I've been following @DailyFrail's work for more than a decade: he's an open-access musician and music teacher who has taught hundreds - thousands - of people to play banjo through both open courseware and online/in-person tutorials.

1/

In particular, I've followed his amazing - and now brutal - journey through hearing loss and hearing implants, a journey that, at first, restored his hearing to a large degree, and, later, snatched it away again, largely due to mismanagement, indifference and incompetence.

2/

As Costello describes in a new video, BAHA Blues, @CochlearUS's defective products, indifferent customer service, and poor business practices have brought him to the breaking point.



3/

He's abandoned hearing, because he can't afford the financial and emotional toll of smashing himself against this medtech giant.

But he's not giving up on music. As he describes in his video, banjo frailing is one form of music that fits well into a life without hearing.

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(as he demonstrates in this companion video, a frailing cover of Madonna's "Like a Prayer")



5/

Costello wrote to me this morning after reading yesterday's review of @adelaidesean's "Impossible Music," a novel about a musician who reinvents his conception of music after sudden hearing-loss.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/30/deafhood/#impossible-music

6/

I'm so heartened to see Costello back at music - he's both a skilled musician and an empathic and talented teacher. His struggles with Cochlear have been a heartbreak to watch from afar - I can only imagine what they were like to live through directly.

eof/