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New earplugs

April 27, 2006 at 10:53 AM

After the orange earplugs from our machinefactory for the productionhall, I got from a -also Stradivarius playing- violinfriend earplugs from a shop, young people use in the disco with filters in it and 3 black scale. The black earplugs filters the sound as good as the orange. I always use them (execpt when a violinsoloist is playing with us)during studying with the orchestra and during the concert, specially for the sometimes hard sound of the horns behind me, as 2th violinist behind, and the sharp sound of the piccolo and other woodblowers behind me. I use them now both, but during a concert I use the black earplugs, because you don't see them well, because you can easy pull them inside your ears. The orange ones are more visible and are sticking out of my ears.

I'm just afraid that people will get the wrong message when I wear earplugs to a concert...I tried that once and people looked at me funny. Probably because it was my little sister's 5th grade band concert. And I covered my ears too.
Bram, don't you need to listen to the sounds of the orchestra when you're playing in a concert? One time I walked out of a rehearsal because four trumpeters were playing just behind me and I got a very bad headache.
The volume of the whole orchestra is less and the hard sounds of the woodblowers and copperblowers is less. I even hear myself better, because the sound of my violin you can hear through your jawbone and your leftear is close to the violin. When the sound is growing (crescendo) I pull the earplugs deeper in my ears and when I have a rest I pull them a little bit out of my ear so I can regulate the sound without eardamage at later ages. There was a documentary on Dutch television called "the passion and the pain" about too much soundexposure for professional orchestra's and one double-bass player had become deaf and started to play on the wrong moments and had to leave the orchestra. Another 50-year ld professional cello-player had lost half of his hearing capacity.
In an amateurorchestra we had a violinist of 72 who had to stop because he was too deaf to play. But he was an amateur, who plays violin in an orchestra once a week, so his soundexposure is less than a professional in a professional orchestra. A lot of professional orchestra have now sort of standing up transparant desk behind the 2th violinists behind and the viola's behind to protect those people against too much sound exposure during concerts and rehearsals and heavy fff forte soundpeaks of woo- and copperblowers and percussion.
Also in 2 amateurorchestra's there is a violinist of 86 and a double-bass player of 90 with good eyes and ears who still can play very well at that age. So I hope I can still play and hear and see at that age.
Bram, I never knew or even suspected that the problem was so bad in orchestras. I have known some violinists who played in my community symphony orchestra when they were in their 80s. I hope that you and I can do that, too.

Your friend,
Pauline FlowerPower (I love that name you gave me.)