Professional musicians at greater risk of developing hearing loss

Continuous exposure to loud music: that’s what can damage your hearing. Hearing loss starts with recurrent exposure to sounds at or above 85 decibels (decibels being a unit used to measure loudness). This means musicians are at a very high risk, considering the high decibels found at a concert.

Check out these common activities:

Whisper at 6 feet: 30 decibels (dB)
Regular dialogue at 3 feet: 60 – 65 (dB)
Motorcycle: 100 dB
Front row at a rock show: 120 to 150 dB

A musician’s hearing is what is most predisposed to damage from the performance of their craft. Fame, wealth, and screaming fans — these are a couple of the terms and phrases you’d pick in order to summarize the everyday life of a professional musician. The terms “hearing loss” or “tinnitus,” signify the negative side-effects of all that glory, wealth, and screaming.
The culprit of all that hearing loss is recurring subjection to deafening noise. In the long run, loud noise will irreparably destroy the hair cells of the inner ear, which are the sensory receptors responsible for sending sound to the brain. Like an ample patch of grass worn out from frequent trampling, the hair cells can in a similar fashion be wiped out from repeated overexposure to loud noise – the dissimilarity, of course, being that you can’t grow brand new hair cells.

Signs of Hearing Loss

In reality, musicians are close to four times more likely to acquire noise-induced hearing loss in contrast with the average person, according to scientists at the Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology. The scientific study also discovered that professional musicians are about 57% more likely to suffer from tinnitus — a disorder connected with a repeated ringing in the ears.

Unfortunately, musicians don’t see an audiologist until it’s too late and they experience:

A ringing or buzzing sound in the ears
Any pain or discomfort in the ears
Difficulty comprehending speech
Trouble following discussions in the presence of background noise

The trouble is, when these symptoms are present, the damage has already been done. So, the leading thing a musician can do to deter long-term, permanent hearing loss is to schedule an appointment with an audiologist before symptoms are present.
If you’re a musician, an audiologist can recommend custom made musicians’ plugs or in-ear-monitors that will give protection to your hearing without limiting your musical performance. As a musician, you have unique needs for hearing and hearing protection, and audiologists or hearing specialists are the professionals specifically trained to provide this custom protection.
Considering the unique requirements of musicians — as well as the significance of protecting the details of sound — the best road to take is to schedule an appointment with an audiologist.

How musicians, and fans, can protect their ears

Rock shows are literally ear-splittingly loud, and continued unprotected exposure can cause some considerable harm, which several popular musicians know all too well.
Chris Martin, the lead vocalist for the band Coldplay, has dealt with with Tinnitus for a decade. According to Martin:
“Looking after your ears is unfortunately something you don’t think about until there’s a problem. I’ve had tinnitus for about 10 years, and since I started protecting my ears it hasn’t got any worse (touch wood). But I wish I’d thought about it earlier. Now we always use moulded filter plugs, or in-ear monitors, to try and protect our ears. You CAN use industrial headphones, but that looks strange at a party.”
Other significant musicians that suffer from hearing loss or tinnitus include Neil Young, Ozzy Osbourne, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend, Bono, Sting, Ryan Adams, and more, many of which indicate regret that they hadn’t done more to take care of their ears all through their careers. Lars Ulrich from Metallica points out:
“If you get a scratch on your nose, in a week that’ll be gone. When you scratch your hearing or damage your hearing, it doesn’t come back. I try to point out to younger kids … once your hearing is gone, it’s gone, and there’s no real remedy.”

Even though musicians are at greater risk for acquiring hearing loss or tinnitus, they can slash their risk by taking protective measures. Plus, everyday folks who are subjected to loud environments should also seek protection.