Hear The Music

We don’t normally get up in the morning, go home to get a change of clothes, and say “work today will be fun.” But working with musicians is fun. The clinical knowledge needed for working with musicians is really everything that we learned in our audiology training, but aimed in a slightly different direction. We get to use the really neat

In New Orleans, the City Zoning Commission has recommended a Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance, which is now before the City Council. It is quite comprehensive, but very much like strudel dough. My grandfather came from Russia in the 1920s, and he brought with him, along with my grandmother, mother and uncle, the ability to make strudel. Strudel is an amazing pastry- one

  Welcome to the final part of a three-part series. It was originally published as part of an article I wrote for the May 2013 Hearing Review. Part 1 of this blog series dealt with standing waves, which are as important for behind-the-ear hearing aids as they are for our vocal tract and musical instruments. Part 2 dealt with damping and impedance, and while not these

Last week in part 1 of this blog series, we reviewed standing waves found in hearing aids, but drew a parallel between behind-the-ear hearing aids, our vocal tract, and musical instruments (not to mention our ear canals… well, I just mentioned it, so I guess that I should not have said, “not to mention”…). This three-part series is based on

On May 6, 2013, an article of mine was published in the Hearing Review about the acoustics of hearing aids. This was divided into three categories- 1. standing waves, 2. damping and impedance, and 3. flared or belled tubes. While this article was about hearing aids, the acoustic principles underlie speech acoustics and also the acoustics of musical instruments- something that

A city is a noisy place. The Canadian Hearing Society in … Canada… (bet you couldn’t guess that one?!) has some hearing loss prevention promotional material that says that “noise levels are doubling every decade”. While this is a story that sounds alarmist and is sure to grab attention, there are some data to support it. Noise levels do change very gradually

In the study of the human hearing mechanism there has been an historic tendency, rightly or wrongly, to divide the auditory system into peripheral (or “just the cochlea”) and central processing. Central processing refers to all of the manipulation of a speech or music signal by the nerves and other central “way-stations”.  The central processing comes complete with neural feedback

Welcome to part 3 of Larry Blumenfeld’s article from Blu Note magazine.  In parts 1 and 2 he discussed the rocky balance between music and politics, at least at a municipal bylaw ordinance level.  Here is what Larry had to say. During a press conference at this year’s [New Orleans ]Jazz & Heritage Festival, shortly after the city council passed

In part 1 of this three-part blog, Larry Blumenfeld discusses in Blu Note magazine the politics and the culture surrounding the finding of a common ground for musicians, music lovers, and residents in New Orleans.  In Part 2 Larry discusses some key areas of interest. Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance (CZO): In the 1970s, the city passed a zoning ordinance that actually prohibits live entertainment in

New Orleans is a hotbed of music, especially jazz and blues.  Since the early 1970s there has been an uneasy truce between the musicians (especially in the French Quarter) and the residents regarding acceptable levels of noise or music. Recently, as has been reported, this truce broke down when one group began arguing for reducing the maximum permitted noise level