Muscians with hearing damage, am I being too harsh?

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There is a great deal of furore in the press at present re. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin and the fact that he is suffering from tinnitus. Having just looked at an article on the BBC webpage it turns out Plan B has it too, and he is backing a campaign to encourage concert goers to protect their hearing with earplugs.
Now, I'm going to come accross as a grumpy, unsympathetic old git but here goes. I've worked in industry for nearly 25 years now, 19 of which at a power station using gas turbines, one of the loudest industrial machines in existence. I've always used hearing protection, reinforced by the encouragement of my father, who suffered hearing loss himself due to industrial noise. I've heard idiots accusing me of being a wimp and/or questioned my sexual orientation due to insistence on using hearing protection, and have spent the last 15 years wearing my safety controllers hat (when I wasn't being a Shift Engineer) enforcing the use of correct PPE. I have also in the past equipped my car(s) with over a grands worth of stereo (most of which got f*****g nicked one night, another story!) which I listened to turned up quite loud. I've attended rock concerts with varying levels of volume and been in nightclubs, one of which I can recall left me with whistling ears for four days due to the hideous sound pressure levels. All of which has meant i am more than aware of the effects of prolonged exposure to high sound pressure levels and the means to prevent my hearing being damaged by them.
So here's the thing. If for 25 years I've been told to wear hearing protection and have done so, and am more than awarer that loud music makes my ears not function correctly for varying time period following exposure, why is there this shock-horror I-wish-I'd-looked-after-my-hearing-sooner outpouring all of a sudden? Why the hell aren't the HSE kicking in the doors of every pub, nightclub, lice music venue et al and handing out enforcement notices? If we operated with the same attitude as many of the aforementioned establishments we'd have been fined/prosecuted/closed long enough since by the authorities. Yes, we should be protecting ourselves from the effects of exposure to noise, but the first step of any risk reduction program is elemination (which obviously you can't do as silent music is a tad tedious :-) ) followed by reduction & substitution. So come on folks, isn't it easier just to turn the volume down a bit, surely?
 

Rickshaw Phil

Overconfidentii Vulgaris
Moderator
The answer is yes.

Seriously, I'm surprised that it has taken this long given that amplified concerts go back to the sixties (well before my time). No one noticed before now that loud concerts make you a bit deaf for a day or two and maybe longer in later life?

My sister couldn't hear properly for two days after a recent Epica concert. That should ring (muffled) alarm bells surely?
 

vernon

Harder than Ronnie Pickering
Location
Meanwood, Leeds
The thing is. there has been a reduction in volume at gigs. Some that I've attended I've felt cheated because I wanted my diaphragm to resonate and the powers that been have imposed sound level restrictions which has left me feeling cheated.. Things are not as loud as they used to be.

Yes Browser you do come across as a bit of a curmudgeon and also a bit of a hypocrite - £1k worth of hi fi in a car? Trying to blow your brains as well as your eardrums were you? :thumbsup:

Also a bit forgetful aren't you? Going to loud music events without ear protection? :wacko:

You can't have it both ways.
 

caimg

Über Member
Chris Martin is a tool. I'm a pro musician and have had moulded custom earplugs since I was 18 because my ears are crucial to me as a musician (with perfect pitch, too).

He's an idiot for not wearing them and protecting his hearing, just as any other musoe is! At festivals and such the public are given free earplugs if they want them, it should defo be the same for live music venues in general.
 

simon.r

Person
Location
Nottingham
Pardon?

Motorhead gig, 1982. And jackhammers operated without ear-defenders.

You're right of course. I suspect earphones connected to ipods etc will mean lots of current 20 somethings will be wearing hearing aids when they''re 40.
 
The thing is. there has been a reduction in volume at gigs. Some that I've attended I've felt cheated because I wanted my diaphragm to resonate and the powers that been have imposed sound level restrictions which has left me feeling cheated.. Things are not as loud as they used to be.

I've been to two recently, Robbie Williams at the MK Bowl and Take That at Wembley, both of which were listenable without earplugs but it was the sound quality which was second-to-none. I think for far too long the feeling has been 'never mind the quality feel the width', I hope people are starting to realise that louder normally just means distorted.

Yes Browser you do come across as a bit of a curmudgeon and also a bit of a hypocrite - £1k worth of hi fi in a car? Trying to blow your brains as well as your eardrums were you? :thumbsup:.

I dunno, was I? £300 for the head unit, about £250 for the CD autochanger, the rest for front/rear and subwoofer speakers and a poweramp. Looking back, some of the stuff was mediocre even at those prices and I compromised it by not knowing what I was doing by using cheap leads to connect it all up :blush: Makes even less sense when I tell you the car it was first fitted to was a 1980 Talbot Solara SX which had cost me £250 :wacko: As far as trying to blow my brains out, no, I just liked decent quality sound, which you most defenitely didn't get with factory-fit stereos in early 80's-vintage cars!

Also a bit forgetful aren't you? Going to loud music events without ear protection? :wacko:
You can't have it both ways.
I inlcuded the bit about nightclubs to show that I am capable of being an idiot as well, but will add that you could count the number of nightclub attendances I have made in my entire life on the fingers of both hands (excluding the thumbs!) as they hold about as much attraction for me as fly-blown dog turds. Contrast that with every working day spent in high sound pressure level environments and you can see where the greatest potential damage would come from. Yes, I shoud have taken earplugs and these days would. The gig I was most thankful to have taken earplugs to was Status Quo, Cambridge Corn Exchange, November 2008, jeee-zuz they were LOUD!!!!!!
I've even considered trying to get a concession outside rock concerts selling flesh-coloured earplugs, d'you think they'd sell?
p.s. Finally, I've achieved something, I've become a grumpy old git!! (mind you, Mrs Browser has been saying that for years...........)
 

caimg

Über Member
I was just making a general point in how little people seem to value their hearing. Most musicians I know use custom earplugs which shave off the harmful frequencies that cause tinnitus and long-term damage.

However, most non-musicians are happy to have their ears battered and this is encouraged by venues which don't supply even cheap, disposable earplugs for gig goers (obviously because it'd eat into their margins). I don't go into a pub with music on without my earplugs, let alone a gig if any genre.

Why Chris Martin, as a millionaire musician, doesn't use earplugs is beyond me. Shockingly common amongst pop/rock players.
 

BigonaBianchi

Yes I can, Yes I am, Yes I did...Repeat.
I've playe din heavy metal bands....loud as heck...I went through a phase of using musicians ear plugs (not the same as normal ones)...but tbh it just messed up my guitar tone and I ended up ripping them out during gigs. My hearing is fine....I think:huh:
 

rollinstok

Well-Known Member
Location
morecambe
My hearing is totally f****d through playing with loud bands in the 70's/80's when ear protection was never on the agenda
Tinnitus is not very nice but hey.. we had a great time !!
 

asterix

Comrade Member
Location
Limoges or York
Disaster Area

A plutonium rock band from the Gagrakacka Mind Zones, they are generally held to be not only the loudest rock band in the Galaxy, but in fact the loudest noise of any kind at all. Regular concert goers judge that the best sound balance is usually to be heard from within large concrete bunkers some thirty-seven miles from the stage, while the musicians themselves play their instruments by remote control from within a heavily insulated spaceship which stays in orbit around the planet – or more frequently around a completely different planet.


Their songs are on the whole very simple and mostly follow the familiar theme of boy-being meets girl-being beneath a silvery moon, which then explodes for no adequately explored reason.

Many worlds have now banned their act altogether, sometimes for artistic reasons, but most commonly because the band’s public address system contravenes local strategic arms limitations treaties.

This has not, however, stopped their earnings from pushing back the boundaries of pure hypermathematics, and their chief research accountant has recently been appointed Professor of Neomathematics at the University of Maximegalon, in recognition of both his General and Specific Theories of Disaster Area Tax Returns, in which he proves that the whole fabric of the space-time continuum is not merely curved, it is in fact totally bent.n, which then explodes for no adequately explored reason. Many worlds have now banned their act altogether, sometimes for artistic reasons, but most commonly because the band’s public address system contravenes local strategic arms limitations treaties. This has not, however, stopped their earnings from pushing back the boundaries of pure hypermathematics, and their chief research accountant has recently been appointed Professor of Neomathematics at the University of Maximegalon, in recognition of both his General and Specific Theories of Disaster Area Tax Returns, in which he proves that the whole fabric of the space-time continuum is not merely curved, it is in fact totally bent.
 

vernon

Harder than Ronnie Pickering
Location
Meanwood, Leeds
Why Chris Martin, as a millionaire musician, doesn't use earplugs is beyond me. Shockingly common amongst pop/rock players.

Extrapolating from one or two instances doesn't give you enough paint to cover the canvas and give the complete picture.

Yes there folk who like having their brains ratlled at gigs - I do sometimes.
Yes there musicians who have permanently damaged their hearing - add Pete Townsend as another high profile musician to your list
Yesterday while I was out on a 75 mile bike ride there were more than half a dozen instances where the cars approaching from the rear were detected by the rumbling bass sound from the pimped up sound system which drowned out the engine and exhaust sounds.

However,

Local authorities do impose sound limits on outdoor gigs and many indoor venues and my son has experienced an enforcement of a sound limit when playing a gig indoors.
Parents buy noise reducing ear muffs for their children at festivals - I rarely see infants and toddlers without them at the festivals that I attend.
Young rock musicians that I know all wear earplugs.
I think but can not prove that there's some MP3 player manufacturers who limit the energy levels available at the players' outputs.

I don't think either of us have full possession of the facts to present an accurate picture but I do think that you have overstated the problem. Things have improved and are continuing to improve. An overnight solution simply won't happen.
 
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