Luke's story

I recently had the opportunity to meet Luke, a fellow member of the cochlear implant community whose story especially stood out to me because he is a musician. He explained that he does not view his Kanso processors as replacing his deafness. Instead, they are tools that give him access to sound, access he has learned to make meaningful through patience, repetition, and years of adapting to a new way of hearing.

For people with typical hearing, sound is something that has always been there. For cochlear implant recipient Luke Criner, sound became something he had to lose, rediscover, and eventually learn all over again.

Luke's passion for music stretches back to some of his earliest memories. He remembers listening through hearing aids as his father played the drums. The sound was faint and muffled, but he could still feel the bass. Even then, music was more than something Luke heard through his ears. It was vibration, rhythm, memory, and connection. This resonates with me as it mirrors my earliest memories before cochlear implants, when I was a hearing aid user.

His hearing loss was hereditary and progressive. His mother also experienced hearing loss, but Luke's deteriorated more quickly. Eventually, his hearing aids could no longer provide enough access to sound, and around age twelve, he became a candidate for cochlear implantation. Luke received his cochlear implant at age twelve, with the procedure taking place on January 22, 2014, after his hearing had deteriorated to the point that hearing aids were no longer enough. His parents gave him the opportunity to pursue implantation, and he underwent the procedure at a hospital in Seattle.

Receiving a cochlear implant, however, did not mean familiar sound immediately returned. Activation was only the beginning of another process: teaching his brain to interpret the implant's electronic signals. Luke remembers being upset at first because he had expected the implant to provide perfect hearing immediately. Instead, he quickly realized that gaining access to sound and understanding that sound were two very different things.

During activation, Luke remembers voices sounding like "Minnie Mouse."

"Minnie Mouse returns," he joked.

But tiny sounds that had disappeared from his world began returning too. A zipper. A light switch. Small environmental noises that most hearing people barely notice suddenly became listening exercises. He would repeatedly make small noises himself, such as clicking a stapler or flipping a light switch, trying to distinguish one sound from another and understand what each new signal represented.

Luke practiced deliberately. He repeated sounds, listened closely, and even wrote down the frequencies he was hearing. That concentration could be exhausting. At times, the flood of new auditory information left his head throbbing. The headaches were a physical reminder of how overwhelming it could be for his brain to suddenly process an environment filled with sounds that had previously been inaccessible.

Human voices were particularly challenging. Speech contains an enormous amount of information at once: pitch, rhythm, emotion, timing, and subtle differences that separate one word from another. Music became one way to bridge that gap. At one point, Luke spent around two hours each day listening to music, repeatedly exposing himself to sounds so that his brain could begin recognizing their patterns.

Artists ranging from Radiohead to David Bowie became part of Luke's exploration of sound. Songs such as “Every Breath You Take” could function as listening exercises just as much as entertainment. Over time, he began noticing differences in how music was produced and recorded, from acoustic versus digital sound to the distinct character of tape recordings. That interest eventually led him to join a recording arts class, where he could immerse himself even further in sound. By connecting his hearing devices directly to a computer, he could listen closely to individual sounds and recordings, creating a more direct connection between his technology, music, and the auditory environment he was learning to understand.

For a cochlear implant recipient, music is not simply restored when a device is switched on. The brain must learn how to interpret the information the implant provides. Repetition creates recognition, and recognition can slowly become enjoyment.

Luke's experience also challenges the assumption that deafness and music are incompatible. Rhythm can be felt. Musical structures can be learned. A cochlear implant can provide access to sound, but the recipient still has to discover what to do with that access.

For Luke, music became both the motivation and the method.

The drums he once heard faintly through hearing aids, the bass he felt while his father played, and the songs he explored after implantation became pieces of the same puzzle. Music helped him understand not only notes and rhythms, but eventually the patterns within human speech itself. What began as hours spent deliberately listening to music and practicing with individual environmental noises gradually became a way for Luke to help his brain understand sound again.

His story is a reminder that cochlear implantation is not a single moment when hearing returns suddenly. It is an ongoing process of listening, practicing, adapting, and discovering what sound can mean to each individual.

Sometimes that process begins with something as small as recognizing a zipper again.

And sometimes, it leads all the way back to music. Luke is now creating music of his own and recently released an album on Spotify, turning the sounds he once had to relearn into something he can share with others.

And sometimes, it leads all the way back to music. Luke is now creating music of his own and recently released an album on Spotify, turning the sounds he once had to relearn into something he can share with others. His journey has also been documented in “Sound Again,” a documentary that explores his experience with hearing loss, cochlear implantation, and learning to engage with sound and music in a new way. Together, his documentary and his music offer another way for Luke to share a perspective that is often difficult to capture: receiving a cochlear implant may provide access to sound, but learning what that sound means is a deeply personal process that continues long after activation.

“Sound Again” is now making its way to film festivals across the country, including festivals in Idaho and Washington. Keep an eye out for upcoming screenings, festival announcements, and more information by following @soundagainfilm on Instagram.

Listen to Luke’s new album on Spotify: “Temperance Ignored Here” https://open.spotify.com/album/3vIMcG5L9PI3N5VPq4lk0M?si=KKUZXfWXSIifsCTEdSfJAA