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K, time to get serious, and weirdly no-one wants to hear the truth but...listening to music can potentially harm your hearing... forever. Going to gigs, producing music in recording studios, playing on your guitar too loudly and, the biggest culprit of modern times, the Ipod and other generic MP3 players with their listeners having their headphones up WAY too loud. Ever walked past someone on the street and you can hear their music? Those people are undoubtedly, slowly but surely, damaging their hearing and, all of the aforementioned moments in time will eventually degrade your hearing over years of exposure. Of course there are many more moments that can mess with your hearing if you are not fully protected, like standing next to a plane as it takes off and using a jack hammer with no ear protection. So what’s the difference? Well musicians and music listeners don’t protect themselves whereas people in other professions, that experience sound at dangerous levels usually do. AltSounds can cover an article like this in a different fashion to most places because our concerns range from the listener, to the band member to the music producer. Have you ever been to a concert and left unable to hear properly? Usually after a nights rest your hearing will return to normal however there have been cases where people have left a concert and lost portions of their hearing forever. The situation is actually worse of all for the people performing on the stage, as they suffer from more serious and prolonged exposure to dangerous levels of sound. It is also more devastating for a performer to lose their hearing as their livelihood then comes under jeopardy.
100db is the threshold recognized at which short term exposure can actually cause hearing loss. Your run of the mill concert can be well within the 120 - 140db level. The actual hearing loss is caused by damage to fragile tissue within the cochlea. This fragile tissue is called hair cells and they move with the fluid in the cochlea to stimulate the electrical impulses in the auditory nerve. These hair cells have the potential of becoming damaged in the presence of loud noise. Imagine it if you will that these hair cells are like a lawn of grass. This grass is fine 98% of the time however, if you were to consistently walk up and down the same patch of grass rigorously then it would start to suffer. The louder and longer the exposure, the more damage you could be causing yourself. Luckily we have indications which help us realize when there are problems. Temporary hearing loss or ringing in the ears is a sure fire sign of temporary hearing issues which, if not addressed might result in permanent hearing loss.
“Social noise exposure has tripled since the early 1980s in the UK meaning that it is now even more important for people to take steps to look after their hearing. Prevention is always better than cure, especially in this case as there is no remedy for hearing damage.”
IN ALL SERIOUSNESS: Music & Hearing Loss 80