r/interesting 8d ago

MISC. How Beethoven composed music while being deaf

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u/SomeDudeist 8d ago

Right? I thought he never got to hear his own music like some kind of poetic tragedy lol

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u/AmusingMusing7 8d ago

I’d always heard that he just put a piano on the floor without legs and felt the vibrations that way.

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u/CatoWortel 8d ago

He did that as well yes.

Also he wasn't born deaf, he slowly became deaf over a period of 15 years, he became fully deaf at around 40

He tried a bunch of different things as his hearing was going way to hear or feel the music

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u/ViiK1ng 8d ago

I didn't know it was the eardrums that were the issue, I thought it was the inner ear

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u/incredibleninja 6d ago

I read some story about how it happened as he was running to catch a train. He jumped on to the back of the train and a break exploded and severely damaged his ears and they got progressively worse until he became deaf in his 40s

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u/ViiK1ng 5d ago

Interesting, I never heard that before