[pianotech] Hearing Protection

Elwood Doss edoss at utm.edu
Wed Sep 9 09:52:19 MDT 2009


Do you drink a lot of regular coffee?  That'll do it.
Joy!
Elwood

-----Original Message-----
From: Blaine Hebert [mailto:brhebert at verizon.net] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2009 1:53 AM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: [pianotech] Hearing Protection

Just my opinion, or hunch, but there is a loud, painful  "screeching" 
noise that always bothered me, especially while tuning from F 5 to C7.  
This noise stops only when I have my ear plugs stuffed in completely in 
my ear canal.  I suspect that this is a harmonic from the piano 
resonating in my ear canal, probably around 4000 CPS.  There may be some

inherent quality of our hearing system that is more vulnerable at 
certain frequencies.  Diane's hearing protectors block most of this 
potentially dangerous noise.  I prefer my 25 db plugs because I like to 
pound keys harder.  If I need to talk to a customer or hear an overtone 
I can always pull them out half-way.

By-the-way: If you already have hearing loss just not using your hearing

aids does NOT protect you, your remaining hearing is still just as 
vulnerable as it always was and hearing damage continues.  You need to 
use hearing protection even with major hearing loss!

Blaine Hebert
RPT, MS Biology



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