Hearing Loss and Piano Tuning

[Samuel Choy]

Robert,

That's been a worry of mine also. In fact, I already have slight ringing in my ears back from the days when I played keyboards/piano in bands (church bands, but they were loud enough, anyway). After tuning a piano, I notice that the rining is worse for a while, so hearing protection is something I should look into also.

The last time I went to a PTG meeting, they talked a bit about that. One of the guys said that if you have a good set of ear plugs, one made specifically for protecting musicians ears, that it makes hearing the beats easier because a lot of background noise is eliminated. I do not have enough personal experience to back that up, though.

Sam Choy




  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Robert Finley 
  To: pianotech at ptg.org 
  Sent: Friday, May 05, 2006 8:54 AM
  Subject: Hearing Loss and Piano Tuning


  I have been reading the interesting article about tinnitus and hearing loss in the Piano Technician's Journal. This is something that concerns me since I am just starting out as a piano technician, and I am also a classical musician (concert pianist) who gives frequent recitals and plays in competitions. 

  I have been wondering whether musicians could also suffer hearing loss and what the difference is between tuning a piano (where the notes are played loudly to set the strings) and playing  music that has loud passages in it such as a Liszt's Transcendental Etude 'Mazeppa" or Rachmaninoff's Prelude in G minor Opus 23  and practising pieces like that for several hours a day. In a large symphony orchestra for example, the sound level must be quite intense at times (such as the finale of Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony), although there are large dynamic variations from pianissimo to fortissimo depending on the piece being played, and the sound level would not be not constantly very loud. Would the conductor and orchestral players ever have problems with tinnitus and hearing loss? 

  Do the ear plugs that piano technicians use make it more difficult to hear the beats, or do they make it easier? I guess they attenuate the sound level of the notes and the beats as well, but maybe the attenuation of the lower frequencies is less so the beats can still be heard. Where can one get suitable ear plugs for piano tuning use? Thank you for your comments. 

  Robert Finley
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