Sound Advice
Posted on | May 24, 2008 |
I was perusing the Web site of one of my favorite rock personalities, Paul Gilbert, the other day and saw a picture of him performing with very big headphones on…like the kind you’d see an airline runway technician wearing. I was curious if these were a stage prop, a monitoring system…or some combination of both.
After a bit of probing on Wikipedia, I found out that he suffers from tinnitus and now wears headphones when playing live to offset any further hearing damage.
It’s too bad, but not so surprising, for a musician who spends his time playing loud music to have hearing-related issues. After I saw this, I clicked on a Wikipedia link for tinnitus and found a list of well-known musicians that suffer (or suffered) from the same problem. A short list includes musicians like Beethoven, Moby, Sting, and Lars Ulrich (big shocker there…) to non-musicians (or non-professional musicians) like Garrison Keillor and David Letterman.
Our ears and hearing are quite mysterious compared with other senses, like our eyes, where various solutions for common problems are available. While there doesn’t seem to be any agreed-upon solution for hearing loss, I would encourage musicians to have their hearing tested. If you have insurance, go to your PCP and ask for a specialist recommendation. Places like Kaiser should have in-house audiologists that can handle the testing. You might also want to check out Web sites like H.E.A.R..
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From Ohm to Om reflects the opinions of mastering engineer Paul Abbott, owner of San Diego's ZenMastering.
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