Professional musicians are a unique group of professionals who depend heavily on their hearing for their livelihoods. Musicians need to be able to clearly hear the subtleties of instrumental and vocal performances. At the same time, musicians need to protect their hearing from damage from overly loud music. Hearing loss can interfere with the ability to hear notes in certain pitch ranges, hear pitch differences, or notice changes in timbre and harmonics.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, Music-Induced Hearing Loss (MIHL) is an all too common side effect of being a musician, even a hobbyist. The common notion is that rock and pop musicians are the only ones who are at risk, and that classical musicians are not. This is not true, however, as many classical instruments and instrument groups can produce extremely loud sounds that are damaging to hearing. Musicians who sit in front of the trumpets, for example, can be regularly exposed to sounds above 110 dBA. Sounds that are this loud have the capability to damage hearing permanently in a matter of minutes to under an hour, depending on the susceptibility of the individual to MIHL.<\/p>\n
Rock and pop musicians playing with amplified instruments are unfortunately exposed to fairly constant levels of loud music. Rock music at your average club or stadium performance is more \u201cevenly\u201d or constantly loud (as opposed to the changing and dynamic, sometimes quiet, sometimes loud nature of classical music). This means that after your average rock performance, a musician (and an audience member for that matter) can be exposed to more damaging sound overall than you would find for a classical performance. Rock concerts are fairly regularly measured at 105-113 dBA. This means that permanent hearing damage can occur in a matter of minutes, depending on the loudness and the individual susceptibility of a person to MIHL.<\/p>\n