December 13, 1998

What you can't quite hear ..is what hurts. Two generations of cranking it up is starting to show

ILLUSTRATION BY BRYAN STEWART

Bad vibrations

Boomer parents are losing their hearing faster than they should be, and life is louder than ever for their kids

By Sara Jean Green
Toronto Star Colomnist

In this crowd, the man in the blue trench coat can't help standing out.

Bearded and bespectacled and a good 50 years older than the young bodies thrashing around him, Dr. Hans Kunov wears head-set like industrial ear protectors to block out the blood-surging sounds of heavy metal.

Although security guards searched bags and frisked people at the door to make sure cameras and recording equipment weren't smuggled in, no one thought to ask the director of the University of Toronto's Institute of Biomedical Engineering to open his briefcase.

When Metallica takes the stage at The Warehouse, the crowd pushes forward and the mosh pit comes alive. The floor is slippery with spilled beer. The air thickens with marijuana smoke. Kunov opens his case and brings out his sound-level meter, an instrument that measures noise intensity in decibels.

Ironically, it's just the heavy metal guys who are wearing earplugs.

The second generation of electrically amplified music listeners has inherited a love of loud music from their boomer parents, the first to plug in to the big concert experience. But it's those very boomer parents who are now realizing there was a price for the adrenaline rush and body buzz that comes with playing it loud.

The biggest increase in hearing loss is among 40-to-50-year-olds, says Dr. Peter Alberti, senior otolaryngologist (ear, throat and nose specialist) at the Toronto Hospital, General Division, in a research paper to be published in the January issue of Hearing Instruments.

There has been ``a significant jump'' in the number of people whose hearing loss is that of a person at least 10 years older.

Because hearing loss is cumulative and gradual, and because few people get their hearing tested, it's hard for scientists to get a firm grip on the magnitude of the problem. A person's genes and history of concert-going all play a role.

``It all adds up over your life,'' says Alberti. ``Even though there is not a very noticeable difference over time . . . you can lose quite a bit of hearing before you notice it.''

Once you lose it, there is no way to get it back.

The Who's lead guitarist, Pete Townshend, is rock's most famous example of a musician with noise-induced hearing loss.

``The real reason I haven't performed live for a long time is that I have severe hearing damage,'' Townshend told Rolling Stone magazine. ``It's manifested itself as tinnitus, ringing in the ears at frequencies that I play guitar.

``It hurts, it's painful and it's frustrating.''

These days, most rock musicians think it a sign of ultimate stupidity not to protect their hearing.

Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich is quoted by the San Francisco-based Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers (HEAR) as saying, ``Three of the four members of Metallica wear earplugs. Some people think earplugs are for wimps. But if you don't want to hear any records in five or 10 years, that's your decision.''

But what about concert-goers? Lucas Thompson and Matt Smith, both 16, have been sitting in the lobby for 20 minutes, giving their ears a rest after nearly three hours in front of the speakers listening to Metallica.

``We came out because we were dying in there,'' says Thompson.

Smith, who looks physically ill, says voices sound muffled and his ears are ringing like crazy. ``I've never had it this bad before.''

Like most of their peers, and likely, their parents before them, neither wears earplugs at concerts.

``It doesn't sound as good, especially with rumbly bass,'' Smith says. ``I like the music for the sound. I had them in for five minutes, but it sounded like crap.''

Industrial workers are not supposed to be exposed to any more than 87 decibels of noise in an eight-hour work day without ear protectors, but there are no rules for concerts.

At a Who concert in Toronto 15 years ago, sound levels soared to 127 decibels, Alberti says. Regular, sustained exposure to 90 decibels may cause permanent damage. Sound becomes painful at around 120 decibels.

``There were thousands of people going into doctors' offices for two weeks after the concert with ringing in their ears. It was unreal.''

Back at The Warehouse, as sound levels climb to 115 decibels 10 metres from the stage, Kunov shakes his head. Before he can take readings closer to the speakers, bouncers ask him to leave.

``I have never in my life been exposed to sustained sound levels that high,'' he says after the concert.

``It's very obvious the auditory systems of those people were overwhelmed. It was one gigantic orgasm of noise and it didn't do any good for anyone.''

Considering his experience as a consultant, measuring noise levels in factories and other loud work environments, Kunov's statement carries added weight.

It's well accepted in scientific circles that music creates emotive responses. For teenagers and 20-somethings, the organ-massaging vibrations of blaring music produces the ultimate adrenaline high.

``Those kids with ringing in their ears were ignoring an important signal from their own bodies and it will be coming back to haunt them,'' Kunov says. Ear buzz - or tinnitus - is an early warning sign a person has been overexposed to dangerously high noise levels, he says.

For most people, tinnitus disappears after 24 hours, but continued exposure ups the chances of irreparable harm.

HEAR's founder and executive director Kathy Peck is well acquainted with the pain and frustration of hearing loss.

Bass guitarist for the '80s girl-band The Contractions, Peck says she lost her hearing after opening for Duran Duran in 1984, when a congenital problem worsened with continued exposure to loud music.

Although laser surgery was able to correct some of the damage, Peck still has tinnitus and hyperacusis, a heightened sensitivity to sound that makes a vacuum cleaner sound like a jet plane taking off.

``I think the music industry is in denial,'' she says.

Even though more musicians are wearing frequency attenuated, individually molded ear protectors, ``the industry is terrified of finding out the severity of the impact of music-related hearing loss,'' says Peck.

Referring to HEAR studies that haven't been published because of a lack of funds, Peck says there is ``more and more'' noise-induced hearing loss than that caused by old age.

``There are people in their 20s and 30s with the hearing of 60-year-olds because of noise exposure.''

And our living environment, with its boomboxes, powerful car audio systems, dance clubs, power tools, video games, jet skis and dirtbikes, is getting louder because of the creation of new artificial sounds coupled with technology that reduces distortion when the volume goes up.

It's impossible to blame a single source.

``It's not just a single concert or a single movie. It's the cumulative effect of noisy jobs, noisy hobbies, noisy recreational activities,'' says Dr. Margaret Cheesman, a professor and hearing specialist at the University of Western Ontario.

The irony, say audiologists and other hearing specialists, is that what's happening to boomer parents is a sign of what could happen to their children - at a time when deafness caused by childhood diseases such as meningitis and measles has dropped significantly because of immunization.

Geoff Plant, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is quick to discount the assumption that hearing aids can fix a problem, if it happens.

``It's something like having the radio loud enough but you can't get it on the right station,'' he says. ``We live at a time when people expect technology to solve all their problems but it just doesn't work like that.'' Surveys in Canada and the U.S. indicate kids are increasingly suffering hearing loss caused by headphones with the sound cranked up, says Marshall Chasin, co-founder and auditory research director of the Musicians' Clinics of Canada.

In its dozen years in Toronto and Hamilton, the clinic has seen about 5,000 musicians.

Any hearing loss can cause learning problems, says Chasin, ``but we can't detect any hearing loss from music until someone is in their early teens.'' It takes about five years of exposure before a hearing test will pick up signs of damage.

Chasin, whose clientele is mostly classical musicians and sound engineers, says most patients walk in the door looking for help with other medical problems, not realizing they've suffered hearing loss.

``All musicians - more than 90 per cent - have the beginnings of hearing loss. But the majority don't realize it at all because it's so gradual and sneaky.''

Author of the first book in Canada on the subject, Musicians And The Prevention Of Hearing Loss (1996), Chasin says a musician's hearing is affected not only by the instrument he or she plays but also by where they sit or stand on stage.

A violinist is likely to have greater hearing loss in the left ear, which is closest to the violin. String players, who sit in front of the brass and percussion sections, are also more likely to have hearing damage.

Many string instrument players also suffer wrist and arm problems from over-bowing because they can't hear themselves over the other instruments. By attaching a monitor to a bass or cello, musicians can better hear the sounds from their own instru-ments.

By elevating speakers, the ear is tricked into thinking the sound level is the same, even though the volume is actually lower.

Plexiglas dividers between orchestral sections can act as sound

deflectors. Subwoofers, speakers bolted to the bottom of a seat or a plywood board on the floor, can enhance low bass sounds, so the musician doesn't have to play as loudly.

Hearing damage is an occupational hazard few musicians are willing to acknowledge, says a senior member of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

``You don't want them thinking there is anything disabling you that will affect your job,'' says the woman, who asked to be unidentified. ``They'll think of you as someone with a handicap.

``It's a really touchy subject. Any kind of hearing loss is a bad thing for a musician.''

Although she has no problem tuning her instrument or distinguishing pitches, the woman says her biggest difficulty is hearing conversations, especially when there is background noise.

Even though deflectors are set up behind the string section when a concert is particularly loud, ``it is just excruciating sometimes and nothing can really be done about it.

``None of us really likes to wear earplugs because part of the art is playing what is written. We all want to hear (a piece) at its optimal range since that is the way the music was intended to be played.''

Classical music audiences, however, are usually well outside the risk levels.

Two days after the Metallica concert, Dr. Hans Kunov takes his briefcase to Roy Thomson Hall.

The night's performance of Mozart's Overture to Don Giovanni, Piano Concerto No. 22 and Symphony No. 40, is by a smaller orchestra, the norm in Mozart's time, says Luisa Trisi, a TSO spokesperson.

``Brahms or Mahler would be very loud but Mozart is mainly strings, woodwinds and limited brass,'' she says.

In this crowd, no one looks twice at the man in the blue trench coat.

Throughout the performance, sound levels hover in the 65 to 75 decibel range. Ironically, the applause from more than 2,000 pairs of hands pushes the noise reading above 85 decibels.

``This is more my type of situation,'' Kunov says. ``You don't get high breathing the air and you can hold a conversation at a decent level.''

How loud is too loud?

On a decibel scale, normal breathing is 10, a whisper is 30, normal conversation is 60, average city traffic noise is around 80, a subway or motorcycle 90, and a pneumatic drill 110.

The Occupational Health and Safety Act warns that exposure to 115 decibels should be for no more than 15 minutes a day; above that, no exposure is permissible.

At 130 decibels, there is a risk of permanent hearing damage after just 75 seconds; at 133 decibels, it drops to 37.5 seconds.

``If you think about the hearing organ like a spiral staircase, then the sensory part - the cells - are like the carpet on that staircase,'' says professor Norma Slepecky of the Institute for Sensory Research at Syracuse University.

``If you bang one of those steps really hard, you could blow the entire carpet off. Then it's irretrievable.''

Steve Slavin, a self-confessed Deadhead, looks much younger than 30 in his tie-dyed shirt. But he's a concert veteran who figures that in nine years he saw more than 100 shows and circled the Earth three times in pursuit of Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers and Hawkwind.

``I used to be a live music junkie,'' Slavin says.

``I really didn't find Grateful Dead concerts all that deafening, not like The Who or the Allmans, who were always really loud,'' Slavin says. ``At concerts, I always tried to get lawn seats because otherwise, like ground zero or something.''

He never wears earplugs. And he hasn't had his hearing tested since he was a kid.

Hearing loss? He says he doesn't know.

``But I do seem to say `What?' an awful lot in conversations.''

Desperately seeking a discernible tale [Marchand]