Years ago, my grandmother taught me the fine art of the ‘silent whistle.’ When puttering around the house, especially in her kitchen, she liked to whistle to herself, every so softly but not quite imperceptible to those standing nearby.
I taught myself to do it. You can do it, too; just whistle as silently as you can while still creating pitches and you have mastered it yourself!
Anyway, this evening I found myself doing Grandma’s silent whistling. Remember that I am still experiencing the high-frequency beeps in my cochlear implanted ear – and the hearing aid in my other ear is broken, leaving me pretty much deaf for the time being.
Recently, the sound from the CI has changed, ever so slightly, from pure beeps to beeps with ‘speech inflection’ when I listen to spoken words (or when I read aloud). It’s been that way for a couple of weeks or so now. In the last week or so, I am able to distinguish occasional words, ever so quietly, but not well enough to understand spoken phrases or sentences.
Anyway, back to the silent whistle. Imagine my surprise this evening when I realized that I am able to hear (again, ever so quietly) a melodic line as I whistle. It’s quite faint, yet it’s definitely musical pitch – and you cannot imagine how much of a boost those sounds have given me!
