Suppose someone is a professional singer, and they sustain a head injury. The skull will heal, but they lose hearing in one ear. What does the future hold for them?
Just a data point and only tangentially related: Evelyn Glennie, who is one of today’s foremost classical percussionist, has been deaf since the age of 12.
Also tangentially related: Beethoven.
Only one ear? Probably nothing major, other than having to make sure they have any monitors or headphones set up where they can hear the music in their good ear.
Now, if they can’t hear at all, that’s probably a career killer. Sure, Beethoven kept writing music. And a percussionist can feel the beat (both literally and metaphorically). But a singer needs to be able to hear.
I guess that someone with perfect pitch in theory could keep practicing with some visual indicator that they were on pitch and consistent volume, and then have them be miked separately, relying on a sound person to handle blending and such.
Most singers, however, have relative pitch, and need to be able to hear themselves and at least the starting note. I guess Auto-Tune could maybe save them, but it would be a rather inconsistent performance. And, at that point, there are plenty of other people who can sing at least almost on pitch.
I honestly wouldn’t expect either option above except as a gimmick. Maybe a beloved singer coming back for an anniversary performance or something.
Poor old Johnnie Ray …
Born virtually deaf in one ear. In mid-career lost most hearing in the other. Relied on hearing aid to hear a bit.
Numerous Top 40 hits.
The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson is deaf in his right ear. He is a multi platinum composer, producer, arranger, instrumentalist, and vocalist. His deafness may well be a result of a blow to the head from his father, Murry, although that is one theory.
Well, Beethoven wasn’t a singer, but panache has wonderful anecdotes available on the discomfort of his colleagues when he was demonstrating some of his tunes or how they should go.
I have no cite, but I believe Frank Sinatra had hearing loss in one ear. Interesting–if true–if he had it before his career began or developed it midway.
Roger Daltreyis still singing, despite being, in his own words, “stone deaf.”
Yes, and I’m old enough to have heard him personally. In spite of his compositional talents, he was the Florence Foster Jenkins of the 19th Century.
You know, when I was writing my post, the main point is “[contemporaneous] anecdotes are available” with a nod to panache, and I decided out of laziness and brevity not to edit the sentence for absolute clarity.
Actually, I now see every antecedent pronoun in my post could be read as referring to panache.
So I get an assist on that.
Also, nice call on Florence Foster Jenkins: Florence Foster Jenkins - Wikipedia
Sour and nasty time was had by all. Not unlike now Twitter shaming mixed with teasing a mental defective.
It may depend on the cause of the deafness. If nerves are intact then some hearing may survive in the form of bone conduction, which might still be useful for a singer.
Though as has been said, one ear is probably good enough anyway.
Okay, so not the end of the line. Whew. Thanks for replying!
No one else thought of Mission of Burma? They reformed about ten years ago after breaking up in 1982 when the singer developed tinnitus.
While he’s known for much more than singing, Stephen Colbert, who has been deaf in one ear since childhood, sings professionally all the time, including appearing in the concert production of Stephen Sondheim’s Company.
Is there someone in particular that you were worried about? Obviously, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but your “whew” got me curious.
Note that a deaf person relying on vibrations sensed through organs other than the normal apparatus can “hear”–sense, distinguish, and cognitively process–actual vibration-clusters-as-a-whole (i.e., sounds) with a greater or lesser clarity, and not just as being present-being absent (“the beat”).
To an artist of Glennie’s caliber, the percussion instruments, standard or new, with which she creates and receives sounds produce individually different envelopes of character (analogous to how/why a violin sounds like a violin and not a flute) and as many marked, recognizablly different events that she chooses to focus on.
John Stevens. Yeah, an American Idol also-ran, but he’s been doing well for himself. He put out a couple of CDs, has a permanent (hopefully) gig with a swing band in Boston, and, sang at the funeral of Boston mayor Thomas Menino, at Menino’s request (before the fact, of course). Then he went out for a run and got hit by a car. 
Fractured skull, which will heal, but the prediction is almost, if not completely, total loss of hearing in one ear. He’s been making a good living, and I don’t suppose he’s trained for anything else, so as I said, it’s a relief to see the replies in this thread.
Hershele: You mean, they reformed with the same lead singer? Had there been any positive developments since the breakup?
They did (Roger Miller, but not the Robin Hood/“King of the Road” one). I don’t know what if anything changed for him.
I see. Thank you.
The following is from a letter by Helen Keller to Walter Damrosch, who had conducted a radio broadcast performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony:
I do not mean to say that I “heard” the music in the sense that other people heard it; and I do not know whether I can make you understand how it was possible for me to derive pleasure from the symphony. It was a great surprise to myself…
Last night, when the family was listening to your wonderful rendering of the immortal symphony someone suggested that I put my hand on the receiver and see if I could get any of the vibrations. He unscrewed the cap, and I lightly touched the sensitive diaphragm. What was my amazement to discover that I could feel… the intertwined and intermingling vibrations from different instruments … I could actually distinguish the cornets, the roll of the drums, deep-toned violas and violins singing in exquisite unison. How the lovely speech of the violins flowed and plowed over the deepest tones of the other instruments! When the human voice leaped up trilling from the surge of harmony, I recognized them instantly as voices. … The great chorus throbbed against my fingers with poignant pause and flow. Then all the instruments and voices together burst forth—an ocean of heavenly vibration—and died away like winds when the atom is spent, ending in a delicate shower of sweet notes.
Of course, this was not “hearing” but I do know that the tones and harmonies conveyed to me moods of great beauty and majesty. I also sensed, or thought I did, the tender sounds of nature that sing into my hand—swaying reeds and winds and the murmur of streams. I have never been so enraptured before by a multitude of tone-vibrations.