As many people know, I am extremely susceptible to inner ear infections. About once a year, soon after having a cold or some form of congestion, my right ear will cease all operations. I guess fluid drains in from the inside behind my ear drum or something. All I know is that it’s both painful and frustrating. What a supreme irony it is that a music freak should have a chronic hearing problem.

Being a regular part of my life, though, I have become familiar with the symptoms and stages of an ear infection. The worst part, for me, is two or three days into it, all the sounds entering my right ear get garbled. It’s like listening to a radio station that doesn’t come in quite right, or a warped cassette tape. But only in one side of my head.

Earlier this year when I read Musicophilia I was empathetic to the subjects dealing with amusia, the inability to recognize musical tones. Imagine hearing your favorite songs perfectly clear through one ear, and in the other it’s almost as though the musicians intentionally play everything just slightly off-pitch. It’s one of the most frustrating things I’ve ever experienced.

Maybe someday I’ll find a solution to keep these infections from coming back. Or maybe I’ll always be cursed for a week or two every year as a painful reminder to appreciate my most valuable possession: my ears.

I just finished reading book number two for 2009: Oliver Sacks’ Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. The book provides a broad look at music, its effects on the brain and certain disorders or psychological problems relating to music.

The book was enjoyable overall, being for the most part anecdotal. Sacks, a neurologist, provides countless stories of cases he and his colleagues have experienced over the years, and he sprinkles them with personality and identity with the patients so as not too be too impersonal.

However, on the whole, the book seems slightly elevated, giving a sense that one might appreciate it a bit more if they knew more of the terminology of neurology and psychology than the average reader. Coming from a musical rather than psychological perspective, this was certainly the case for me. That said, I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested first and foremost in psychology and music second.

The part of the book I enjoyed most was where the subject of music therapy was discussed. He looks at several severe mental conditions — Alzheimer’s, Tourette’s, Parkinson’s, etc. — and describes how music has played a part in not only easing the pain and frustration of those experiencing such issues, but also showing how in some cases music-based therapy can reverse some of the effects of these conditions.

I think I need to find something a bit less cerebral — pun intended — to read as book number three of 2009.