nowadays we applaud, rather than observe a respectful silence.
As a quaker, my weekly hour of united silent worship is now also a powerful and rare experience. I wonder whether the noisiness, like graffiti, is a way for people who feel overlooked to say, “I am here. Notice me. I deserve to be heard.”
My son-in-law, who is a serious hockey player, says that at least three super-fit young men in his team are already wearing hearing aids. Is that the result of too many loud gigs? Or is it because, as our desire to listen diminishes, robotic solutions will take over? Our ears, like our coccyx, will become obsolete.
