PART 1: (reprinted by popular demand, from March 29, 2010)
Chicago-based Joel Styzens was your typical working musician, burning the candle at both ends – blazing on his drums, gigging, teaching, gigging some more – and just cranking up the volume in general when one, fateful day, he simply … couldn’t. The drummer would soon learn from doctors that he suffered from an incurable hearing disorder, otherwise known as Tinnitus and Hyperacusis, and characterized by a constant ringing of the ears and hypersensitivity to ordinary sounds.
After a dark spell, the normally upbeat Styzens assessed the damage and moved forward, adjusting to his condition by embracing all the sounds he’d hear as painful, irritating noise, and turning them into beautiful, original music. He set aside his drums, picked up the more forgiving acoustic guitar and tried to capture what he heard, using sound and space, and a newly acquired sense of gratitude and rebirth. He’s already released a critically acclaimed original work of art blending all of his musical influences through his current filter in the instrumental CD, Relax Your Ears, and plans another one, even more ambitious.
He’s even gone back to drumming, on his terms. Here’s his story, in two parts:
You were well on your way to a fulfilling jazz and drumming career in Chicago. But then, on January 2006, everything changed. Tell me what it was like when you realized your hearing was off, and did you find out from doctors what might’ve caused the Tinnitus and Hyperacusis? Well, I basically woke up one morning after an intense few months of non-stop performing, teaching, and rehearsing, and my ears were ringing very loud. As I got up, I started noticing that they were ridiculously sensitive. Everything from my own voice to the sound of the water in the shower was bothering me – hurting and crackling, distorting in my ear. Needless to say, I was freaking out. It was a Sunday, and the first thing I did was call my Mom. She's always been my main source of support. I don't recall many details of the conversation or of that day, but I know I was upset and very, very afraid. She helped calm me. I remember that I was afraid to go outside because of how sensitive my ears were, and I ended up staying in my bed most of the day trying to sleep and forget about it.
The next day, I was able to go in and see an audiologist, who told me that I had tinnitus and hyperacusis, something I didn't know much about at the time. I was referred to an ENT (ear, nose, throat specialist). The ENT basically told me that there was nothing I could do and that I needed to learn to live with it. He recommended that I get an MRI to make sure there wasn't any kind of brain tumor or anything life-threatening. Thankfully, the MRI was normal. All this time, though, I was researching alternative treatments. I eventually found another audiologist who specialized more in tinnitus and hyperacusis and started a therapy called Neuromonics.
Hearing loss is cumulative and although it had been building since I was a child (I had a dozen or so ear infections and had to get tubes put in and suffered some hearing loss from all that), I didn’t think it would ever affect me seriously. I started playing on a drum set when I was 11. Until college, I usually played without plugs, and what I was usually playing was loud rock music.
Once I got to college, all I did was study drums and percussion. I was playing in five-six groups every semester, everything from orchestras to 20-piece percussion ensembles to world percussion groups, jazz big bands, and jazz combos. I even had a stint with a heavy rock group that played metal infused with jazz – we called it Death Jazz. I'm sure that didn't help things with my ears!
Sometimes, I wore earplugs and isolation headphones--more often after I moved up to Chicago after school--but because of my intense schedule, my ears never got a rest. I would go from teaching drums to a rehearsal on drums to a gig on drums—sometimes six days and nights every week. After all, if you want to be able to make a living as a musician and pay the bills, you have to stay busy.
You’ve admitted to Dallas Observer’s Jesse Hughey, in a May 2009 interview, that it “was so bad at first.” By “so bad,” what exactly do you mean? Did you go through a dark phase where giving up seemed inevitable? I definitely did go through a dark phase. I was very depressed for a good year or so. I questioned everything I had spent my life doing with music and wondered whether I would be able to continue to play drums or music in any form at all. I have always known from an early age that my life would revolve around music, and I didn't want to do anything else. It was completely like, “Well, now what do I do?” I felt like I had lost my identity, and the ringing in my head was so loud that I almost couldn't take it.
What galvanized you to push forward? Obviously, you couldn’t continue as you were, playing drums in loud bands. How did you arrive at acoustic guitar and composing, and was there ever a moment when you questioned whether you could do this, change your life this way? I had no choice but to push forward and figure something out. Music was all I had really ever known, and I became determined to find a balance between continuing music to keep my sanity and preventing my ear problems from getting worse.
I had to take a break from teaching, and I just locked myself up in my apartment and did nothing but play guitar. The tinny, steel strings bothered my ears at first, but as I started to spend more time with the instrument, this music just started to come out, and I began to build tolerance to the sounds. I couldn't explain it. It was amazing. I started to hear music in my head, music like I hadn't heard before. I began experimenting with different tunings, trying to find the sounds I heard, and things just started to fall into place. This was what lifted me up and brought me out of my extremely depressed state – and the music on “Relax Your Ears” is what came from all of it.
I grew up around a lot of music – my step-dad is a folk and bluegrass musician, and my mom plays piano, dulcimer, and sings. Also, my father's dad was a drummer and my father used to always tap on the car windows and steering wheel and was always going around belting like a “fake” opera singer.
So, there was always music around, and we would go to folk festivals and concerts quite often. I was always tapping my hands and fingers, and my mom suggested I start drum lessons. So at the age of 11, I started playing drums, and basically did nothing but play and listen to music. In high school, I learned basic guitar chords and spent some time with the instrument, but I really didn't play it much until after my ear problems started.
When I took up guitar in this new way, after about a year of practicing and playing, I started getting some momentum with my writing and could feel my individual sound and style beginning to take shape. I did, at times, feel intimidated and unsure of myself, but I was determined to make something good happen. I got reassurance from friends and family members, and when cellist Katinka Kleijn from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra heard the demos of my music and was interested in collaborating – well, that was all the affirmation I needed. She has traveled the globe and played with everyone from Yo-Yo Ma to Sting.
The process was more about uncovering the composition – almost like how an archaeologist slowly and delicately brushes away soil to reveal a fossil. It felt like the music was a gift to me, in a way, and I just had to figure out how to uncover it. I could hear and feel everything in my head, and sense what seemed right in my body.
Of course, in college I had studied piano and theory, and I’d had ear-training classes. Luckily, I've been able to develop my ear enough so that when I hear certain sounds in my head or feel certain emotions, I can figure them out on different instruments. It's important to have some kind of foundation – and I think rhythm is the key to everything – so in that respect, I was lucky coming from percussion to guitar.
I want to get to your critically acclaimed CD, “Relax Your Ears,” which you released on your own A-Sharp Records label (and which I reviewed on February 20, 2010). In listening to the tracks, and I’m not alone in thinking this, your music seems the opposite of imposing, in that it sort of lets your mind write its own script as to what sort of scene the music is evoking/would accompany. Was that your intention? Honestly, I never really thought about that while writing. Writing the music, at first, was kind of a completely selfish act – I used it as therapy for my ear problems to help me keep my sanity. I really poured everything I had into this music; all the feelings and thoughts I was experiencing are all buried in there. I think there's a large range of emotions in these songs, so maybe it just depends on what the listener wants to focus on or what grabs the listener the most during a particular moment.
Or maybe it's because of the use of space – I've always looked at space in music as being almost more important than the notes themselves. A lot of the time I think it actually is. I also think that it being instrumental tends to help with opening up the listener’s mind to whatever may reveal itself. Once, though, there was an experience when two different people saw the exact same thing while they listened to one of my songs, “It Was.” They both saw kites flying and the tension and release of the kite string flexing in the wind. Interesting. Actually, I've had a concept for an animated video for that tune for a long time that involves kites. Any interested animators out there? Please contact me :)
(Continued in Part 2...)
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