Hear The Music

I must admit that I don’t really know how the inner ear works. And it’s not just me. The ear is a dynamic system with feedback loops that only function well at optimal fluid pressures and biochemistries. We have many theories, but unfortunately (or fortunately for the listener) these are based on dead people, lower mammals, or other species. In

Right off the top, this blog entry has nothing to do with music and hearing loss.  It does however have something to do with what happened last Thursday eve.  I was up in cottage country and my wife had bought two tickets to see the Red Violin.  This was in a small Adirondack town called Indian River.  There is a

Now, I realize that Vincent Van Gogh was not a musician… well, maybe he was, but alas we will never know for sure.  Some recent research has been uncovered in some writings from the physician that treated him after his self-inflicted ear-adectomy.  I am sure that if I had listened better to my undergraduate Latin and classics professors I would

In parts one and two of this blog series, the creation of a vent-associated resonance, called an inertance, was discussed. Venting can reduce the echoey, back pressure sensation with hearing protection for musicians, especially for brass players, some reeded woodwinds, and for vocalists.  However, the mass of air in the vent can oscillate and create a potentially unwanted low frequency

In part one of this blog series, the benefits of having a small 1.4 mm (1/16”) vent drilled into a musicians’ earplug were discussed. Apparently this question was first addressed by Shakespeare himself, but later addressed by more modern Bards.  In the original form, he wrote “To vent, or not to vent/That is the question…”, but of course his editor

I have it on good authority that before Shakespeare became a writer, he enrolled in one of the fist Audiology programs in England- Audiology on Avon. And one of his university papers was entitled, “To vent or not to vent”.  Of course, everyone knows that Shakespeare flunked out and became the Bard we know and love.  He used his audiology

Tony Laviola is a well respected hard of hearing bass player who sees no problems wearing hearing aids… as long as they work! Italian born Toronto bass player Tony Laviola has played almost all styles of music since 1966 . R&B, rock , blues, country, jazz, showbands, tribute artists and singer-song-writers including Marc Jordan and Ron Nigrini. Debbie Bechamp, “Stix

When I first started as a young audiologist in 1981, custom hearing aids were not yet being marketed and all that was available were rather large sized BTE aids, eyeglass aids, and even body aids. I recall that there was an Oticon P11P and a Wilco H37D body aid.  The Wilco H37D came with either a red or a yellow dot

Years ago I wrote an article called “My wrist sings the blues”. I think it may have been in the now defunct journal Hearing Instruments which was the predecessor of Hearing Review.  This was a long time ago when the alphabet only had 24 letters and pi only had 7 decimal places. The idea behind the article is that non-hearing

I was asked a question recently about the fabled Walls of Jericho that came tumbling down in biblical times. This person wanted to know the acoustics of such an event and whether it could have actually happened.  After all, we know the acoustics of soprano singers being able to break high quality crystal glasses. The short answer is “no- this