Hearing Protection for Musicians

When you make music, you use your sense of hearing for a greater purpose. You might not be thinking about how loud music affects your hearing health. Unfortunately, musicians are more likely to develop hearing loss compared to the general population. 

Naturally, you want to enjoy your artistic endeavors while preventing irreversible damage. Learn more about musician hearing loss, why it happens, and helpful prevention measures. 

Why Are Musicians at Risk for Hearing Loss?

What’s the big deal about loud music? After all, it’s an important part of your livelihood as a musician. 

Loud music can cause hearing damage over time. Two factors determine the severity of your hearing loss — volume and length of exposure. 

How Your Hearing Works

Sound waves first travel to your outer ear. This is the part of your ear you can see. As the sound wave enters your ear, it travels toward your eardrum, which picks up the vibration from the sound wave. 

When your eardrum vibrates, the bones in your middle ear pick up the sound wave. This makes your perception of the noise louder so you can accurately hear it. These middle ear bones transfer the sound wave to your inner ear, which contains tiny hair cells and fluid. 

The fluid and hair cells in your inner ear send signals to your brain that allow you to interpret the noise you’ve just heard. Your sense of hearing relies on these tiny hair cells for accurate noise detection. 

When you hear very loud sounds, your inner ear fluid moves around more rapidly, which can harm some of the hair cells you need to hear properly. Over time, this damage accumulates until you’re faced with partial or total hearing loss. 

You can also develop tinnitus, a persistent ringing or roaring in your ears. These constant sounds can negatively affect your sleep and mental health. 

Common Causes of Musician Hearing Loss

There are a few reasons musicians have higher rates of tinnitus and hearing loss:

• Long periods of loud music exposure
• Lack of proper musician hearing protection
• Loud crowds
• Loudspeakers at performances
• In-ear monitors at high volumes 
• Ear fatigue
• Increasing need for higher volumes to hear

When music is your passion and livelihood, you don’t want to risk losing your sense of hearing. Proper prevention of hearing loss for musicians is the only way to address this problem before it starts. 

How to Protect Your Hearing as a Musician 

If you want to avoid tinnitus and hearing loss, you need proper musician hearing protection. Your ears will thank you later. 

Know the Real Volume

When you’re practicing or performing, you need to consider the total volume in the room or on the stage. It can be hard to objectively evaluate this if you’re used to loud music. Ask a non-musician friend or family member to weigh in. This will give you a baseline to operate from. 

Give Your Ears Time to Rest

If the volume is too loud for too long, move away from the source of the sound. Prolonged exposure to loud music is the biggest threat to your hearing. Taking breaks can be challenging during performances, but your long-term hearing health is priceless. Once it’s gone, you can’t get it back. 

Wear In-Ear Plugs for Musicians

Audiologists can make custom in-ear plugs for you to wear during practices and performances. These plugs block your ear canal completely to prevent sound waves from traveling to your inner ear and damaging precious hair cells. 

If you’re resistant to wearing ear plugs, think about it this way. Ear plugs made for musicians reduce the surrounding noise to a healthier level, allowing you to safely play for longer periods without stopping. 

Use Low Volume on Personal Listening Devices 

If you’re listening to music or watching videos on your phone or computer, use a low volume. Try to adjust to a quieter noise level, especially when you’re using earbuds or headphones. Not only will this protect your hearing health, but it will also get you used to lower volumes, reducing your need for louder sounds. 

Ask for Lower Speaker Volumes 

As a musician, you can always advocate for yourself and those around you. Ask venue operators and sound engineers if they can turn down speaker volumes. If your hearing is at risk, so is everyone else’s in the venue you’re performing at. Even slight reductions in speaker volumes can protect everyone’s ears. 

Why Musician Hearing Protection Is So Important

According to the American Academy of Audiology, hearing loss is linked with depression and other mental health struggles. Not being able to hear properly takes a toll on your well-being since it affects your daily life and social interactions.

If you can’t hear your peers and loved ones, you’re likely to miss out on conversations and important moments. This is an isolating experience, and without proper hearing treatments, you can’t do anything about it. 

As a musician, you take pride in your work. With hearing damage, you won’t be able to distinguish different tones and engineer sound properly. This is another hit to your mental health and self-esteem. 

In short, hearing loss is devastating and can have serious consequences for your mental and physical health. 

Can Musician Hearing Loss Be Reversed?

Unfortunately, noise-induced hearing loss is permanent. Once you’ve damaged your inner ear hair cells and nerves, there’s no going back. You can only support your hearing using assistive listening devices like hearing aids. 

While hearing loss isn’t reversible, you can get treatments to improve your quality of life. Audiologists can help you find hearing augmentation that fits your lifestyle. You can also start taking steps to prevent further hearing loss and learn to handle tinnitus symptoms. 

If you struggle with tinnitus, playing white noise and static sounds may help. The noises you hear likely won’t go away, but you can learn to drown them out. 

Get Help With Musician Hearing Loss at Happy Ears Hearing

At Happy Ears Hearing, our audiologists are here to support your hearing health. We understand the toll that cumulative hearing damage can take on your life. 

As a musician, you have a wide range of options available to you. Check out one of our locations to schedule a consultation and start managing your hearing loss today!