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Earplugs: Protect your ears for later

October 17, 2005 at 10:39 AM

I always play in my 5 amateurorchestra’s every week with earplugs Quiet from Howard Leight, which they use in our machinefactory against the sounds in the production like polishing a piece of metal. If you are sitting next to the piccolo or in front of the horns in a Bruckner symfony I pull them deep in my ears, as second violinist behind. But even when you play even alone with strings with no woodblowers or copperblowers with forte the sound is too loud. Than I pull my earplugs not so deep and easily can hear the conductor talking. You can also hear yourself good, because you hear more vibrations through your chin. So you hear yourself low and the orchestra low. For woodblowers the problem of earplugs is that they blow away and could not hear themselves, because they don’t have vibrations through the chin like violinists have, where the instrument is also more closer near your (left)ear.
Even during classical concerts, when I don’t play in the orchestra but when I sit and listen in the concerthall I sometimes use those earplugs when all the copperinstruments and the instruments of percussion in an orchestra are playing too loud, for example at the end of a symfony. But also when I play a concert in an amateurorchestra I use those earplugs. And of course when I listen to a band or a rockconcert, like when a friend played saxophone in a skaband, last week. Or when I am in a disco. I have learned from Beethoven who didn’t have earplugs in his days.

Rock Music is the Ruination of Young Ears.

We all know about Pete Townsend's deafness, but now even Paul McCartney has stated that his hearing is not what it used to be (Current issue of Rolling Stone).

I recently discovered that going from Thomastic Dominant strings to Eudoxa Covered Gut has removed the discomfort associated with the violin. Try it.

We have a special kind of earplug in the US called a "Hearos" which is specifically designed for musicians (especially rock musicians). It has only about 15 dB attenuation (instead of 25 to 30) but it also has a much flatter attenuation curve--so it does not filter out the high frequencies more than the midrange (Nothing filters low frequency --which is a problem with discos).

I know...we're going to have a generation of hard-of-hearing kids because they listen to rock music so LOUD!