Concerts and Hearing Loss

Would you deliberately put your hearing at risk?

Unfortunately, for the hundreds of thousands of people who attend music festivals each year, this is exactly what happens.  And if you’re sitting there feeling smug because you don’t go to rock concerts but listen to orchestral music, wipe that smile off your face. An orchestra in full flow can be just as noisy as popular music, and places the attendee (and musician) at exactly the same risk.

The risk is noise-induced hearing loss. This is where a sudden loud sound or prolonged moderate noise causes trauma to the delicate nerve hairs in the inner ear. This leads to cumulative damage which shows up as hearing loss, and can affect people at a devastatingly young age.

According to Medical News Today, it takes just 15 minutes of exposure to noise above 100 dB for hearing damage to occur, or eight hours at 85 dB, which isn’t an unrealistic considering how many people listen to digital music on headphones.

The statistics are staggering.  The World Health Organization calculates that this places 1.1 billion people worldwide in danger of hearing loss.  A pop festival or classical concert easily reaches 100 dB, and the nature of such events last much longer than 15 minutes. But is the pleasure worth paying for with your hearing?

It’s important to live life to the fullest, and if music is your thing, then you won’t want to stay away. So what can you do to minimize the risks?

Hearing Protectors

Many music venues recognize the risk to hearing and provide ear protectors to attendees. Some places, like Minneapolis, have legislation in place stating all public clubs, bars, and venues that play music must offer free ear plugs to their patrons.

It’s easy to imagine that “free” may not be the best quality and could spoil your enjoyment of the music, so what are the alternatives?

Many companies that manufacture hearing aids also make ear protectors. These plugs are made from sophisticated materials including silicone-free, hypoallergenic thermoplastic and hypoallergenic silicone, and are a far cry from simple foam cylinders.

Depending on the manufacturer, the noise level with ear defenders is reduced by up to 25 dB, and this is cleverly done by limiting extreme low bass and loudness.

Although the background level of noise is reduced, the aim of these sophisticated protectors is to not interfere with the quality of the sound or impede talking to your friends at a concert, so normal conversation and enjoyment of the music is not impaired.

Most of these earplugs come in carriers which clip onto a keychain or slip into a purse. So while the biggest hurdle to protecting your hearing is to use ear plugs, there’s certainly no excuse to not keeping a pair handy.