~Riddle: What is painless, odorless, tasteless, invisible, and toxic? Noise-induced hearing loss.

There are two pieces of standard equipment that musicians and singers sometimes take for granted - your ears. The fact is that hearing loss is a very real threat to every one but especially so to tuneheads. And whether you are into music for fun or apiring to a professional music career, your ears are not replaceable. Repeated exposure to loud noises including music can permanently damage your hearing and once it's gone - it's gone.

Noise causes nerve deafness by damaging hair cells in your inner ears. It's usually painless and develops slowly. You may experience ringing in your ears that goes away. Then you expose yourself again and get permanent hearing loss.

Volume - loudness and the length of time you're exposed affect the amount of damage. The louder the noise - the less time it takes. Keep this in mind any time you are around loud noises including music.

Protect those wonderful ears.

~ If others can hear the lyrics from your headphones or ear buds - your ears are at risk.

~A rock concert noise level is equal to a chainsaw.

~Use ear protection such as ear plugs to protect yourself from loud and/or long noises. There are several types of plugs that discreetly fit inside your ears. Some on the market now do not filter out the highs and lows but just reduce the volume.

~Have your hearing checked by a professional. Many times you can get a free hearing screening.

Musicians and hearing loss is serious. Treat your ears as precious equipment and enjoy the music.



[This message has been edited by Taike (edited 05-14-2007).]

I mentioned this very subject a few months ago. Thanks, Taike, for bringing it to the forefront again. It's a very important subject and vastly underemphasised, especially in the muso community. There's an old saying, "You don't know what you've got until you lose it", and that certainly applies here.
http://www.synthzone.com/ubbs/Forum37/HTML/015162.html

Thank YOU, Renig. I missed that post.

Here some tidbits I collected from several sites:
--------------------------------------------------

�Don�t misuse your iPod�, warns The Who guitarist

Pete Townshend, the famous guitarist of the British rock band, The Who, warns young people about the risk of listening to music on mp3 players and other digital audio players. He recommends turning the volume down before it is too late for your hearing.

�Hearing loss is a terrible thing because it cannot be repaired. If you use an iPod or anything like it, or your child uses one, you may be ok. But my intuition tells me there is terrible trouble ahead,� Pete Townshend stated on his website - www.petetownshend.co.uk.

Blames his earphones

Pete Townshend, a 60 year old rock legend, was devastated when he realised that he had an irreversible hearing problem. He suffers from tinnitus, a constant buzzing noise in both ears, and a progressive hearing loss, which obliges him to rest 36 hours between recording sessions, and caused him to postpone his worldwide tour and other projects.

According to the guitarist who used to smash his guitars on stage in the 60�s, his hearing loss was not caused by the loud music played at The Who performances, but by the many years using earphones in the recording studio sessions.

"I have unwittingly helped to invent and refine a type of music that makes its principal components deaf," wrote Pete Townshend on his website.

It's hardly surprising that musicians and singers suffer from hearing problems and even deafness after long-term exposure to loud music. However, the more general trend is that more and more young people suffer from hearing loss due to loud noise exposure from mp3 players, iPods, night clubs and concerts.


Here's some more...


FAMOUS PEOPLE & MUSICIANS WITH TINNITUS

Celebrities & Musicians with Tinnitus:

Neil Young - (loud music) main reason for his "acoustic" music during early 90's

Barbra Streisand - "Streisand has ascribed her volatile temperament to the tinnitus from which she has suffered since she was seven." source: news.independent.co.uk

Pete Townshend - "I have severe hearing damage. It's manifested itself as tinnitus, ringing in the ears at frequencies that I play guitar. It hurts, it's painful, and it's frustrating." Townshend is completely deaf in one ear from an explosion when Keith Moon blew up his drum set live on stage in the early 1960's and loud amps. He has tinnitus, resulting partly from the band's live gigs but mainly the deafening volume in which he and Entwistle used to listen to playbacks over the studio "cans." There are reports saying that he is unable even to hear his phone ring. The Sun newspaper reported Townshend said his hearing got worse after the band's recent US tour. Quote from Pete: "The recent return to touring and to me playing electric guitar - albeit more quietly than in the 1970s - led to further deterioration of my hearing," the 57-year-old said. "My right ear, which encounters my own edgy guitar and the machine gun strokes of the drums, has suffered badly. Luckily for me, I still have my left ear, which seems to be less @#%$ up. When I've worked solo in the past five years I've not used drums. This has meant I could play more quietly I think. With The Who, there is of course no way to play the old songs without drums. I've no idea what I can do about this. I am unable to perform with in-ear monitors. In fact, they increase the often unbearable tinnitus I suffer after shows." source from Sky News

John Entwhistle - According to Who scholar Andy Neill, Entwhistle was pretty deaf, and tended to rely on lip-reading. He didn't have tinnitus but still played bass at his usual "everything on 11" volume.

William Shatner - stage/prop explosion on set of StarTrek (during mid 1960's)

Leonard Nimoy - stage/prop explosion on set of StarTrek (during mid 1960's)

David Letterman - T in one ear, has had T a long time: Dave mentioned that he too had ringing in his ears, and has had it for a long time to William Shatner

Paul Schaffer - "He's got that?! I've got that!" on Billy Bob Thornton's character with Tinnitus in 'BANDITS'

Bill Clinton? - (wears hearing aid) T probably?

Tony Randall

Engelbert Humperdinck

Rosalynn Carter

Steve Martin - musician (banjo player), actor, comedian. He acquired Tinnitus while filming a pistol-shooting scene in "�Three Amigos!" in 1986. "You just get used to it."

Leslie Nielsen - actor in such movie spoofs as "Police Squad!", "Airplane!", "The Naked Gun" series

Mark O. Hatfield

Ronald Reagan

Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Influential eighteenth century political philosopher. From "Confessions" (1780) "...a great noise started up in my ears, a noise that was triple or rather quadruple, compounded of a low and muffled humming, a softer murmuring as though of running water, a piercing whistle...This internal noise was so loud that it robbed me of the keen ear I had previously enjoyed and made me, not completely deaf, but hard of hearing... in spite of the throbbing in my arteries and the humming in my ears, which since that time, some thirty years ago now, have never left me for a moment...The noise was irksome, but it caused me no suffering: it was not accompanied by any chronic affliction, apart from insomnia at night..." P. 222, Oxford World's Classics paperback edition, Oxford University Press, 2000

Jean-Francois Champollion - (1790-1832) Champollion was a French Egyptologist and scholar who is acknowledged as the father of modern Egyptology. He is best known for deciphering the Egyptian Hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone. His deciphering of hieroglyphics laid the foundations for modern Egyptology and Egyptian archaeology. In the book "The Keys to Egypt", it describes how Champollion drove himself to complete an encyclopedia of his work. "Depressed and feeling more and more unwell, Champollion now wrote to his brother about the damage done by the strain of work: 'My poor head hurts, my tinnitus, the humming and buzzing noises, has worsened and leaves me neither day nor night. I have frequent spasms and am incapable of occupying myself seriously for more than a quarter hour...' "

Richard Thomas

Brian Wilson? T? - deaf in one ear from when his father hit him in the head with a board at an early age

Dave Pirner - (Soul Asylum) (loud music)

Bob Mould - (alternative music icon)

Neve Campbell - loud dance clubs

Jeff Beck - band Yardbirds (loud music), From an interview with rock guitarist Jeff Beck: "Yes, it's in my left ear. It's excruciating... I mean, it's the worst thing 'cause it's not... It never... It does go away - it's not true to say that it doesn't but, uhh... It doesn't... The doctors say it won't... It isn't actually going away - you've just gotta suppress... They try to come to terms with what it actually... Why some people fear it - that's the psychology behind it. They know it's there but why is it such a horrible sound? Well, you can say why is a guy scratching at a window with his nails such a horrible sound - I couldn't put up with that! This is worse!"
As Jeff told MTV - June 1993, He was asked to do a special guest spot with Guns 'n' Roses but had to cancel out. Jeff was going to play "Locomotive" with the band, but during the rehearsals, he used Slash's amp rig which aggravated his tinnitus forcing him to drop out of the gig.

Douglas J Noble - musician, guitar instructor, and music journalist out of Edinburgh, Scotland. From a Jeff Beck interview: "I've got tinnitus in my left ear...I mean it's permanent! Like just now..."

Mike Patton - T? lead singer for Faith No More; Wrote the Mr. Bungle's tune "Slowly Growing Deaf".

Burt Reynolds

Sting - (loud music)

Liberty Divito - (Billy Joel's drummer) (loud music)

Eric Clapton - (loud amplifiers)

Eric Johnson - has developed T (loud music/amps); source from Guitar Player Magazine interview: "I'd run two Marshall stacks onstage and crank the monitors. I started using Fender Deluxe Reverb amps and 50-watt Marshalls around '97, after I started having some problems with tinnitus. It was my own doing -- being irresponsible and thinking I was invincible...Yes, though it has been better lately. Take care and wear plugs. Don't think it can't happen to you. When I had a speaker reconed at the been here for years reconing shop in Austin the owner said, "I've reconed speakers for every guitarist in Austin for years and as far as I know there aren't any rock 'n roll lead guitarists here who don't have tinnitus to some degree or another. Many have it so bad they have trouble sleeping."

James Hetfield - Metallica rhythm guitar and uses Sonic II Ear plugs

Lars Ulrich - drummer for Metallica

Vanilla Fudge - Tim Bogert (bassist): "Tinnitus, big time. That�s the price you pay for having a darn good time. Nothing�s free!"

Radiohead - lead singer
Motorhead - Lemmy Kilminster (thrash-punk-metal pioneers): "We just like it loud, you know?"

Kevin Shields - guitarist/singer for My Bloody Valentine: "I did the damage to my ears listening to mixes in headphones at very loud levels without giving my ears time to recover."

Blinda Butcher - bassist/singer for My Bloody Valentine: "I had a punctured ear drum which fortunately they were able to put right but for a while I couldn't hear out of one ear and it was very depressing. On stage we all wear hearing protection and encourage anyone who sees us regularly to do the same."

George Martin? - retired from music due to hearing loss

George Harrison? - had hearing damage from loud music

Thomas Edison

Graham Cole - UK actor and singer, suffers tinnitus and hearing loss

Sylvester Stallone

Ted Nugent - Amboy Dukes guitarist: "My left ear is pretty much whacked. But I can still hear really good in my right ear. Early on, I would stick shell casings, which I always had handy, in my ear, to protect my right ear because that was the one that was facing the amp the most."

Rick Emmett - Triumph guitarist, source from Guitar Player Magazine

Bono - U2 lead singer, he even sings about it in his lyrics. Bono derived his name from a hearing aid store in his hometown of Dublin, Ireland which had a sign that read 'Bonavox Hearing Aids'.

The Edge - U2 guitar player

Ben Bossi - Saxophone player for Romeo Void. From a VH1 interview: His ears had started ringing and he was losing his hearing when the band was in it's heyday. He quit playing the sax after the band broke up and hasn't played since.

Peter Jennings

Jerry Stiller - Frank Costanza on Seinfeld

Lorence Henderson

Husker Du/Sugar - frontman

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Martin Luther

Phil Collins - sources: newspapers/website. From Sky News: He will have to severely cut back on live performances "thanks to the buzzing in his ears."
"Phil Collins recently declared an end to his concert touring because of the hearing loss he has suffered. The 51 year-old former Genesis drummer and vocalist announced that he will perform live only occasionally to avoid further hearing loss on his hearing damaged left ear." source from hear-it.org

Cher - actress/singer, Cheryl Sarkisian LaPiere

Morgan Fairchild - T? Actress; She was born a preemie who developed scarlet fever. She has so many kidney and ear infections as a child that she admits she is "partially deaf."

Cheryl Tiegs - Super model

Blixa Bargeld - (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds / Einstuerzende Neubauten)

Ozzy Ozborne

Huey Lewis

Tony Franklin

Alan Shepard - (T and Meniere's Disease)

Ira Flatow - National Public Radio - Host, Talk of the Nation: Science Friday
"Some interesting and hopeful news for people, like myself, millions of us, who have a constant ringing in one or both of our ears... Researchers have figured out where in the brain that ringing- called tinnitus - originates." Click on the below link to view and listen to Ira Flatow's program on Tinnitus with guests: Dr. Alan Lockwood (Professor of Neurology, Nuclear Medicine, and Communicative Disorders and Sciences, State University of New York at Buffalo, Research Physician, Veterans Administration Hospital, Buffalo, New York) and Dr. Richard Salvi (Professor of Communicative Disorders and Sciences, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York) Science Friday: Tinnitus

Don Imus

Vincent Van Gogh - maybe why he cut off his ear

Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) - Spanish artist that had tinnitus and hearing loss from a severe illness.

Ludwig Van Beethoven - Famously deaf, Beethoven was also a famous tinnitus sufferer. The great composer was driven mad by "rushing and roaring sounds" in his head.

Robert Schumann - composer

Bedrich Smetana - it was a high E, and it was in his string quartet "From My Life."

Charles Darwin - who kept records of its daily amplitude and frequency

Clive Barker - T? disturbing story "Dread"

Mick Fleetwood - T? Fleetwood Mac drummer; "The world's worst is when you find yourself going like Mother Hubbard and cupping your hand behind your ear. I was a major glutton for volume: 'Gotta feel it, gotta hear it.' Sooner or later you're going to pay the reaper." source: Rolling Stone Magazine

Stewart Copeland - hearing loss but no T yet

Keanu Reeves - plays bass in the band Dogstar

Ed Rush & Optical - (aka Ben Settle and Matt Quinn) Ed Rush the famous drum/bass DJ and producer and his producing partner, Optical, both aquired tinnitus from working the the studio.

Larry King said he has tinnitus on his left ear. He also said his is very low and it dosn't bother him

Dave Swarbrick - fiddle player Fairport Convention mammoth onstage amplification (ironic for a 'folk rock' band).

Charles Arthur - guitar player

Charlie Haden - jazz bassist, Charlie Haden to Charles Arthur (Q&A), "Over the years I have learned to adjust my life to this problem and accepted these ear problems as part of my being. In other words, I tell myself that I've been this way since I was born. This helps me to reduce the stress and frustration of this condition. I wear earplugs when I play that cut out 32 db's, as well as using plexiglass baffles. You are seeing the right person in Dr. Jack Vernon. Many musicians have this problem. I take it you know about "Tinnitus Today" and "H.E.A.R." from Dr. Vernon. Good luck and keep positive, Charlie Haden"

Kathy Peck - bass player/singer-songwriter: "My life had really changed when I experienced the loss of my hearing and Tinnitus damage after the Contractions opened up for Duran Duran." H.E.A.R. - "As a former bass player and singer for the San Francisco rock band The Contractions, Kathy had suffered hearing damage while playing a set at the Oakland Coliseum in l984. The repeated exposure to excessive noise caused a ringing sensation in her ears called tinnitus, as well as decreasing her ability to hear."

Michael Tomlinson - musician/singer-songwriter: After an ear infection, he temporarily lost 90% of his hearing for a few weeks, but still has Tinnitus in one ear. Source from: E-mail correspondence

Al Di Meola - musician/guitarist: "I do. That's why i don't play electric anymore."

John Densmore - drummer for The Doors, Ray Manzarek says that things are looking grim for Densmore, in terms of his future as a musician: "Tinnitus, man, you can't...You know, there's nothing you can do about it. It doesn't get better. It can only get worse--that's the hell of that thing. You'd say, 'Well, you know, when it's better, you're gonna play, man.' Well, it doesn't get better. The nature of that problem is that it can only get worse."

Jimmy Savile - "It doesn't bother me in the slightest," he told Michael Church. "It reminds me of all the girls I've known, and all the discos. I'm very happily ensconced with this friend inside my head." Source from: news.independent.co.uk

Michael Church - "I acquired my own tinnitus in the stupidest possible way: on the rifle range at Catterick army camp, while training as an officer cadet. St Albans School in the late Fifties was a grotesquely spartan place, where ear-defenders were unheard of (my fellow victim Stephen Hawking improvised earplugs from blotting paper, and the doctor had to dig them out). After a noisy afternoon with a Bren firing 12 inches from my left ear, I returned home deafened, and though my hearing eventually returned (minus the high frequencies), I was left with a loud hiss. (Yes, I should have sued both the school and the MoD, but 16-year-olds don't have time for such niceties.)" Source from: news.independent.co.uk

Francis Rossi - lead singer and guitarist for the band Status Quo.

Mick Ronson - David Bowie's guitarist, had tinnitus in the ear that was closest to his speaker column.

Hansi Kursch - lead singer and bass player for the band Blind Guardian. Kursch actually lost all hearing on one side, and then suffered tinnitus in the same ear. source from DynamiteMetal.com

Jarmo Miettinen - Rhythm guitar & vocals for the band Status Quiz

Todd Rundgren - Musician

Trent Reznor - Nine Inch Nails

James Destri - keyboardist who wrote "Fan Mail" by Blondie on the album Plastic Letters
Roger Miller - "Mission of Burma...Its career cut short by guitarist Roger Miller�s mounting tinnitus... Miller�s never shaken his condition, but now wears firingrange headphones so that Burma�s full sonic experience--high decibel levels are a key component in the band�s music--can be unleashed upon the crowd." Source from: www.avguide.com
Richard Pleasance - guitarist for Boom Crash Opera, took time off in 1990 from touring with this band due to tinnitus. Source from: www.vh1.com

Danny Elfman - Oingo Boingo, film scores/composer. Touring took a major toll on his hearing and he still suffers from tinnitus. "The last five or six years I was in the band, my instincts were telling me I was doing myself a lot of harm - and I was right. I really should have gotten out sooner than I did, and I'm incredibly regretful that I didn't because I'm paying the price for it now." Source from: OCRegister

Steve Lukather - guitarist/song writer for Toto, developed tinnitus sometime in the 1980's. "Yes I have tinnitus, what a drag. I wear earplugs now 'cause of it. I found that it was all the years wearing headphones that did me in more than live playing. I used to have the real expensive plugs, but I found some 2 dollar ones that work just as good and you don't feel bad losing them, hahaha. My hearing is damaged though. I always have to say "WHAT???", hahaha. Be careful guys, this could happen to you!" Source from: www.stevelukather.net

Andy Partridge - guitarist/song writer and former front man of XTC. "Right now, I'm taking twin noise generators out of my ears. They�re hearing aids in reverse. They are retraining my brain to not hear tinnitus over the next 18 months. I've been wearing them for the last month or so...The first time I was suicidal was when I found I had tinnitus." Source from: wired.com

Tinnitus In Song:

Peter Framptom - based on lyrics to Show me the way - "I wonder how you're feeling....there's ringing in my ears....and no one to relate to...cept the sea (?)Who can I believe in?I feel so ....."

Robert Plant - Stairway to Heaven - "You�re head is humming and it won�t go in case you don�t know..."

Bob Dylan - Call Letter Blues - "My ears are ringing, ringing like empty shells... (2x) Well, it can't be no guitar player.Must be...convent bells"

Nine Inch Nails - Something I Can Never Have - (Trent Reznor from the album Downward Spiral) "I still recall the taste of your tears. Echoing your voice just like the ringing in my ears."

Nine Inch Nails - The Becoming - (Trent Reznor) "I can try to get away but I've strapped myself in. I can try to scratch away the sound in my ears. I can see it killing away all of my bad parts. I don't want to listen but it's all to clear. Hiding backwards inside of me I feel so unafraid. Annie, hold a little tighter I might just slip away. It wont give up. It wants me dead. Goddamn this noise inside my head [8x] "

The Young Fresh Fellows / The Minus 5 - Little Bell - (from the album Because We Hate You / Let the War Against Music Begin) - an ode to tinnitus?

Garbage - Push It - "This is the noise that keeps me awake, my head explodes and my body aches"

U2 - Staring At The Sun - "...There's an insect in your ear, if you scratch it won't disappear, its gonna itch and burn and sting, you wanna see what the scratching brings...waves that leave me out of reach, breaking on your back like a beach, will we ever live in peace? as those that can't do, often have to preach, to the ones, staring at the sun..."

Francis Rossi/Status Quo - from 1998 single Burning Bridges - "I can't escape this ringing in my ears..."

Bob Seger - Turn the Page - "Later in the evening as you lie awake in bed, with the echo from the amplifiers ringing in your head."

Blondie - Fan Mail - (written by James Destri from the album Plastic Letters) "Beat on my Fender through my Gemini II. Play to the posters on the wall in my room. Thought I was crazy when I thought about you. And the bells in my ears kept ringing, In my ears bells are ringing..."

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Hillbilly Hollywood - (Jim Photoglo, Vince Melamed) "I played some bars where you never wanna go. From Oklahoma City down to Tupelo. My ears would be ringing like an old fire bell when I'd lay me down in some cheap motel."

Wilco - Heavy Metal Drummer - (Lyrics by Jeff Tweedy from the album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot) - "Classical music blasting masks the ringing in my ears."

Mr. Bungle - Slowly Growing Deaf - Written by Faith No More lead singer Mike Patton - "To my ears the greatest sin, feel a bit like Beethoven... No one is listening, yet ears are ringing."


Taike

I used to have ear infections a lot; and most times it would settle in my right ear. Consequently I have lost some very high frequencies in my right ear. Things like a TV screen that emit really high frequencies I can't hear in my right ear.
Whenever I'm doing a mix in studio, I wear the headphones backward for a couple passes through the song to make sure I haven't overdone the highs on the right side.

That's really a bummer though when you've taken care of what you expose your ears to, and then something totally out of your control like multiple infections rob some from you. I'm just glad it has only affected the really high frequencies in one ear.

HUH? What! What'd you say there sonny? All joking aside this a very serious subject. I can only imagine what my hearing would be like now if I was still jamming out 2 feet away from a Marshall Full Stack.... Boy the ringing lasted for days....

My only problem now is I've started to notice a light ring in my left ear, but I think that's really from shooting too many guns without ear protection. Last time we went hunting, my knucklhead inlaw shot a Winchester 7mm right next to me(OUCH!). I thought my eyes fell out of my head.

Squeak

One of the saddest parts of hearing loss is not being able to hear the beauty of a fine acoustic guitar. Like not hearing the quality of music.
The first time I became aware of what a hearing loss meant to music is when a mandolin player who I worked with who wore hearing aids in both ears said. �It�s like listening to music on the telephone�.

I�m not there yet, thank God. But it is on its way.

John C.

I have a 30 percent hearing loss in my left ear..As with Rory, mostly my higher frequencies..
I can't hear birds tweeting as an example...Oh and also my wife's nagging..

Fran, It is beginning to effect the high notes when I am tunning a piano. I can still hear the high notes but it is a bit of a struggle.

John C.

What?...