Prior to 1988, there were no musicians’ earplugs. Performing artists in the 1970s and 1980s had to equip themselves with industrial-strength foam earplugs or dampened toilet paper. While these can actually work well, there were two issues: they sounded hollow and “dead,” and they provided the wrong amount of hearing protection. Simply plugging one’s ears with our fingers will clearly demonstrate to anyone that the resulting music sounds “dead” and “thin.” Hearing protection such as foam earplugs or fingers in the ears, don’t help much for the left-hand side of the piano keyboard, but it significantly reduces the sound one hears on the right-hand side. Foam earplugs simply roll off or turn down the volume of the treble notes only. While one could still hear the fundamental and perhaps one or two harmonics, that was about all.
In 1988 a new type of musicians’ earplug was invented called the ER15, which provides protection equally across the range of the piano. For the first time, music still sounded like music, only lessened or attenuated by exactly 15 decibels—hence the “15” in the name of the earplug. Fifteen decibels of lessening of the music may not sound like much, but a performing artist can now be exposed 32 times as long as someone without hearing protection; a larger number is not necessarily better.
The ER15 earplug has been the mainstay for the music industry during the last 35 years. The musicians’ ER15 earplugs are custom-made, meaning that an earmold impression needs to be taken of the person’s ear and will be fitted one week later. There are also non-custom versions of the ER15 musicians’ earplugs.
The Musicians’ Clinics of Canada has been working with musicians since the mid-1980s and annually provides hearing protection and hearing-loss prevention strategies to groups such as the National Youth Orchestra of Canada and various symphonies, university and college music programs. When one thinks of loud music, one might think of U2 and Kiss but Mozart, Brahms, and Beethoven are just as loud. And there is some evidence that classical musicians have greater exposure to loud music than their rock-and-roll counterparts.
Caution must be used in selecting the correct form of hearing protection for music. There are many manufacturers that advertise hearing protection for musicians along with pictures of smiling musicians. Just because hearing protection is being marketed for musicians, doesn’t make it so.
To help musicians hear again
What do we do if a life-long musician doesn’t wear hearing protection? There are cases where that person still has fairly good hearing, but other cases where the music exposure, coupled with the fact that they are now in their 60s or 70s, has created a permanent inner-ear hearing loss.
Hearing loss can be related to many things and this is where seeing an audiologist can be useful. If the loss is significant enough where music just doesn’t sound as good as it once did—or where people mumble, especially in noisier social settings—then it may be possible that hearing-aid amplification is necessary. Today’s digital hearing aids are not those of your parents’ generation—they automatically make soft sounds louder and also loud sounds softer, and fine tuning can be performed with a person’s smartphone.
But when hearing aids became “digital” in the early 1990s, they took a major step backwards. All digital hearing aids have a component that translates sound into numbers so that the hearing aid can work—namely, the “analog-to-digital converter.” This component has been the weak point of hearing aids for music for decades and only in the last five or six years have they improved to the point that modern hearing aids are not only optimized for speech, but for music listening and music-playing as well. Not all hearing-aid manufacturers have completely solved this issue, so it’s important to consult with your audiologist. And like hearing protection, a hearing aid that is marketed for musicians doesn’t necessarily make it so.
Another interesting aspect of modern digital hearing aids that are selected for musicians, music listeners, and those in the performing arts, is that they can be joined to Bluetooth accessories and other devices that allow a hard-of-hearing musician to actually play on stage. No longer is there a requirement to have in-ear monitors up on stage in order to monitor and play music, but modern hearing aids can be coupled to the audio rack and hard-of-hearing musicians will be able to get the full range and selection of music that they choose.
The Musicians’ Clinics of Canada has actually performed significant research (and generated some textbooks for upcoming student audiologists) on the topics of hearing protection for musicians as well as hearing aids for musicians. Much of the research can be found on our website at www.musiciansclinics.com.
Marshall Chasin, AuD, AUD(C), Doctor of Audiology, is a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal and the 150 Canada Medal. He is editor-in-chief of Canadian Audiologist.
