Beeri Moalem

Imagine this: The orchestra is playing one of those enormous late romantic super-works.  A Mahler symphony, a Strauss tone poem, or a Stravinsky Ballet.  It's the climax: the conductor is waving his hands in an attempt to fly from the podium, the strings are bowing in fortissimo tremolos, the woodwinds are blaring, the brass is blasting, and those in the audience who have fallen asleep are jolted awake.  Everyone is thrilled! Everyone, that is, except for the unfortunate musicians sitting in front of the trumpet section.   Sound levels in the middle of the orchestra can exceed 100 decibels-- rivaling the loudness of a jet engine. 

"The legal limit set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is 85 decibels."  Says Dr. Wiiner of Main Line Audiology Consultants, who sees dozens of musicians per year.  "Anything above that, and the musicians should be wearing some sort hearing protection."  Excess noise does not usually damage the ear drum directly; rather, it wears down auditory hair cells.  Damaged inner-ear hairs do not regenerate and cannot be treated.  They atrophy naturally by old age, but for many musicians this problem is exacerbated or accelerated.  Wiiner suggests hearing tests once a year.

Many workplaces require hearing protection-- manufacturing, construction and transportation-- to name a few.  But conventional muting gear such as foam ear plugs, plastic head phones, or "white noise" generators are do not work for musicians of the orchestra.  An essential part of music making is listening.  Musicians must listen to the group in order to match their colleagues' intonation, tempo, and articulation style.  Listening is a finite skill that requires years of training to acquire and hone as an obligatory habit.  Intense listening should be second-nature for a professional musician.  In the world's best orchestras, every single musician's ears are wide open, listening to every detail, which informs the individual music-making.  This cannot be done with normal ear plugs.

"It feels like playing under the influence of drugs," says one anonymous member of the San Francisco Symphony string section.  "Orchestra management supplies us with ear plugs -- the yellow kind that look like little cylinders and that you have to roll to a small diameter and then put it in the ear canal and let it expand.  But using them, I always feels completely disconnected."

Wayne Solomon, a professional trombone player, also dislikes regular ear plugs.  "As a brass player, the sound is first created in your mouth and head, and by having earplugs inserted all you can hear is the distorted sound inside your own head. It's just like talking with your fingers in your ears."  Most orchestras use plastic sound shields, but they also cause problems for brass players because the sound bounces back straight into the players' faces. 

Seems like a Catch 22: sacrifice your hearing in order to hear all the details in the orchestra around you? or protect your hearing but sacrifice the music making precision?  Now musicians can have the best of both worlds.  Dr. Wiiner recommends Silicone-filter ear plugs. (Available from Sensa-Phonics for $125.)  These high-tech devices devices absorb harmful frequencies and mute excessive sound levels, while allowing the rest of the music to pass through unobstructed.  "Silicon filters are available in different strengths varying from 9 to 25 decibels." Says Wiiner.  "This enables the musician to hear everything safely."