Amplified music can be hazardous to your hearing, but what most people don’t realize is that acoustic music can be damaging to your hearing as well. According to the ASHA (American Speech-Language Hearing Association) website sounds louder than 80 decibels are potentially hazardous to your hearing. Here is a list of sounds from their website and their approximate decibel levels. As you can see, it doesn’t take much to get to that 80
decibel level. The amount of damage to your hearing is caused by two things the volume and length of exposure to the sound. This is pretty scary considering that most of us make the majority of our income by either performing music or teaching music. Both of which require pretty accurate hearing.
Just this past month, the International Musician published an article on saving your hearing. There are earplugs specifically designed for to help musicians (and singers) save their hearing. These are not the typical earplugs that can be purchased at a drugstore. They have to be fitted by an audiologist. (Make sure that you see one who has worked with musicians in the past. There are two different types of earplugs and they are designed for specific purposes.
There are amplifier earplugs that put back higher frequencies. Etymotic Research makes a series of these earplugs that reduce the sounds heard by 9, 15 and 25 decibels respectively. Another type of earplug is called the vented/tuned earplug. This earplug removes the high frequencies and leaves the mid to low range frequencies in tact.
Much of this article (and the one from the International Musician) was taken from a book called Hear the Music which was written by Dr. Marshall Chasin. For more information on protecting your hearing, visit www.musiciansclinic.com. There you can request a free pdf copy of Dr. Marsshall Chasin’s book, Hear the Music: Hearing Loss Prevention.
