It's well known amongst his friends and family that tinnitus was the cause of his suicide. An open verdict was recorded because there wasn't a note, but those closest to him knew how badly it was plaguing his life and how desperate he was for a solution. They did a tinnitus fundraiser afterwards in his name.
Some have worked with hearing charities and have auctioned off rare guitars and other memorabilia (as well as donating money, etc). I know Al Di Meola has raised money via a Canadian tinnitus charity, numerous times, and all the money went directly to Bryan Allman, a tinnitus researcher. I know this because I was in contact with the charity a few years back and we got talking about various stuff, and one of the things he talked about was all the artists that have helped out. He mentioned that Ozzy and Sharon had been excellent, and there were others like Michael Shipley (Grammy award-winning producer), a famous country guy whose name I've forgotten, and a few more. I've still got the messages.
People can be doing a lot behind the scenes without anyone knowing about it, and that's just how some like to operate, I suppose. I would say the same message applies to all of us, though, when you say "They could be doing more advocating for a cure if they cared so much!" I know I and many others have tried numerous times to get campaigns up and running that would either raise awareness or money, but it's nigh on impossible to get anyone to do anything, and that's the problem. It's not just a musician thing.
I guess I got tired of the sweeping generalisations when it came to musicians. The amount of times I've read things like "they can't have it bad because they still play," or "it's clear that musicians have a mild form," etc, is frankly, ridiculous. I think I summed up my thoughts best in this post from the thread I linked to above:
None of us can ever know what another person experiences when it comes to tinnitus. We only know our own experiences, and that's not enough to presume to know how another person will behave. This is what's known as a cognitive bias. The level at which your tinnitus caused you maximum misery may actually only have been half of what Al Di Meola experiences, for example. This situation could obviously be reversed and it could also be extended to any deviation on a scale from mild to severe between two people.
The point is, nobody knows! To presume to know how loud somebody else's tinnitus is and whether or not they'd stop playing live music is completely flawed as an argument. There are too many variables. I'd agree that the average person would stop playing live if their tinnitus became "severe" (this is still subjective), but I would not be able to extend that to a blanket statement of saying "everyone would quit" without my logic being flawed.
When the CJ interview was released, he was immediately hounded upon on Twitter by some jumped up overzealous hearing advocate. I thought, geez, no wonder nobody wants to do this shit. The guy offers his time to tell his story and he's immediately ripped to shreds for it.
I saw Tommy Emmanuel live last week with Jerry Douglas, and they were phenomenal. I'm going to see my old drummer's band on Saturday, as well. It's been a while since I last went to a live show. Since my tinnitus worsened, I've done about five band rehearsals, two gigs, and have seen maybe 7 bands live, but only in pubs/clubs. That's since June/July 2015
Because of this, I used to get the same messages from people saying "your tinnitus can't be that bad then!" My career ended in my early 30s because of it, and it's not a decision that I took lightly. It destroyed my life and ripped my soul out, and it's kind of infuriating when you have multiple tones and sounds, and screamingly loud tinnitus in your head only to hear others assume to know what you experience on a daily basis.
That is why I made these posts because the presumptuous nature is still present in this thread. "So and so can't have this problem because of this and this," etc. We cannot presume to know what anybody is going through, period. I think it's arrogant and selfish.
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