How a Deaf Beethoven, Composed Wonderful Music That Survived Beyond His Grave

A composer who was deaf? That's really something to think about. Ludwig Van Beethoven gradually lost his hearing. It may have been caused by a lack of knowledge about lead poisoning at that time. The ZME Science gives this interesting detail on how Beethoven coped with his gradual hearing loss: Despite living in pain, Beethoven did not give up. However, he had a helping hand. In order to continue composing and playing music, Beethoven stumbled across a physical phenomenon that is central to hearing: bone conduction . At the time, scientists understood very little about how human hearing works. But despite the fact that his ears left him, he could still hear himself playing music by placing one end of a wooden stick onto his piano and clenching on the other end with his teeth. When notes were struck, the vibrations from the piano were transferred to his jaw, and from there directly to his inner ear. Miraculously, he could hear again! Bone conduction was born. Sound is nothing mor...