WARSAW, POLAND—As Marshall Chasin wrote recently on his Hear the Music blog, “Older musicians experience less age-related decline in hearing abilities than non-musicians.”
However, that doesn’t mean they can’t get too much of a good thing. Musicians who are overexposed to the sound of music often suffer hearing loss. While this condition is especially prevalent among aging rockers, more traditional musicians, including performers in an orchestra, are also at risk over time.
How great is the risk and who’s most exposed? Four Polish scientists– Malgorzata Pawlaczyk-Luszczynska, Adam Dudarewicz, Malgorzata Zamojska, and Mariola Sliwinska-Kowalska—sought to answer those questions by measuring the sound pressure levels generated by three symphony orchestras and an opera orchestra.
As reported recently in the International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics (Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 255-269), they found that musicians are usually exposed to sound at the equivalent continuous A-weighted sound pressure levels of 81 to 90 dB for 20 to 45 hours a week. That amount of exposure over 40 years may result in a hearing loss of up to 26%, they wrote.
Not all orchestra members had the same amount of exposure, the scientists found. Members of the brass section–specifically horn, trumpet, and tuba players–and percussionists had the highest risk of noise-induced hearing loss from their work.
