Confidence to play when you can't hear?

[RoseRodent]

How do people feel confident to get stuck in and play when they can't hear anything? My ears are going through a rough patch at the moment (fluctuating loss) and even with the hearing aids a lot of stuff is a total bust. I was at my recorder group the other week playing away but not hearing any sounds of any kind and felt pretty self-conscious about that. Next week they want me to play a solo part. I don't have to play the solo in a concert or anything, they have a soloist coming and they want me to play in the solo part for rehearsals so everyone can hear what is going on and won't be surprised when the soloist comes to rehearse with us later.

Only problem is that I kinda didn't mention that it's in my totally deaf zone, frequency-wise. I want a shot at playing this and I'm sure I'm up to the challenge, but pinch notes are hard on a sop and I won't really know if I've hit the note or messed it up. I don't want to sound terrible! But I don't want anything to interfere with this group of people, they are the best so far at wearing the FM mic, repeating what people have said, lots of hand signals and pointing, lipspeaking, it's a great little social group, I don't want to be put off from being embarassed but it's quite awful to ask a group of hearing folks to listen to a sopranino recorder played badly!