Hearing loss is always an upsetting, very challenging problem to face, but if you’re a musician, the issue takes on a whole new dimension. It has the potential to directly affect what you love most, and the worry and anxiety associated with it can do a lot of harm to a person’s well-being.
Thankfully, it’s not all doom and gloom. In fact, many of the world’s best and most famous musicians suffer from hearing loss, and if they’ve been able to make a prosperous career, so can you.
To help motivate you to take your hearing loss in your stride and not let it stifle you, here are three strategies for mitigating the problem.
Image Credit: Pexels
The most important aspect going forward is to do all you can to protect your remaining hearing. No matter what sort of hearing loss you have, there’s plenty you can do to prevent it from getting worse.
For starters, invest in some high-quality musician’s earplugs and wear them at concerts, loud social environments, and even at the movies (which are often too loud). You should also download the NIOSH sound meter application for your smartphone, which enables you to measure the decibel level of any environment in real time. If you’re exposed to noise of 85 dB for more than 8 hours per week, you could be damaging your hearing further, and the risk gets exponentially worse with each 5 dB increase.
One of the best strategies for directly combating hearing loss of all kinds is wearing a hearing aid – and some models have been made especially for musicians.
Musician hearing aids are specially calibrated with dedicated music programs that better preserve tonal range, making slight adjustments to the level of compression you receive back into your ears. They function at a wider frequency spectrum and are overall more finely tuned than standard models.
Consult with your audiologist to find out more.
Writing and playing music with hearing loss today is much easier than it was in the past, and that’s in large part thanks to the technological advancements that have come about in the last twenty years.
In-ear monitors are invaluable for those involved in music production and the writing process, enabling them to mix and engineer music much more easily than they’d be able to with standard audio monitor speakers. If you’re working within a digital audio workstation (DAW), most plugins have now been designed with hearing impairment in mind, featuring strong visual elements that enable users to make adjustments based on what they see rather than just what they hear.
If you’re a musician with hearing loss, there’s no need to despair. Hopefully, this article has convinced you that there’s plenty you can do to continue engaging with your biggest passion, and it’s most certainly not the case that all is lost – you just have to hit on a strategy that works for you. Good luck!
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