Phallic windchimes and ASMR: the magic of sound
Ancient Roman bronze tintinnabula in the collection of Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier, Germany. Credit: Kleon3 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
In this episode, we’re taking your questions on the subject of sound. We talk about tinnitus, “the mind’s ear,” and the celebrity voices we have strong feelings about, from Bob Ross to President Obama, Michael Barbaro to Ira Glass.
So strap your earbuds in, we’re going for a ride!
What are tintinnabula, and the first wind chimes in the world?
Why does my cat make twitter sounds when she sees birds?
If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
If we have a “mind’s eye” do we have a “mind’s ear?”
Featuring Ilija Dankovic, Craig Richard, Alejandro Vélez, Seán Roberts, Sarah Theodoroff, and Tara Zaugg.
ADDITIONAL MATERIALS
We got a very special email from our listener, Faith Eherts, who wrote:
Good afternoon! My name is Faith Eherts and I am the fiance in question from The Righteous Gemstone episode. I've attached a couple pictures - he proposed just off the summit of Mount Chocorua last weekend with a 2nd-hand diamond in a new platinum band, and I love it!
Before the hike I asked which hat I should wear and he very casually chose my sustaining member gift NHPR hat from 2023. Since the episode came out just before this, he also went into my phone and unfollowed Outside/In on Instagram and my podcast app, which I noticed on the drive up and dismissed as a fluke. As I was downloading the new episode, he suddenly got very interested in a new episode of Ologies with Ali Ward, so we listened to that instead. Very sneaky!
We listened to Righteous Gemstone on the drive home and enjoyed it thoroughly. Thank you again for taking Ben's question! We're big fans and being featured was really fun for both of us.
Best wishes,
Faith Eherts
Check out these 3D models of a tintinnabulum held by the British Museum.
The ASMR clips used in this episode are from @CelainesASMR, Coromo Sara. ASMR, @ASMRCrinkle, and @marlenaasmr481. If you want to listen to Craig Richard’s ASMR podcasts, they are Sleep Whispers, and Calm History.
Learn more about the effect drier climates might have on language, especially tonal ones, and about the overlap between biodiversity and language diversity.
For more information about tinnitus from the VA, check out the National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research.
SUPPORT
To share your questions and feedback with Outside/In, call the show’s hotline and leave us a voicemail. The number is 1-844-GO-OTTER. No question is too serious or too silly.
Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In.
Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.
CREDITS
Host: Nate Hegyi
Reported, produced, and mixed by Felix Poon, Taylor Quimby, Justine Paradis, and Marina Henke.
Editing by Justine Paradis and Taylor Quimby
Executive producer: Taylor Quimby
Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio
Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Jules Gaia.
Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio
Audio Transcript
Note: Episodes of Outside/In are made as pieces of audio, and some context and nuance may be lost on the page. Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.
Credit: Sailko via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Nate Hegyi: Hey! This is Outside/In, a show where curiosity and the natural world collide. I’m Nate Hegyi.
Taylor Quimby: So, uh, just bring me to the subject of Tintinnabulum. What are they? And what purpose did they serve in Roman life?
Ilija Dankovic: probably the best parallel is, are wind chimes that we know today.
[tinkling of wind chimes]
Nate Hegyi: That’s our executive producer Taylor Quimby. And he’s talking to a Serbian archeologist of Roman history named…
Ilija Dankovic: Ilija Dankovic.
Nate Hegyi: And they are discussing one of the earliest versions of wind chimes: Tintinnabula.
But they were not simply there to decorate or to produce nice sound
[Another peal of windchimes]
at the heart of the tale of Tintinnabula lies the stories of magic and sound
Nate Hegyi: Magic…according to Ilija…
It is the first religion…at the dawn of the mankind…
[Another peal of windchimes]
So long ago, our ancestors lived surrounded by many threats…
lightnings, volcanoes, floods, etc.
passing of time, diseases, death.
[Another peal of windchimes]
Nate Hegyi: Our ancestors needed something to ward off these dangers, to feel some agency or influence over their lives. And so they created stories, myths, and magic… that helped them better understand the world.
And sound was a big part of that world.
[Another peal of windchimes]
Ilija Dankovic: in Roman City, you would have all these different kinds of bells, rattles everywhere around. There would be a lot of noise. This noise was intended to chase away and to confuse the evil spirits, and something that the Romans feared a lot, that, uh, they called the evil eye
[Another peal of windchimes]
or the envious eye.
Nate Hegyi: This wasn’t just in Ancient Rome though. The oldest known wind chimes we know of are from China.
Ilija Dankovic: They were made from bones, from bamboo. From… copper alloys.
Nate Hegyi: India had wind chimes. The Mediterranean.
Ilija Dankovic: ancient Egypt…it had many, many bells everywhere around in the temples, on animals, on children, uh, everywhere.
[Another peal of windchimes and out]
Nate Hegyi: But across the wind chime spectrum, the Roman tintinnabula were… sort of special.
[Taylor Quimby: And, you know, one of the things that I still have to figure out how I will say this on the radio, but, you know, a lot of them are they're phalluses.
Ilija Dankovic: at the first glance it is a phallus, but it is actually a mythological creature called Fascinum.
Fascinum is, uh, an animal or a being shaped like a phallus, but it has legs, it has wings, and then it has tail shaped like a phallus, and it has phallus of its own.
[MUX IN: The Rhythm Recipe by Jules Gaia]
So you have multiplication of this same symbol just to to give it more and more potency more, more and to be more strong.
Nate Hegyi: So uh, yeah, in case that wasn’t clear - by today’s standards these ancient chimes they were slightly NSFW. They were slightly not safe for work.
But…
Ilija Dankovic: It wasn't anything erotic. It wasn't anything sexual. Uh, actually, they were seen as a sign of good fortune.
Ilija Dankovic: And one interesting thing, uh, when you say fascinum, it's from Latin. And we have it today in many, many languages, in English. Also fascinating to fascinate was to confuse,
Ilija Dankovic: and that that stems from this creature that used to fascinate the the attackers of your household.
[MUX SWELL]
<<NUTGRAPH>>
Nate Hegyi: The point of this story… aside from being a great topic at parties… is that *sound* is a huge, and sometimes mysterious part of our lives.
So today on Outside/In, we’re talking about the fascinating world of sound. From the spine-tingling sensations of ASMR.
@CelainesASMR: Hair brush. Hair clips.
Nate Hegyi: To the intense crescendos of frogs in the spring time…
[Frogs clip]
Nate Hegyi: And much, much more. Stay tuned.
[MUX SWELL AND OUT]
<<PRE-ROLL BREAK>>
Jennifer: Hi, my name is Jennifer, I live in Jackson, NH. I just want to say, if you haven’t ever heard juvenile bard owls, give them a listen. We woke up to hearing something that sounded like a tyrannosaurus rex and a dementor from Harry Potter combined in one early one morning and realized that’s what it was.
Anyway. Have a good day! Bye.
[clip of juvenile bard owl]
[MUX IN: Dusting by Blue Dot Sessions]
Nate Hegyi: This is Outside/In. I’m Nate Hegyi. And I’ve got producer Felix Poon here with me to bring us our listener questions about sound. Hey Felix.
Felix Poon: Hey! Before we get into the questions Nate, I’ve got a question for you. Is there a sound that gets on your nerves?
Nate Hegyi: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Somebody eating apples. I can’t stand the sound of someone chewing apples. That. Snoring. Just general heavy breathing. Um, what else, sounds that I not like…
Felix Poon: Okay this is very negative. Let’s go towards what sounds do you like? What’s your favorite sound?
Nate Hegyi: Um, you know, the classics. Waves crashing against the beach. Birds twittering.
Felix Poon: Since you brought up the crunching of an apple. I I think I’m gonna say that’s my favorite sound. My favorite sound is your least favorite sound.
Nate Hegyi: Just never eat an apple in front of me Felix, alright? I might lose it.
Felix Poon: Okay. Anyway, this might be a good segue into our first question, which comes to us from Maria who called us from Seattle.
Maria: When I was a kid, occasionally my dad would whisper in my ear, and I would get the most intense like ASMR tingles down my spine. I was always really curious why that was and is it like certain frequencies? Is it certain volume. Anyway, I'd love to know what you think. Thanks.
Nate Hegyi: And so, Felix, you went into the ASMR deep end to find us some answers. Take it away.
Felix Poon: Maybe you’ve seen the videos. They can seem a little bit strange to some.
@CelainesASMR: I just got my new nails so I’m first gonna scratch your scalp a little bit. I bet that feels nice.
Felix Poon: The whispering, the tapping, the crinkling plastic. But to others, they make total sense.
Craig Richard: If you have ASMR, the minute you start seeing that, you start feeling those waves of relaxation or those brain tingles.
Felix Poon: That’s Craig Richard. Craig is a professor of physiology at Shenandoah University, where he studies ASMR. He also hosts his very own ASMR podcast. It’s called Sleep Whispers. So, according to research, 20% of the population experience ASMR, including Craig.
Craig Richard: I would probably start with describing what is not because it is easily confused with goosebumps and chills. So it's not that, but it is similar. It's a little more under the skin. Some people will describe it as in their brain. and they'll describe these tingles as light and sparkly.
Felix Poon: In fact, before it was called ASMR, people referred to it as “brain orgasms.” Because you’d feel the tingles and sparkles, and then you’d feel really relaxed. A leader in the community named Jennifer Allen eventually coined the term Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, often shortened to ASMR, in hopes that the scientific community would take it more seriously—"autonomous" because it’s involuntary, like a reflex, "sensory" because it’s triggered by sight, sound, or touch, and "meridian—"
Craig Richard: "Meridian" was her slight subtle nod to the word “orgasm.”
Felix Poon: —since meridian can mean peak or high point. But, to get to our listener Maria’s question, why did she feel these tingles when her dad whispered in her ear? Craig says everyone can have different triggers for what sets off their ASMR experience. For Maria, it was her dad’s whispers. For Craig it was Bob Ross videos.
Bob Ross: I think everybody should have a friend, even a tree. Even a tree needs a friend.
Felix Poon: But the common theme is that ASMR triggers tap into a sense of closeness and being cared for, which is maybe why the most common ASMR trigger in real life is touch.
Craig Richard: If you've ever had someone just lightly touching your hair, say you're sitting on the couch and you're sitting next to someone, they're just lightly playing with your hair while you're watching TV. And if you find that relaxing, then chances are you're experiencing ASMR.
Felix Poon: While ASMR videos don’t have the element of physical touch, they often simulate it—the person reaches to the camera as if to brush your hair, or they whisper as if they're mere inches from your ear.
@marlenaasmr481: Go ahead and just close your eyes. Close your eyes. Close your eyes.
Craig Richard: And what that is also simulating is trust.
Felix Poon: ASMR experiences are actually measurable in the brain. Craig has done studies where he had people watch ASMR videos while they were inside MRI scanners. And he observed certain parts of the brain lighting up, the parts that had to do with dopamine release, and oxytocin, the so-called “love hormone” or “cuddle chemical.”
I personally don’t experience ASMR, so all this talk of brain tingles and oxytocin left me feeling kind of jealous. Like, is it just something you’re born with? Craig says it could be just genetic variation, the same deal why cilantro tastes good to some people, but to others it might taste like soap. But Craig says it could also have to do with our early life experiences. Like, maybe growing up, you had someone close to you whisper in your ear like Maria did. But—
Craig Richard: if you were in, say, a school system and there were some mean kids and they would lean over and whisper mean things into your ears, then that might not trigger ASMR for you later in life.
Felix Poon: Whatever the reason, Craig says that people are drawn to ASMR videos because it relaxes them and feels good.
[MUX IN: Greylock by Blue Dot Sessions]
Felix Poon: So on that note, I leave you with this.
[Tapping and plastic crinkling sounds]
Nate Hegyi: Listen, I get it, that that gives some people tingly feelings. What is it when it gives you the exact opposite? I think there is a term for it, it’s called misophonia.
Felix Poon: Misophonia, yeah.
Nate Hegyi: Yeah, it is the opposite, it is the evil, it is the Wario of ASMR.
[MUX SWELL AND FADE OUT]
Felix Poon: Anyways, why don’t we open some more listener questions, shall we?
[Felix picks up a stack of envelopes and starts opening them]
Nate Hegyi: Letters? We don’t get letters in the mail. People email us.
Felix Poon: I don’t know what you’re talking about Nate.
Nate Hegyi: You know what’s nice is that Zoom is actually muting the sound for me so i can’t hear it?
Felix Poon: Oh damn, well I can change that. I can change that.
[Page turn sound]
Nate Hegyi: Oh, Felix. I really don’t like that sound. That’s a very annoying sound to me. How did I end up in radio? There are a lot of sounds I don’t like.
Felix Poon: Alright, well you gotta mute yourself, because we have some letters to read.
Nate Hegyi: Okay, yeah, exactly.
Felix Poon: Okay so someone wrote in: My cat sometimes makes twitter sounds when she sees specific birds. Why? Is this a case of mimicry? What do you think Nate?
Nate Hegyi: Um, I would assume actually that’s a pretty good guess, like that’s what I would guess, like they’re trying to say, “I’m a little bird.” And then the bird comes in and they’re like, I’m not a bird. I got fangs.
Felix Poon: Yeah that’s actually what cat experts say. It is a kind mimicry to try and entice the bird to come closer and to capture them as prey. So, spot on.
But there is also another explanation that it could just be them getting really excited.
Nate Hegyi: They just make a bunch of little noises.
Felix Poon: Yeah they’re just like, oh oh, a bird. Bird. Bird. Bird.
Um, but speaking of sounds that animals make, here’s our next question.
Andy: Hi Outside/In, this is Andy from Dover NH, and I’m wondering, what is the benefit to a million frogs all loudly croaking in the same tiny pond? Thanks.
Felix Poon: And our producer Marina Henke looked into this one.
Marina Henke: A few years ago I was camping in Maine and couldn’t sleep. That’s because it sounded like this…
[Field tape of many frogs loudly croaking]
Marina Henke: That’s a whole bunch of frogs, calling out around a pond. Why do they do this?
Alejandro Vélez: That is a great question. And, I know it can get loud and sometimes very loud.
Marina Henke: That’s Alejandro Vélez, an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He’s an expert when it comes to frog communication. Alejandro told me that what I was hearing that night was something called a “lek” – that’s L-E-K.
Alejandro Vélez: And it's… a lot of males come together and display. Just call, make sounds, try to attract females.
Marina Henke: Simply put, frogs croak around tiny ponds because they want to reproduce. They flock to water since that’s where the females need to ultimately lay their eggs. These leks mostly happen in the spring, and in most species are made up of males. They make for a pretty crowded dating pool… literally. Which means, there needs to be some strategy. Up first, the male frogs start with their advertisement calls.
Alejandro Vélez: That call has two main functions. The same call helps to repel other males and to attract females. One of the species that we work with around here, it's called Cope's Gray tree frog. And their typical mating call, it's a trill. So it's like, “beep, beep.”
[Beeping of Cope’s Gray tree frog’s advertisement call fades in]
Marina Henke: That chorus of beeps might sound like a duet, but it’s really a bunch of solo performers, vying for their chance in the spotlight.
Alejandro Vélez: If another male gets too close and starts calling at the same time or overlapping their calls, they don't like it, and they switch to producing an aggressive call.
Marina Henke: To the trained ear, those aggressive calls can sound really different. Like those Cope’s Gray Tree Frogs in Tennessee.
Alejandro Vélez: Their aggressive call is more like, “Meh! Meh! Meh!”
[Aggressive call of Cope’s Gray Tree frog fades in]
Marina Henke: At first, the dueling frogs might call back and forth to each other, trying to resolve the argument.
Alejandro Vélez: Or they can even go and physically attack each other until one is declared a winner and then the other one leaves.
Marina Henke: It all might sound rather mesmerizing. But for the frogs, it can be an uneasy time.
Alejandro Vélez: So imagine yourself screaming your lungs out every night. It takes a lot of energy. And not only that, but they’re also calling for predators.
Marina Henke: When a frog’s belting it out, he’s also advertising to predators exactly where to hunt. It’s a cost-benefit analysis that takes place every day in the woods. Does the biological imperative to reproduce overpower putting yourself in harm’s way? This is the power of the lek. The more frogs singing in a group, the lower the individual risk that somebody will get snapped up by, say, a hungry heron. And, there’s evidence that the more a bachelor frog puts himself out there, the more likely he is to find a mate.
Alejandro Vélez: What predicts that a male will find a mate or reproduce in one season is typically how many nights they're out there calling. So if they're out there at the bar every night, they will likely find a pair.
Marina Henke: No risk, no reward.
[MUX SWELL AND UNDER: Elmore Heights by Blue Dot Sessions]
[TURNING THE PAGE SOUND]
Felix Poon: Okay. You’re visibly uncomfortable Nate.
Nate Hegyi: I don't like the sound.
Felix Poon: So here’s a good one. This one is from Mark Swanson. Mark wrote to us after our recent episode all about allergies.
So, we suggested in that episode that in order for bee pollen and local honey to work as a kind of immunotherapy it would have to be at the site of the allergy, basically in your nose.
And Marked clued us into this, but actual immunotherapy for hayfever isn’t necessarily administered at the site of the allergy. In fact it’s often given as an injection under the skin.
And so another listener left us a voice message explaining a more relevant reason why local honey doesn’t work against hay fever.
Edward: Bees carry around pollen that can’t be carried by the wind. Um, so, this type of pollen usually sticks around in flowers, and is not the primary cause of allergies.
The pollen you have to worry about is the pollen that is carried around by the wind and that’s not the pollen bees pollinate.
The other thing is that bees also digest that pollen, probably makes it useless as a form of immunotherapy.
Just to let people know that it wouldn’t work even if you tried to stick it up your nose…
Nate Hegyi: We have such smart listeners. I love it when we get messages like that.
We also got a very special email from our listener Faith Eherts, who wrote:
I am the fiancee in question from The Righteous Gemstone episode.
That’s the one that we just put out about the ethics and sustainability of diamonds and diamond rings. And Faith wrote that her fiance, quote:
“proposed just off the summit of Mount Chocorua with a 2nd-hand diamond in a new platinum band, and I love it!
Felix Poon: Huge congrats to Ben and Faith.
Nate Hegyi: Ugh, it’s so nice. I loved when that email came in. Anyway, they wrote a very beautiful email, if you want to read it, you can head over to our website Outsideinradio.org to take a look.
Nate Hegyi: Alright, we’ll be right back after a break.
[MUX SWELL AND OUT]
<<MIDROLL BREAK>>
Nate Hegyi: Welcome back to Outside/In, a show where curiosity and the natural world collide. I’m Nate Hegyi, here with producer Felix Poon.
[PAGE TURN]
Felix Poon: Yeah, so, we did get a question by voicemail that doesn’t have such an easy answer.
Ed: Hello Outside/In. My question is this. If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
[MUX IN: Calisson by Blue Dot Sessions]
This question had to be asked. Please discuss!
Felix Poon: What do you—
Nate Hegyi: What do you think Felix?
Felix Poon: Ah, you beat me to the punch. Um, I guess it depends on the definition of sound, and whether that includes perception.
Nate Hegyi: Yeah it’s kind of like a phone call. It goes out but you still need someone listening else on the other end to make it a phone call.
Felix Poon: Yeah, but technically his question was: “no one is around to hear it.” Does that mean no humans? Because the woods have animals, and even plants can, you know we’re learning more and more have perception that we never even dreamed of.
Nate Hegyi: I think we can say that it makes a sound. If you were there you could hear it.
But we welcome your arguments. You can write in. Tell us we’re wrong.
Felix Poon: Whatever the answer is, let’s just go to our next question. This comes to us from a listener named Jackson, from South Florida.
Jackson: I have heard in the past that various languages across the world were influenced by the way the human voice echoes or reacts with the topography of different regions. Could you explore this topic, and see if there's any truth to that?
Nate Hegyi: That is a great question and our producer Justine Paradis has the answer.
Justine Paradis: The diversity of human languages across the world is vast. Some languages are tonal, like Mandarin.
Concert-presentation-1.wav by xserra on freesound.org
Justine Paradis: Some incorporate sounds, like clicks in the language of the San people in South Africa.
Click language San Tribe South Africa, erilee on FreeSound.org
Justine Paradis: Even between closely related languages, speaking a new one can mean literally learning new ways of using your mouth.
Repeat after me, aisselles on Freesound.org: Repeat after me. Le drapeau. Le dra– [laugh]. Peau, peau, peau, peau.
Justine Paradis: Language is embodied, so is it possible that the interaction between our bodies and the landscape we live in plays a role in how languages form? Seán Roberts is a linguist at Cardiff University in Wales, and he thinks it’s possible.
Seán Roberts: There's 7000 languages in the world, which is more than people think… because we're used to thinking about the major world languages. Most languages in the world are spoken by a small number of people in a relatively local place. And actually, their language is probably really adapted to the kinds of things that they care about… and the way that they need to communicate.
Justine Paradis: Researchers have found some correlations between environment and language. Like, the world’s biodiversity hotspots are often the very same places with a lot of linguistic diversity.
Seán Roberts: Yeah, and that's a really interesting question. We're not really sure why that is.
Justine Paradis: The factors behind the evolution of a language are complex. They might include war, contact with other cultures, technology, lifestyle. But does the list include landscape? The answer is, we don’t know yet. The question needs more study. Not that people haven’t tried.
Recently, one of Seán’s colleagues, Caleb Everett, came up with a hypothesis, focusing on the physical structure of our throats. Our vocal folds need moisture to produce sound, especially vowels. So, when it’s dry, our vocal cords don’t work as efficiently.
Seán Roberts: If you've ever had a dry throat and tried to sing, then your voice comes out really creaky. What's happening is that your vocal folds are not behaving properly… and so it's hard to control the pitch of your voice.
Justine Paradis: So, perhaps a drier climate could impact the evolution of a language over time, specifically with tonal languages like Mandarin, which require fine-tuned control of the vocal folds. But linguists are often quite skeptical of claims like this, as Seán and his colleagues experienced firsthand, when they presented the theory at a conference in 2024.
Seán Roberts: In this meeting [laughs], we sort of got bombarded by lots of different objections, criticisms. You know, the scientific process. The linguists came along and said, oh, well, languages are related to each other, so they borrow features from each other. The geographers were like, well, languages next to each other tend to be in the same kind of environment… the people in climate science said, well, the climate has changed over the last 10,000 years, so how do you control for that?
Justine Paradis: After this meeting, Seán and his colleagues responded to the feedback by building a model to crunch huge datasets, and to try to control for all these factors. A lot of work for a seemingly simple question: does living in a dry climate mean a loss in tone?
Seán Roberts: And after all that, the answer was no… There’s no evidence that these things work together.
Justine Paradis: That may sound like a failure, but Seán doesn’t see it that way. It’s just the scientific process. For now, he’s excited to refine the model, and to use it to keep exploring this and other exciting questions.
Seán Roberts: Not just about language, but about human migration and what it means to be a human.
[MUX SWELL: Allstone Night Owl by Blue Dot Sessions]
[PAGE TURN]
Felix Poon: Okay we’ve got another listener question here, that seems pretty fascinating to me.
It comes to us from a listener named Cora. Cora wrote,
“I was thinking about the concept of ‘minds eye’. Then I was wondering if we have a ‘minds ear’ and if people experience different levels of internal audio in their mind - like a narrating voice that kicks in when reading a book or pondering ideas.”
I’m curious Nate, what voice do you hear when you read a book?
Nate Hegyi: That’s a great question. If I know the author’s voice, then I think it’s that author. If I don’t, then is it my voice? I, I mean it’s funny when I read a script that you all have written I’m reading it in my voice so I can hear myself saying it. But, this is a really interesting question.
Felix Poon: When Barack Obama was president, I worked this job where I did a lot of public speaking. And so I wrote my own speeches. And as I brainstormed what to write, I actually heard the speech in Obama’s voice. I was channeling my inner Obama.
Nate Hegyi: I mean I’ll be completely honest with you, sometimes I hear other radio hosts when I’m reading too.
Felix Poon: Yeah, sometimes I’m like, I want this to be in a This American Life style. So I’m gonna read it in an Ira Glass voice.
Nate Hegyi: Sometimes I’m like, I’m sounding a little bit too much like Michael Barbaro from The Daily. I need to stop with the pauses, that I’m trying to think.
Felix Poon: Here’s what else you need to—, here’s what else you need… to know today. I can’t even get it because it feels so unnatural.
Nate Hegyi: Exactly. But every once in a while I catch myself doing it and I’m like, stop it.
Felix Poon: So there are research studies on this, especially as it relates to musicians and their ability to hear music in their heads, and they do use the term, “mind’s ear.”
Nate Hegyi: That’s really cool.
Felix Poon: Anyway, why don’t we move on to our last listener question. This one comes to us from Heidi, she asked us on Instagram: “What is tinnitus? And how can we help somebody who is living with it?”
Nate Hegyi: Is it tinnitus? Or tinnitus?
Felix Poon: That’s a great question. Our producer Taylor Quimby answers that, and much more.
Taylor Quimby: Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat. To-MAY-to, To-MAH-toe, TIN-it-us, tih-NITE-us. Either pronunciation is correct—which is fitting, because this is one symptom that’s hard to pin down.
Sarah Theodoroff: Tinnitus is an umbrella term, and there's multiple kinds of tinnitus.
Taylor Quimby: Sarah Theodoroff is an audiologist and hearing scientist at VA Portland—that’s VA as in the Veterans Affairs Department.
Sarah Theodoroff: Almost any way that you can think of to describe sound, somebody has told me their tinnitus sounds like that.
Taylor Quimby: So tinnitus can be tonal…
[tone]
Taylor Quimby: It can be humming…
[humming sound]
Taylor Quimby: It can be buzzing…
[buzzing sound]
Taylor Quimby: And, as anybody who’s ever seen a war movie knows, it can be that high-pitched ringing after an explosion.
[pause]
Taylor Quimby: What did you think I was going to play a clip here? I’m not a monster.
Anyway. That movie cliché is a cliché for a reason — because tinnitus is a major issue among veterans. But in most cases, it is not an actual sound.
Sarah Theodoroff: There’s a signal or a pattern of activity that’s being interpreted as sound.
Taylor Quimby: But there was a time when scientists thought tinnitus was primarily an ear problem. This led researchers in the 1980s to try some pretty drastic sounding measures.
Tara Zaugg: And so they would cut the auditory nerve, understanding that that would cause a person to be deaf in that ear, with the assumption that that would make tinnitus go away. For some people the tinnitus did go away … but for most people it didn't.
Taylor Quimby: This is Tara Zaugg, is an audiologist and clinical lead with a region of the VA called VISN20. And what she’s saying is that most of the time, the real issue is not in the ear, but in the brain.
Sarah Theodoroff: So it's as if the brain's background activity. You can think of it as being tied to a volume dial, and that dial has been turned up. So it's more at the level of the brain, not the ear.
Taylor Quimby: It’s less common, but in some cases tinnitus does have a more physical cause, like a muscle spasm in the middle ear.
Sarah Theodoroff: If that vibration propagates, makes the eardrum move, the bones in that middle ear move and sends a signal to the inner ear to the brain, you might be hearing that as sound.
Taylor Quimby: But, frankly, we don’t always know why it’s happening. For many of us, it can be short-term and not a big deal. Anybody who's ever seen a Metallica show has probably had a little bout of tinnitus. But when people are exposed to too much noise, too often, it can become a chronic issue.
Tara Zaugg: So, for example, people who are living on an aircraft carrier and their bunk is near the engine, they're constantly around sound. And if they're wearing hearing protection, it's better than not wearing any but they’re jet engines! Even if you've got hearing protection in, they’re still going to be exposed to too much sound.
Taylor Quimby: Because of exposure to everything from guns and choppers to IEDs, tinnitus has been the top disability for veterans receiving compensation for over a decade. And in many of those cases, it can be accompanied by anxiety, depression, PTSD, and other issues.
Tara Zaugg: For the people who are seeking care for tinnitus who are really struggling with tinnitus, it's it's not usually a super straightforward situation. There are usually a lot of things going on.
Taylor Quimby: All this helps explain the benefit of the VA’s integrative healthcare system. An audiologist can bring in a mental health professional, or vice versa. And it’s especially important because one of the hardest things about chronic tinnitus is that, most of the time, it’s there to stay. There’s no cure.
But there are coping strategies. 80% of people with tinnitus also have some hearing loss. Some people pop in hearing aids and — bam — the tinnitus is less of an issue.
In other cases, patients can try cognitive behavioral therapy, or play comforting sounds to make their sonic environment more pleasing. Doesn’t sound flashy, but the research says it helps.
Tara Zaugg: Whatever expertise you have on working with chronic pain. You can almost replace the word chronic pain with tinnitus. Those skills apply.
Taylor Quimby: And a word on prevention: if you’re going to see a concert, don’t forget your earplugs.
[MUX SWELL AND UNDER: Urban Conspiracy by Jules Gaia]
Nate Hegyi: So Felix, do you think it should be tinnitus? Or tinnitus?
Felix Poon: I prefer “tinnitus.” Because everything else is “-itis” when you talk about “gastritis,” “colitis,” "laryngitis.” No one says “laryngittis.” It’s like, what is that? It’s “laryngitis,” so it’s “tinnitus.”
Nate Hegyi: Okay, that does it for today’s episode. And I’m gonna end it on this note. There’s a saying in the audio industry: audio is the most visual medium.
Felix Poon: But, if you want to see with your own eyes, especially what a tintinnabulum looks like? Head on over to our website, Outsideinradio.org.
You can follow us on social media. We’re @ Outsideinradio on Instagram, Bluesky, and X.
And don’t forget to leave us a review. We’ve been getting a lot of great comments on Spotify recently.
Felix Poon: Yeah on our interview with Kiese Laymon for example a listener wrote, “As people of color I feel like we’re always straddling worlds. This is just another beautiful story of the tapestry of resilience we employ to navigate those worlds.”
Nate Hegyi: Thanks so much to everyone for leaving us your comments and reviews! Please keep it up, we love hearing from you!
<<CREDITS>>
Nate Hegyi: [whispered] This episode was reported, produced, and mixed by Felix Poon, Taylor Quimby, Justine Paradis, and Marina Henke.
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Nate Hegyi: [whispered] It was edited by Taylor Quimby and Justine Paradis.
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Nate Hegyi: [whispered] Taylor Quimby is our executive producer. Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio.
Nate Hegyi: [whispered] Music in this episode was by Blue Dot Sessions, and Jules Gaia
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Nate Hegyi: [whispered] And Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio
[MUX OUT]
Felix Poon: Here’s what else you need…to know today.
[eating an apple]