How Deafness Makes It Easier to Hear Most people think of Beethoven’ s hearing loss as an obstacle to composing music. Howev

admin2016-08-16  59

问题                     How Deafness Makes It Easier to Hear
    Most people think of Beethoven’ s hearing loss as an obstacle to composing music. However, he produced his most powerful works in the last decade of his life when he was completely deaf.
    This is one of the most glorious cases of the triumph of will over adversity, but his biographer, Maynard Solomon, takes a different view. Solomon argues that Beethoven’s deafness "heightened" his achievement as a composer. In his deaf world Beethoven could experiment, free from the sounds of the outside world,free to create new forms and harmonies.
    Hearing loss does not seem to affect the musical ability of musicians who become deaf. They continue to " hear" music with as much, or greater, accuracy than if they were actually hearing it being played.
    Michael Eagar,who died in 2003,became deaf at the age of 21. He described a phenomenon that happened within three months: " My former musical experiences began to play back to me. I couldn’ t differentiate between what I heard and real hearing. After many years, it is still rewarding to listen to these playbacks, to ’hear’ music which is new to me and to find many quiet accompaniments for all of my moods. "
    How is it that the world we see, touch, hear, and smell is both "out there" and at the same time within us? There is no better example of this connection between external stimulus and internal perception than the cochlear implant(人工耳蜗). No man-made device could replace the ability to hear. However, it might be possible to use the brain’ s remarkable power to make sense of the electrical signals the implant produces.
    When Michael Eagar first "switched on" his cochlear implant,the sounds he heard were not at all clear. Gradually, with much hard work, he began to identify everyday sounds. "The insistent ringing of the telephone became clear almost at once. "
    The primary purpose of the implant is to allow communication with others. When people spoke to Eagar, he heard their voices "coming through like a long-distance telephone call on a poor connection". But when it came to his beloved music, the implant was of no help. When he wanted to appreciate music, Eagar played the piano. He said," I play the piano as I used to and hear it in my head at the same time. The movement of my fingers and the feel of the keys give added ’clarity’ to hearing in my head. "
    Cochlear implants allow the deaf to hear again in a way that is not perfect, but which can change their lives. Still, when it comes to musical harmonies, hearing is irrelevant. Even the most amazing cochlear implants would have been useless to Beethoven as he composed his Ninth Symphony at the end of his life.
The author does not think Beethoven’ s deafness______.

选项 A、was an obstacle to composing music
B、showed Beethoven’ s musical ability
C、was a case of triumph of will over adversity
D、heightened Beethoven’ s achievement as a composer

答案A

解析 根据首段可知,大多数人认为贝多芬失聪对他的音乐创作是种阻碍,但是作者却说贝多芬最有影响力的作品却是在他人生的最后十年里创作出来的,那时他已经完全失聪。所以,however的转折表明作者并不认同大多数人的看法,即不认同失聪对贝多芬来说是一种障碍,故选A.
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/GVmd777K
0

随机试题
最新回复(0)