Music
As a Clinical Audiologist with over 30 years of experience, it’s easy to forget how I ended up here! Growing up in the North of England in the 70s and 80s, I was surrounded by music. My nearest cities, Manchester and Liverpool, had vibrant music scenes, and for most teenagers, music was an essential part of life. At home, I would often be sitting, headphones on, listening to my new vinyl or cassette! (CDs hadn’t been invented then!).
Like most things in those days, there was very little awareness of the risks to hearing from listening to loud music, and when I started to attend live music events, hearing was the last thing on my mind.
When I left home to attend University, I chose Leeds because it also had a vibrant music scene at the time. I signed up for the ‘Events’ team, which basically meant that in return for helping set up music events, I got a free pass to watch any live band that came to the University. Great, or so I thought!
I was seeing several bands play live every week, which meant my ears were regularly exposed to high levels of sound. I remember leaving venues and noticing a slight high-pitched ringing in my ears. I had no idea what this was at the time, and usually the next day it had gone. What I now know is that every time my ears were ringing following a music event, my hearing had been damaged. Before I continue my story, let’s remind ourselves how we hear.
A brief guide to sound
If we think of air as an invisible three-dimensional network of incredibly small particles, then whenever a vibration occurs (think of banging a drum), these particles move and bump into their neighbours, and they in turn move and bump into their neighbours, thus transferring the sound energy outwards in all directions away from the sound source.
Sound waves have two main properties, intensity and frequency. Intensity is the loudness of a sound and measures how large the vibrations of air particles are as sound waves travel through air. We measure the loudness or intensity of sound in decibels (dB), and we can hear a wide range from 0 dB to 100 dB and beyond.
Frequency, sometimes called pitch, is the number of vibrations the air particles make every second. High-frequency sounds have more vibrations per second than lower-frequency sounds. Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz), and the human ear can perceive frequencies of between 20 and 20,000 Hz.
A brief guide to hearing
When these vibrations of air reach our heads, our external ears (the part we see) direct these vibrations into our ear canal, where they then vibrate our eardrum. This, in turn, sends vibrations through the middle ear, vibrating the three middle ear bones, before reaching the cochlea.
The cochlea is a snail-like structure deep within the bony skull that contains a salty fluid set in motion by incoming vibrations.
Here is where it gets interesting! If we imagine unrolling the snail-like cochlear structure, we find that it is approximately 34 mm long. Now, imagine a 34 mm wide piano, and instead of 88 piano keys, we now have 3400 auditory cells, each ‘tuned’ to a particular frequency of sound.
Different frequencies (or pitches) of sound are detected at different positions in the cochlea. Each of these auditory cells has a tip in the cochlear fluid that bends when sound travels through the cochlea. I like to think of these tips like seagrass. Imagine the underwater waves moving the grasses on the seabed. The stronger the wave, the bigger the movement of the seagrass.
Finally, when these cell tips move, they activate their auditory cell, which fires an electrical signal to the brain, which we interpret as sound.
So, just to recap, we have sound waves in the air, travelling down the ear, vibrating the fluid in the cochlea, which in turn moves these tiny cell tips, which in turn activate the cells and transmit an electrical pulse to the brain.
What’s more, we can imagine that these tiny tips in the cochlea (think of the seagrass underwater) will move more in response to bigger vibrations. If the vibrations are very strong (louder), these tips may bend or break (again, think of seagrass being battered by strong underwater currents).
For children, we know that sounds above 85 dB are harmful to these delicate seagrass-like structures and keeping sound levels below this limit is crucial to safe listening. We don’t want these delicate structures to bend too much or break as a result of too loud sounds.
If only I had known this as a student, all those years ago!
Back to my hearing story
So, I was going to lots of live gigs, enjoying music and helping set up the venues for live artists.
Then, one event changed my hearing for good. I remember that event well; it was in a small bar at Leeds University. I was involved in sound checks during the day and then present the entire time in the evening. It was a loud gig, too loud probably, and I was exposed to high levels of sound for too many hours that day.
On leaving, I had the typical high-pitched ringing in my ears, but also a strange, muffled feeling to my hearing. Nothing to worry about. I was nineteen, invincible, right?
The next day, sitting in a lecture, unable to hear the class, a roaring, high-pitched whistling in my head and that strange, muffled sensation. A week later, and I was still so troubled by the changes to my hearing that I went to see my doctor.
‘You have damaged your hearing. Stop going to gigs!’ he casually told me.
Music was my world; I wasn’t going to stop that. The muffled feeling faded, and the ringing quietened. I continued attending music events, but now my ears seemed more sensitive, as though any loud noise felt too loud, and tinnitus was more noticeable.
Fast forward a couple of years after graduating, and I am in the American Wild West, in the desert. I am surrounded by space and sky. But not silence. My ears are ringing. I want to hear silence, but I can’t. I am aware of the impact of my love of music for the first time.
I then decided to study Audiology, became a Clinical Audiologist, and learned about the ear and the potential damage caused by excessive sound levels. I realised that on the night of that gig, I had caused some irreversible damage to the structures in my cochleae, resulting in a temporary hearing loss and tinnitus.
Over the years, my tinnitus has become less noticeable, less obtrusive. I can still hear it, particularly at night or early morning. Sometimes it seems louder, and loud noises make it worse. But overall, it doesn’t trouble me.
What we know about sound and its impact on hearing
We know that our hearing mechanism is complex and can detect a wide range of sounds, from low to high frequencies and from very quiet to very loud.
We also know that high levels of sound, either at a single event or over time, can damage the delicate structures that allow us to hear. This hearing damage can manifest as tinnitus, hearing loss, and, in some cases, heightened sensitivity to sound. The damage is usually irreversible, and the best way to avoid it is to listen to music safely, whether at live concerts or with headphones.
My advice for parents
If you are attending live music events with your children, make sure you have hearing protection you can use with them. These can be small in-the-ear earplugs or over-the-ear headphone-type devices.
Don’t stand too close to loudspeakers at music events and give your ears and your children’s ears breaks from listening if possible.
If your child listens to music with headphones, choose headphones specifically designed for safe listening. These include sound-limiting headphones that prevent sound from going above 85 dB and noise-cancelling headphones.
Also, monitor the time your child uses headphones. Talk to them about why safe listening is necessary and introduce concepts like the seagrass analogy to help them understand why loud sounds could be harmful to their ‘seagrass’!
