Classical musician sues successfully for hearing damage

[andreasmaaan]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-43571144

This could, presumably, change how classical music sounds forever. Musicians will need to wear hearing protection. Some pieces may no longer be played. Schools will have to abandon their orchestras and concentrate on their recorder and acoustic guitar-based repertoires.

I had a brief look at the ruling, and I think you're right to be concerned that this could result in change, I don't think the decision requires any change in program selection per se.

The ruling essentially found that the orchestra failed to comply with a particular regulation regarding placement of the orchestra sections in such a way as to minimise acute noise levels, and failed to require that the musician wore hearing protection (plugs) at all times during rehearsal. Another major factor was that complaints about noise levels were found to have been made during the rehearsal and not acted upon by the orchestra.

This would all suggest that liability could have been avoided if the orchestra had changed the seating arrangement to comply with the regulations, had required the constant wearing of hearing protection, and had acted upon complaints (or possibly just any one or two of the preceding points).

It was not suggested that the program selection itself was a factor in the orchestra's liability.

 

[watchnerd]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-43571144



This could, presumably, change how classical music sounds forever. Musicians will need to wear hearing protection. Some pieces may no longer be played. Schools will have to abandon their orchestras and concentrate on their recorder and acoustic guitar-based repertoires.

Violin / viola ear next to the soundboard is common to lose hearing on that side...

 

[andymok]

Violin / viola ear next to the soundboard is common to lose hearing on that side...

You do get tired pretty quickly on that side. Strings tend to play even harder when drown by music, trying to increase SNR, doing more damage in return. Musician's earplug, does increase SNR a bit by filtering out the already-much-attenuated wet sound, leaving faster, bone-conducted sound. Challenging to play in such dry sounding though.

But nth beats seating close to a piccolo/oboe.

 

[bigx5murf]

Why hasn't electronic hearing protection from shooting sports been adopted by this industry yet? I've only used entry level products of this type, so I understand SQ is a bit lacking. But it should be possible to develop this tech specifically for musicians. If anything, I've found these things give me super human hearing. I can hear conversations from people further away than I would've without them. It's actually eerie how great they are as eavesdropping devices.

 

[watchnerd]

Why hasn't electronic hearing protection from shooting sports been adopted by this industry yet? I've only used entry level products of this type, so I understand SQ is a bit lacking. But it should be possible to develop this tech specifically for musicians. If anything, I've found these things give me super human hearing. I can hear conversations from people further away than I would've without them. It's actually eerie how great they are as eavesdropping devices.

The musicians in the orchestra need to hear the other musicians playing and to be able to tell how loud or soft it is.

I don't see how that need could be matched to noise cancelling very easily.

 

[bigx5murf]

The musicians in the orchestra need to hear the other musicians playing and to be able to tell how loud or soft it is.

I don't see how that need could be matched to noise cancelling very easily.

I don't think you understand how electronics hearing protection from shooting sports works. They actually amplify all sound (like a hearing aid), except ones that exceed a set DB, at which point they block that noise, and go back to amplifying soon as the noise passes. It works quickly enough to be effective on gun shots. Most of the time your hearing is actually much better. As I've mentioned when wearing them I can eavesdrop on conversations going on much further away than I can with my normal hearing.

 

[andreasmaaan]

I don't think you understand how electronics hearing protection from shooting sports works. They actually amplify all sound (like a hearing aid), except ones that exceed a set DB, at which point they block that noise, and go back to amplifying soon as the noise passes. It works quickly enough to be effective on gun shots. Most of the time your hearing is actually much better. As I've mentioned when wearing them I can eavesdrop on conversations going on much further away than I can with my normal hearing.

I think the issue might @watchnerd pointed out would remain, i.e. that as a musician you actually want to hear the dynamics produced by the musicians around you. The type of hearing protection you describe acts essentially as a limiter, reducing the dynamic range. I'm not saying it couldn't work, but it certainly wouldn't work in the same way as passive hearing protection, which reduces the level of all sounds equally, maintaining the dynamics.

 

[bigx5murf]

Except passive protection pretty much works more like a high pass filter in regards to dynamic range, and you lose all the sounds too soft to make it past passive blocking. The beauty of electronics is it can be built to behave as desired, even made programmable. It may act as a limiter, but can be set to only intervene at the threshold of hearing damage. Below that threshold, you essentially have super human hearing. These types of products on the market are primarily designed to make speech intelligible while blocking loud noises that happen quickly and disperse quickly. They can certainly be optimized for other environments.

 

[watchnerd]

I don't think you understand how electronics hearing protection from shooting sports works. They actually amplify all sound (like a hearing aid), except ones that exceed a set DB, at which point they block that noise, and go back to amplifying soon as the noise passes. It works quickly enough to be effective on gun shots. Most of the time your hearing is actually much better. As I've mentioned when wearing them I can eavesdrop on conversations going on much further away than I can with my normal hearing.

Well, I was a DSP specialist in applied physics, so I'm not a total ignoramus, even if I've never used those devices on the range (I always just use regular ear muffs).

So here's the issue, by my cocktail napkin estimate:

In a shooting range, you're dealing with sharp, short, loud, transients of limited bandwidth.

A symphony playing at FFF, usually rated at >120 dB, has sustained volume at high levels, with wide bandwidth, and occasional transients all over the frequency spectrum (tympani, brass, picolo, etc.).

I can certainly create a compression filter for my earphones, but I'll lose dynamic range perception.

I can certainly create notch filters for the most damaging, shortest transients.....but does that solve the problem?

Because the environment risk is variable -- a viola player has their ear right next to the soundboard of a moderately loud instrument that is partially in the most sensitive range, a picolo has their ear close (but not next to) the instrument in a very sensitive range, and a tympani player has his ears far away from the tympani, but it's damn loud.

And how is this going to effect the emotional reading the musician experiences from the feedback loop of the music?

When I play bass, either electric or acoustic, I don't play as well when I have a cold because my hearing is a bit muffled and I can't really tell if, for example, I'm using too much vibratto or not enough....

I think the problem is quite a bit harder than the simple shooting range analogy.

 

[bigx5murf]

What do you know, the product I described already exists. https://www.sweetwater.com/store/de...5-music-pro-electronic-earplugs-universal-fit

I guess options are limited because musicians must predominately be luddites

 

[bigx5murf]

Looks like there have already been studies to implement this tech in this fashion as well. The conclusions seem to be positive as well.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328162205_Electronic_hearing_protection_for_musicians

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24433326

 

[bigx5murf]

Well, I was a DSP specialist in applied physics, so I'm not a total ignoramus, even if I've never used those devices on the range (I always just use regular ear muffs).

So here's the issue, by my cocktail napkin estimate:

In a shooting range, you're dealing with sharp, short, loud, transients of limited bandwidth.

A symphony playing at FFF, usually rated at >120 dB, has sustained volume at high levels, with wide bandwidth, and occasional transients all over the frequency spectrum (tympani, brass, picolo, etc.).

I can certainly create a compression filter for my earphones, but I'll lose dynamic range perception.

I can certainly create notch filters for the most damaging, shortest transients.....but does that solve the problem?

Because the environment risk is variable -- a viola player has their ear right next to the soundboard of a moderately loud instrument that is partially in the most sensitive range, a picolo has their ear close (but not next to) the instrument in a very sensitive range, and a tympani player has his ears far away from the tympani, but it's damn loud.

And how is this going to effect the emotional reading the musician experiences from the feedback loop of the music?

When I play bass, either electric or acoustic, I don't play as well when I have a cold because my hearing is a bit muffled and I can't really tell if, for example, I'm using too much vibratto or not enough....

I think the problem is quite a bit harder than the simple shooting range analogy.

The products I have experience with have been tuned to excel in an environment where it's dealing with sharp, short, loud, transients of limited bandwidth.

The tech itself is malleable, being electronic in nature it can be built, programmed, adjusted in real time, to behave in whatever way is required to excel in the environment it's expected to.

 

[watchnerd]

What do you know, the product I described already exists. https://www.sweetwater.com/store/de...5-music-pro-electronic-earplugs-universal-fit

I guess options are limited because musicians must predominately be luddites

I've used those...they're just compressors.

And notice the attenuation kicks in at 70-75 dB. I've found them to be fine for relatively steady state music (e.g. funk), but that's too much cut too soon for live classical, IMHO.

But, hey, maybe classical musicians are all just luddites (it's true, to some extent) and you just need to market to them better. Go for it and get rich.

 

[JJB70]

Well, they always say that if you want to experience true dynamic range then you need to experience a live orchestral performance.

I think that the legal judgement should not affect classical music unduly. People tend to jump to all sorts of conclusions after such judgments but judges tend not to be stupid and usually reasonable risk mitigation is all that is required.