Hear The Music

Of the many causes of permanent hearing loss, the one that is most preventable is noise and music exposure.  Although music and noise appear to be quite different; one being a good thing and the other, less good, both have a similar (but not identical) effect on our hearing. Although recent research have unveiled several parameters that can affect one’s

Recently there have been news reports about famous musicians who can no longer perform their music and choose to retire. By hook or by crook, that should not happen!  There are a multitude of strategies and technologies that can extend anyone’s playing and singing career. I recently saw a few hard of hearing clients with high frequency sensori-neural hearing losses

  Lauren Ervin is a current graduate student working towards her Master’s in Communication Disorders at Northwestern University. Her current research is focused on the phenomenon of diplacusis (or false pitch perception) and its effects on the musician population.   Her previous academic experience includes a Bachelor of Science at Western Kentucky University (Bowling Green, KY) where Lauren studied Speech-Language

  Recently there have been news reports about famous musicians who can no longer perform their music and choose to retire. By hook or by crook, that should not happen!  There are a multitude of strategies and technologies that can extend anyone’s playing and singing career. I recently saw a few hard of hearing clients with high frequency sensori-neural hearing

I receive many questions from instrumental musicians, vocalists, and other performing artists about issues relating to how they should practice.  A particularly common question is how can I modify a room in my house so that my vocal practice doesn’t drive my dog crazy. The adage, “some is good, too much is bad” comes to mind. Assuming that one has

Hidden hearing loss, also known as “cochlear synaptopathy”, is a phrase used to refer to neural dysfunction where there is still good cochlear (or sensory) function.  It is the sensory function that typically yields the measurement of hearing sensitivity on an audiogram or hearing test.  People with normal cochlear function would have a normal audiogram but may report that they

This blog was originally published in Canadian Audiologist, Vol. 1, Issue 3, 2014 which is the official e-journal of the Canadian Academy of Audiology.  We thank the publishers for permission to reprint. Sandra Teglas holds BM, MM, and PhD degrees from UNCGreensboro. At UNCGreensboro, Dr. Teglas was Program Coordinator with the Music Research Institute in the School of Music. She is

The Mysterious Case of the Missing C# It was a dark and stormy Thursday when suddenly the telephone rang.  I heard a voice that I didn’t recognize but something about it was familiar.  He said that he had lost something that was very important to him and he had to see me right away.  I gave him an appointment for

Speech is not a broadband signal… but music is We tend to be biased, both in our training and in our technologies that we use. We tend to look at things based on spectra or frequencies.  Phrases such as “bandwidth” and long term average speech spectrum show this bias. The long term average speech spectrum, with is averaged over time, is indeed

This is a guest blog based on the theme, that some is good, but too much is not good.  I have invited Pieter van ‘t Hof ([email protected]) who is the Manager of Research and Development of Dynamic Ear Company to contribute this week.   Suppose you are on a cocktail party which has just started. Only a couple of people