Marshall Chasin

Marshall Chasin, AuD, is an audiologist and the Director of Auditory Research at the Musicians’ Clinics of Canada, Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto (in Linguistics), Associate Professor in the School of Communication Disorders and Sciences at the Western University. He is the author of over 200 articles and 7 books including Musicians and the Prevention of Hearing Loss. Dr. Chasin has been the recipient of many awards over the years including the 2012 Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Award for service to Canada and the Canada 150 Medal in 2017. He has developed a new TTS app called Temporary Hearing Loss Test app.

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Musical Dissonance Depends On the Context… And the Culture

Marshall Chasin

With music, it is well known that two notes that are adjacent to each other, such as C and C#, can sound dissonant when played together. This is especially significant in the lower frequency region (below or near middle C) where the fundamental frequency difference between C and C# can be on the order of only 15 Hz. Musical note

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Two Tricks for Hard of Hearing Musicians and Audio Engineers

Marshall Chasin

From time-to-time I clinically see a performing artist who plays in a rock, jazz, or pop music group who is having difficulty staying on key. And, from time-to-time, I also see audio engineers who have a hard time with the equalization of their music, either in a live venue or while mixing music in a studio. Here are two clinical

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Music and Stress

Marshall Chasin

For those of us who are old enough to remember the 1960s, newspaper articles were abound with headlines such as “Stress is the big killer”. At that time, scientists were referring to the deleterious effects of stress on the heart, liver, and kidneys, but over time we have come to learn about the more “subtle” effects of stress on our

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A quick test for cochlear dead regions in those with a unilateral sensori-neural hearing loss

Marshall Chasin

There are now a number of “hearing tests” that can be performed in the quiet of one’s own home. These are predominantly threshold-based tests and are typically limited by the environmental condition of the test room or by the asymmetry of unmatched earphones or loudspeakers that are commonly used by the public. One Minute Quick Test The following is a

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Playing around with hearing aid apps for music

Marshall Chasin

This blog entry is written for the hearing aid consumer (but also the audiologist…) who wants to try a few things on their hearing aid app that connects with their smartphone. Virtually every hearing aid manufacturer in the world supplies an app for a Smartphone that the hard of hearing person can use to “fine tune” some elements of the

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Non-Auditory Effects of Environmental Noise

Marshall Chasin

by Marshall Chasin, AuD, for the Canadian Academy of Audiology Reprinted with permission of CAA – click here for PDF download This paper is an overview of the findings in the literature for the subject area of the non-auditory effects due to lower-level environmental noise. Regular reviews have appeared in the literature since the early 1990s (Abel, 1990; Fay, 1991),

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What is the best musical instrument for my hard of hearing child?

Marshall Chasin

From time to time I am asked about the best musical instrument for someone’s hard of hearing child. It turns out that this is not an easy question. If this was the 1960s, I may have said drums, but that 60-year old answer would be quite simplistic given the advancement of knowledge (and politics) surrounding hearing loss and hearing aid/cochlear

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What did Skinner and Miller have to say about hearing aid fittings?

Marshall Chasin

It is rare to have a column about a review of an article, especially an article from almost 40 years ago but Skinner and Miller (1983) is a must-read (or re-read) article. This describes the work primarily done during Margaret (Margo) Skinner’s PhD thesis. Margo Skinner used a master hearing aid where she was able to increase the high frequency

Featured image for “What did Skinner and Miller have to say about hearing aid fittings?”

What did Skinner and Miller have to say about hearing aid fittings?

Marshall Chasin

I recall meeting Margaret (Margo) Skinner at a conference back in the early 1980s and, other than being struck by how nice she was, Margo commented that she had really only published 2 or 3 articles at that time, yet she was already considered a world authority. Well, that was my view- she would have never considered herself a world

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We are now up to 109 dB…

Marshall Chasin

The input-related dynamic range of modern hearing aids (also known as its input “Headroom”) is important to know in order to prevent distortion and input-clipping of louder sounds in the environment. Typical loud input sounds are music and the level of a hearing aid consumer’s own voice. Up until recently, the highest-level sound that could be successfully transduced into a