As someone with a rather annoying tinnitus, silence freaks the shit out of me. To stay productive, I need music.
What kind of music I listen to really depends on my mood. It could be dubstep (Excision, Teminite, PsoGnar, to name a few out of my current dub playlist), various forms of metal (anywhere from After Forever to Xandria, In Flames, you name it); some times even Happy Hardcore / Handsup.
Generally, if I'm feeling well I prefer high BPM happy sounds, which -- together with some caffeinated drinks -- makes me incredibly productive. The darker my mood, the darker my taste of music gets, with also a few slower sounds. I can't really put numbers on my performance here, as on those days I prefer work that isn't easily evaluated performance-wise.
Have you ever tried identifying the frequency of your tinnitus and removing that range from your songs(aka notch filtering)? I heard over time it can lessen the effects.
If you play live music as a hobby, you're not exactly getting that. I've made bad decisions in the past; namely playing in an orchestra next to the drums without hearing protection. I can't undo that, and while it wasn't the cause of my tinnitus, it certainly didn't help.
Nowadays I wear in-ear monitoring on stage which helps quite a lot, protection-wise. I've recently read about a study (dunno if it was on hn) where they discovered that vibrations behind the ear lessend the volume of the tinnitus. I am so going to try that if I ever get my hands on such a device.
I still have a very good hearing overall (especially in the base region), so I should not complain.
> Have you ever tried identifying the frequency of your tinnitus
I have but since I don't have perfect pitch, I'm not getting anywhere. Plus it seems like the frequency has a certain amount of smear which might be hampering things even more.
I would love to try notch filtering but without the key frequencies, I'm doomed (although the tinnitus stuff on mynoise.net does help knock it down for short periods).
What kind of music I listen to really depends on my mood. It could be dubstep (Excision, Teminite, PsoGnar, to name a few out of my current dub playlist), various forms of metal (anywhere from After Forever to Xandria, In Flames, you name it); some times even Happy Hardcore / Handsup.
Generally, if I'm feeling well I prefer high BPM happy sounds, which -- together with some caffeinated drinks -- makes me incredibly productive. The darker my mood, the darker my taste of music gets, with also a few slower sounds. I can't really put numbers on my performance here, as on those days I prefer work that isn't easily evaluated performance-wise.