Protect your hearing! by Priscilla Douglas, M.S., CCC-A, Cornucopia, January 2001

I'm an audiologist, someone who specializes in hearing and hearing loss, and an amateur horn player. I'd like to urge you to educate yourself about preserving your hearing while playing music.

It is possible, and likely, to damage your hearing by long-term exposure to damaging levels of sound such as other musicians (e.g., trumpets and percussion) as well as your own practicing. The damage always begins in the high frequencies of 2, 3, 4, or 6000 Hz, and gradually worsens until it begins to affect the frequencies of speech, at which time people begin to complain of not understanding soft speech or difficulty in the presence of background noise. This type of damage is often accompanied by tinnitus, or ringing in the ears. It is almost always permanent and non-reversible.

There are many strategies you can use to minimize your risk. First, make sure when you practice that your bell is pointing at something soft, to help absorb the sound. As you know, hard materials are reflective and bounce the sound back toward you.

Next, consider wearing hearing protection, especially for loud practice sessions and rehearsals. Headphones or earmuffs are easy to put on and take off; I had some luck with noise-cancelling ones. There are also custom made (and cheaper, non-custom) musicians' earplugs, which still allow you to hear fairly well but damp damaging levels. The custom earplugs go deep into the ear canal to minimize the annoying "occlusion effect", when your own voice or instrument sound is amplified in the ear canal.

Peoples' susceptibility to noise damage varies, so what may harm one person might not affect another as much. A colleague in a wind ensemble suffered damage in one ear due to being close to the trumpets. He is significantly affected by tinnitus, which is driving him crazy, and he is worried about his hearing.

Consider having a hearing test for a baseline and to detect any possible early damage. This should be done by a certified audiologist, who can also counsel you regarding hearing protection and can make musician's earplugs.

I also recommend a book called Musicians and the Prevention of Hearing Loss by Marshall Chasin, an audiologist affiliated with The Centre for Human Performance and Health Promotion in Hamilton, Canada.

Priscilla is affiliated with Fletcher Allen Health Care and University of Vermont. Email Priscilla Douglas

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