Grimes — Musician With Tinnitus Producing Great Music

You may have heard of Canadian recording artist Grimes. She has struggled with tinnitus for quite some time, actually back in 2012 cancelling some shows because of tinnitus:

[EDIT: This tweet from 2012 has been removed by Grimes after @marqualler posted this thread in November 2015, hence the Twitter embed has been removed from this post as well since it showed a blank space rather than the now-removed tweet]​

This week she released her fourth album Art Angels which is receiving rave reviews from media all across the world. It has received a 90 from Metacritic, a website that aggregates music reviews from across the world, which indicates universal acclaim.

Obviously I don't know Grimes (real name Claire Bouchard) personally but I find this a total success story--somebody who has a level of hearing loss and tinnitus and still able to produce superior work. I always root for people like this and I hope you all do too.

Below is the lead single for the album:

Grimes - Flesh without Blood/Life in the Vivid...

 

I was thinking about posting about her, but you beat me to it! She gives me hope, as a musician myself, that I will still be able to play shows and create music.

 

I am such a huge fan of Grimes and was totally unaware that she also suffered from tinnitus until now! Thanks for posting this

 

I believe that there are far more musicians with tinnitus then we know. I just don't think everyone are open about it, that's why I love people like Grimes because they give hope to all sufferers.

I often think about the bands that I grew up with (for example all the rock bands of the 80's) playing at small, loud clubs, touring the world, in some cases abusing drogs and alcohol. Many of these bands still play today, many of them still not,using ear protection. Wonder how many of these veteran musicians that sufferer from tinnitus?

 

Very inspirational story. Mine became much worse about 5 years ago, but I'm still very invoke with bass playing and recording/mixing. I also think the issue of hearing issues is vey wide spread. Lots of good music can be created despite tinnitus!

 

I'm a musician, composer, engineer with high end tinnitus around 10k - 11.5 k... Going on 9 months. It's been a struggle to get past it in the recording studio while engineering and especially mastering.

I can definitely overcome it while playing because that takes focus and concentration on the performance. BUT while engineering, recording say the drummer, it becomes difficult to listen past the hissing. It interferes with the clarity of the cymbals and most hi end information in a mix.

My hope is that once the T settles down and I get more aquatinted with it I will know what to ignore. I've been in the studio doing this for decades so it was quite a shock to have this develop. I have been pretty careful over the uers about volume but I can only guess that the long term exposure is a factor. My hearing otherwise tests "normal". Perhaps another factor was the stress from the prior year. Stress induced tinnitus anyone?


T is changeing every week or so and I am on the journey like most of us.

 

As far as musicians with tinnitus I get some hope from one of my favorite artists, Neil Young. I love his music up and down and to me it seems like he's living a pretty good life, and he's still making music. I'm pretty sure Thom Yorke has or had T as well he makes some truly great music, which is in itself inspiring.

 

Here's a partial list of famous people (musicians and others) with T and hearing loss. There are many more out there.

http://www.hearnet.com/features/articles/artist_article_celebs.shtml

 

Is she still performing? I would be so worried about further damaging my hearing and tinnitus. I don't know how these artists continue to work in the field of music once their hearing is damaged and they have tinnitus. I'm glad that I am not a musician/artist/or DJ.

 

Hello to everyone,

Sad to know that Grimes have tinnitus and some hearing loss....she is so young!
I also admire Grimes work!

I also wonder if all these famous people (most musicians) knows about Tinnitus Talk Forum and maybe with "their extra power influence" could join us / surely we'll all be stronger and able to have the holy grail - tinnitus cure (and maybe inner cells regeneration)

Faith and will can move mountains....

All the Best!
Ricardo

 

Grimes is awesome, I saw her in a sort of obscenely loud and unsafe basement venue a couple years back... I had earplugs in, I hope she did too!

 

IM A HUGEEEEE grimes fan, i have seen her live before ,
in her new record theres a lot of screaming,
i wonder how she takes care of herself, this is giving me lots of hope too

 

Its good she feels able to come back to music, but i wonder if she has reactive T.
I have a friend with T over 20 years which he says never ever alters in any way, hence he still plays in bands, no ear protection and has ear buds all day playing music to work.
Where as mine is super reactive and is up and down like a yoyo, I cannot imagine ever singing again (only sang to myself), as even low music sends mine silly.

 

Grimes - Flesh without Blood/Life in the Vivid...

GRIMES!
she rocks, i saw an article today that she got tinnitus a few years ago,
around 2012/2013 not quite sure.
she still makes dope music, direct videos
and is the new face of stella mccartneys new fragance.

i dont know "how bad" she has it.
but shes touring the world, and made the greatest album of 2015.
i hope she take cares of her ears!!!

i met her in one of her shows in chicago back in 2012 it was really noisy.
lol, but she was a sweetheart, i love her.

 

she got electrocuted in one of her shows!! and first thing she did was covering hear ears!!
i hope she didnt get an spike!!!
i love her

Grimes Electrocuted on stage in Dublin

 

Extremely interesting. I have 'musical tinnitus'. I'm also a musician in that I was a church organist. That doesn't put me in Grimes music department, but, it is music. Does anyone have classical music experience to add.? I listened intently. My perception of music has gone completly awry. Music sounds like it's way off key, and has a rusty tinged sound. I liked the beat, and, to me it sounded like she had two chords she was going back and forth with to the beat. It sounded something like a C and an Aminor. That's probably wrong, but, there you have my input. I tried to write the music I hear. It's either a march time or a waltz time beat, with four notes .... up and down up and down drives me crazy sometimes ....It started out with hymns from childhood with all the words. I thought the Lord was calling me home.
It's so much worse at night. Audiologist says that is because it is quieter at night.

 

Hi @Sweet Caroline! So sorry you're suffering with musical distortions, etc. I too have had these, and I'm a musician (both classical and jazz) so it's horribly frustrating when it happens. In fact, you'll identify with this: in 2014 when my T was at its worst, I often had what sounded like pipe organ pedal tones in my head. Very deep. Sometimes two tones a whole step apart would alternate over & over, sometimes it would be octaves & 5ths. Mine always seem to be in duple meter ... I don't think I've ever had a waltz beat going.

If you're hearing entire hymns from childhood, that sounds more like a neurological problem ... the kind of thing Oliver Sacks described in some of his patients. More like musical hallucinations than tinnitus per se. You might want to see a neurologist if you haven't already. Just a thought.

Anyhow, I've had music I was trying to listen to sound horribly out of tune, or all garbled. I tried to go to a string quartet concert with a friend during that really bad period, and I had to leave my friend at intermission and spend the second half walking around outside ... couldn't stand it. I've also had what's called diplacusis, "the perception of a single auditory stimulus as two separate sounds which may differ in pitch or in time". Needless to say, this wreaks havoc when you're trying to play in an ensemble! Here's a little about that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplacusis

Mine has gradually gotten better since 2014, and I don't experience these anomalies as often ... thank goodness. I hope yours gets better over time as well. I got hearing aids because I read here in the forum that many folks benefitted from them, and I have to say they have helped a lot. I still have flare-ups from time to time though ... for example, just last night I was in a quiet hotel room and decided I would practice my acoustic guitar. I was having a pretty loud midrange buzzing in my head, but I could hear the guitar over it so I thought I'd get some practice in. Then something new happened: all the notes sounded ok except for the low E. I absolutely could not perceive that note as an E! It was so disorienting! At first I thought there was something wrong with my tuner, but no. I would work my way chromatically down that low string, fret by fret, and everything was fine until I got to the open E ... then I would perceive that pitch about a third lower. Of course an E chord sounded awful! I struggled for a while and then just gave up. When I got home from my trip today, the first thing I checked was to see if I could hear low E on my guitars, and thank heaven I can today! I still have the continual loud midrange buzz or hum, but from my experience it will gradually recede over the next week or so, and I'll be left with just my usual super-high ringing that's always there. The ringing doesn't generally bother me with music-making, because it's not in the same range as the music I'm playing or listening to.

Best of luck!
Della