Joel Styzens: Overcoming Adversity

Joel Styzens is a composer and multi-instrumentalist whose career as a drummer was transformed due to sudden hearing damage. He talked to me about dealing with the physical and psychological effets of hyper acusis and tinnitus, the beauty of hammered dulcimer, and you’ll hear clips from his first 2 albums Relax Your Ears and Resonance. He’s a music educator who loves to help students to make discoveries on their own and we spoke about Joel’s passion for all kinds of artistic expression, and his positive recent experience at the Ragdale Artist residency. Joel’s personal story is so inspiring, and his music is so beautiful; please check out his albums .

You can also watch this on YouTube and the Transcript is also linked to my website

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Photo of Joel: Sarah Boudreau

(00:00) Intro (02:49) Joel’s sudden hearing problems (09:47) meeting his wife through his music with clip of Viv (17:51) inspired from the Botanic Gardens in Chicago (20:28) video clip from Waterfall Garden featuring hammered dulcimer (20:32) clip from Burijji (24:51) David’s Dulcimers (28:52) dealing with tinnitus and hyperacusis (34:39) support from family, clips of Lifeline and Memento M (38:34) Other episodes you’ll like and ways to support this series (39:26) cellists Sophie Webber, Katinka Kleijn, ATLYS string quartet, Rob Clearfield (41:41) teaching multi-instrumentalist approach (53:32) Ragdale residency, exploring different forms of creative expression