Save Your Ears
By Matthew Toledo - 11/10/2004
About two years ago, I first noticed that it was slightly harder for me to follow conversations in a crowded bar. I dismissed it, blaming my difficulty on the sound man dialing in the bands a little louder than normal. However, I noticed that younger people around me could hold conversations in the same room under the same conditions. That was when I first realized that I had suffered some minor hearing loss. Years of exposing my ears to loud practice sessions in a small basement combined with years of covering local music had taken their toll on my hearing. The next day I purchased a pack of earplugs for the first time in my life.
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At first, I felt a little self-conscious about wearing beige colored styrofoam cylinders in my ears, but I had a choice to make: look "cool" or save my hearing. Think of your hearing as a bank account. Every time you expose yourself to extended periods of loud noise, you are making a withdrawal from the hearing bank. Hearing loss, for the most part, is permanent and there is very little that can be done to make a deposit in the hearing bank. If you rest your ears for long periods of time, and allow the tiny hairs in your inner ear that detect sound to heal somewhat, the ears can recover slightly. Unfortunately, even if you give your ears a break, you can never return your balance back to where it started when you first opened your hearing account.
Before I started wearing earplugs, I would often return home from a night at the bars with a ringing sensation in my ears. That sound is called tinnitus. If you are lucky, the ringing goes away with time. However, if you continuously cause your ears to ring, or if you expose yourself to an exceptionally loud noise, the condition can become permanent. When I lie perfectly still in a quiet room, I can hear an ever so slight ringing. That is permanent tinnitus.
You may think that ringing is not a big deal, and if it is as minor as mine, then perhaps it isn't. But if a person continues to expose themselves to toxic levels of noise without protection, the ringing can become unbearable. For example, William Shatner suffers from a very loud ring in his left ear due to an accident while filming an episode of the television show, Star Trek. His tinnitus is so sever that he actually contemplated committing suicide to finally put the noise to rest. Luckily for him, he found a treatment that involves wearing an ear piece that pumps white noise into his affected ear to drown out the ringing.
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William Shatner and I are not alone. Boy that sounds strange. Anyway, approximately one-third of Americans have had their hearing damaged by loud noises (NICDCD, 2002). Loud music is not the only way someone can have their hearing damaged, although it is one of the most common ways for hearing loss to occur. In general, sounds of more than 75 decibels (dB) are capable of causing temporary hearing loss (NIDCD, 2002). A jet taking off emits about 140 dB. Attending a rock concert or using a chainsaw can give off 110 to120 dB, and stereo headphones can have a loudness of 100 dB. Your typical person-to-person conversation is a fraction the volume of the previous sounds, checking in at only 60 dB. Whispers: only a mere 30 to 40 dB (Rabinowitz, 2000).
High pitched noises like those from an electric guitar, snare drum, and cymbals do the most damage. Armed with this new knowledge, I now wear earplugs every time I go out to a cover bands at a music venue and when my band practices in our basement. I only take them off when I'm playing on stage.
Often, people at a loud show will ball-up some toilet tissue or a napkin and stick it in their ears. Unfortunately, using crumpled-up tissue has virtually no affect on blocking the damaging high pitched sounds. Foam earplugs, on the other hand, do an excellent job of reducing high pitched noises.
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Like I mentioned earlier, I felt a little strange being the only one wearing earplugs at a rock show. It just seemed so very un-rock like. Your stereo-typical metal fan, for instance, is usually head-banging as close to the main speaker stack as possible. That or he is leaning over the monitors getting an earful of decibels with no remorse. Perhaps it is a right of passage, or perhaps that fan is trying to focus on the guitar solo, or lead vocalist. To these dedicated music fans, I have to say, I have found that when I wear foam earplugs, I can actually hear the entire band a lot better. Let's face it, guitarists like to be loud and rock drummers like to bash on the cymbals and snare-I should know, I play guitar. Those instruments can drown out a vocalist. With earplugs, everything seems to come into balance and I can actually appreciate the music better.
While foam earplugs are fine for listening to live music, they may not always do the job for musicians who need to pay close attention to their tone while on stage. Foam earplugs alter the pitch of the sounds you hear. Depending on the make of earplug, they will cut down the high range to mid range sounds while leaving most of the lower end intact. This has the effect of making things sound bassier. This is the reason I personally don't wear earplugs on stage, yet.
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There are some expensive earplugs available that use special filters to reduce all of the frequencies of sound equally. Everything becomes quieter, without distorting pitch. You can adjust the filters in these fancy earplugs to mute certain ranges of frequencies. This allows singers to mute those high end distorted guitar and drum sounds so that they can hear themselves. Foam earplugs can do the same, but not with the precision of these plugs, which are molded to fit your ear, and have a slot for filter inserts. Likewise, if you band is heavy on the low end, you can reduce the decibels of those low pitched sounds so you can focus on higher end sounds. This comes in handy for guitarists, or a deejay scratching records or matching beats. You can essentially think of these types of earplugs as a passive ear monitors. For a fraction of a price, you get a lot of the functionality of those expensive electronic ear monitors with the added benefit of protecting your hearing.
Don't be afraid to save your ears, folks. More people wear earplugs than you think. It was only when I started wearing them that I noticed others in the room plucking out those beige colored foam plugs from their ears in-between bands the same as I was doing. Today, I can't imagine going to a show without my earplugs. Every once in a while I take them out for a few seconds to see just how loud the room is. I'm usually taken aback by how incredibly loud the music is. I can't believe that I went so long without plugs. It's a miracle I'm not even deafer than I already am.
Many younger concert goers rarely think twice about hearing loss. They consider it a problem of their elders. While it's true that most people start noticing hearing loss later in life, they accumulate the damage during their youth. Musicians like Barbra Streisand, Bono, Pete Townsend, Prince, Jeff Beck, Sting, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, and Peter Frampton all suffer from hearing loss and tinnitus due years of exposure to loud music. Even former President Bill Clinton complained of hearing loss from years of marching band and attending loud concerts. He now wears a hearing aid. All of these people have stated that they if they had it over to do again, they would protect their hearing by wearing earplugs. You should seriously consider doing so too.
The table below was compiled by abelard.org
| Activity | Decibels | Typical Physical Response |
|---|---|---|
| Rocket launching | 180 | Danger level |
| Threshold of pain Gunshot Jet engine taking off |
140 | Danger level |
| Military jet Air raid siren Shotgun Hydraulic press (3 m away) |
130 | Limited ability to hear amplified speech. Noise may cause pain. Can damage hearing after 3.75 minutes exposure per day |
| Car horn Propeller aircraft Air-raid siren |
120 | Can damage hearing after 7.5 minutes exposure per day |
| Sand-blasting Squealing pigs Inboard motorboat Typical night club Un silenced motorcycle (7m away) |
110 |  Maximum vocal effort. Can damage hearing after 30 minutes exposure per day |
| Amplified Rock Music | 110 -130 | Can damage hearing after 3.75 – 30 minutes exposure per day |
| Helicopter Motorized/power mower |
105 | Can damage hearing after 1 hour exposure per day |
| Jet takeoff @ 500m Train horn @ 30m Diesel truck Pneumatic drill/jackhammer |
100Â | Can damage hearing after 2 hours exposure per day |
| Heavy truck @ 15m Busy city street passing motorcycle Lawn mower Loud shout Screaming child |
90Â | Very annoying.Can damage hearing after 8 hours exposure per day |
| Average factory Electric shaver |
85 | Â |
| Busy traffic intersection Motorway construction site Outboard motor Alarm clock (with bell) Freight train (15m away) |
80 | Annoying . |
| Motorway traffic @ 15m Roadside traffic Train horn @ 500m Vacuum cleaner Mixer electric sewing machine Noisy restaurant Conversation in a loud voice |
70 | Telephone use difficult. |
| Washing machine/dishwasher | 65 | Â |
| Light car traffic @ 15m City or commercial areas Noisy office Normal conversation Clothes dryer Background music |
60 | Intrusive. |
| Quiet office | 50 | Speech interference. |
| Refrigerator | 45 | Â |
| Quiet residential area Kitchen/bathroom Public library |
40 | Quiet . |
| Leaves rustling Very soft music Recording studio Living/dining/bedroom |
30 | Very quiet. |
| Threshold of sound perception | 10 | Just audible. |
| Threshold of hearing | 0 | Not audible. |
