Hear The Music

With apologies to Sigmund Freud, a cigar may be more than just a cigar. John- not his real name.  It’s actually Alex, but we will call him John- walks into my clinic for a musicians’ assessment.  I no longer call it a “musicians’ hearing assessment” because I find that “hearing” is only one small part of it, but that’s next

On Monday we celebrated Canada Day (July 1) which is like the American July 4 except that it’s in Canada, its three days earlier, we drink Molson Canadian beer rather than some south-of-the-border brand, and it has nothing to do with independence from our colonial fathers.  Canada Day is about the confederation of 4 provinces into the Dominion of Canada-

THIS BLOG HAS BEEN WRITTEN SUCH THAT IT CAN BE COPIED AND GIVEN OUT TO YOUR CLIENTS: (It is the correct length to be copied onto your clinic letterhead, with the source cited as “from HearingHealthMatters.org/HearTheMusic) It’s not all about music! Well, it is, but when it comes to our daily dose of exposure to all sounds, music may be

Several years ago I wrote an article on how to test whether your favorite hearing aid can handle the more intense inputs that are typically found with music. {{1}}[[1]](Chasin, M., Can your hearing aid handle loud music? A quick test will tell you, The Hearing Journal, December, 2006. 22-24.[[1]] You may be recommending and fitting an absolutely wonderful hearing aid

Some would think that hearing loss is the musician’s worst nightmare, and some would think that it is tinnitus, but the musician’s greatest fear is losing their ability to perceive pitch.  This is related to hearing but isn’t the first thing that audiologists typically think about when they assess a musician. To understand a musicians’ fear of losing their ability

  I’m taking a two-week break. While I’m gone, please enjoy a couple of favorite posts, to run June 11 and 18, if you missed them the first time. Thank you – Marshall Chasin

In part 1 of this blog we discussed the NRR  as a single-number rating system for hearing protection that is required by the EPA for all non-custom hearing protection equipment.  In part 2 we talked about a failed attempt to establish a two-number rating system and a new one was proposed.  This proposition was based on the essential difference between

In Part 1 of this blog we talked about a single number rating scheme for hearing protectors called the Noise Reduction Rating or NRR.  This number is mandated to be written on the packaging of non-custom hearing protectors by the Environmental Protection Agency or EPA.  The problems with single number rating schemes are that they tend to be simplistic, require

Whenever one measures the attenuation of hearing protection, it is different for every frequency.  This has to do with the rule of acoustics – generally lower frequency, longer wavelength sounds do not “see” an ear obstruction such as an earplug or earmuff as well as the higher frequency, shorter wavelengths.  Subsequently, lower frequencies have relatively little attenuation (typically no more

I am constantly amazed by how similar the hearing of an 85-year-old who has never been exposed to noise and has never seriously played music is to the hearing of an 85-year-old retired professional clarinet player who sat down-wind of the trumpet section for more than 45 years. If their hearing was measured when these two fellows were in their