I am a musician. I have played the
piano for over 12 years and recently picked up guitar and ukulele. Music is
such a big part of my life. I enjoy it everyday and without it, life would be
so boring. Have you ever wondered how you can enjoy such good music from simple
tunes by Ben Rector or the harmonies from Pentatonix? How can you hear that?
Our auditory system converts
pressure waves into meaningful sounds that our brain can understand (OpenStax
College, 2014). This translates into our ability to hear and to enjoy the
beauty of music. It also allows us to communicate with the people around us.
The ear can be divided into three
main parts; outer ear, middle ear and inner ear. The inner ear contains the
semi-circular canals, which are involved in balance and movement, and the
cochlea. The cochlea is a fluidfilled, snail-shaped structure that contains the
sensory receptor cells of the auditory system (OpenStax College, 2014). When
sound strikes the ear, it is intercepted by the auricle or earlobe and is
channelled through the external auditory canal via the eardrum to the middle
ear (Grewe et al., 2013).
The success of the internal ear is
brought about by its 32,000 hair cells. These are the receptors in the cochlea
responsible for our sensitivity to sound. You should always be careful of high
intensity sounds, which could damage your inner ear. These hair cell in the
auditory system are extremely vulnerable. In comparison to loss of
photoreceptors in your eye which might result in a very small blindspot, damage
to 166,000 hair cells would mean profound deafness (Hudspeth, 1989).
References
Hudspeth, A. J. (1989). How the ear’s works work. Nature Publishing Group, 341, 397-398.
OpenStax College (2014). Psychology.
Houston, TX: Rice University. Retrieved from
Grewe, J., Thiele, C., Mojallal, H., Raab, P.,
Sankowsky-Rothe, T., Lenarz, T., Blau, M., &
Teschner, M. (2013). New HRCT-Based
Measurement of the human outer ear canal as a basis for acoustical methods. American Journal of Audiology, 22(1), 65-73. doi: 10.1044/1059-0889(2012/12-0039)
Last year marked 50 years for me on piano and organ. Your post struck a chord with me (pun intended). I've often wondered at the marvelous creation of the ear, especially when I hear an instrument out of tune. Yesterday I was listening to a talented musician playing the piano in Hall Student Union, and I could tell the instrument was in dire need of tuning. How is it my ear can pick out that deficiency and at the same time know when another piano is in perfect shape? Maybe that has more to do with the brain than the ear, but I still enjoyed listening to the artist as she played, despite the tuning (or lack thereof).
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