temporary hearing loss

[Derek]

Has anyone here ever gone to a loud concert and experienced temporary hearing loss? In my case, it is not total loss it is just that various high frequency sounds are irritating to my ears. I'm hoping it will subside in a few days. I have musician's ear plugs, but it has been years since I played in a band so they do not fit anymore. I went to a concert and had to take them out to hear themusic, but I fear it may have been rather hard on my ears. The unfortunate result of this is that I can't stand the sound of my piano right now, a lot of the higher frequencies, and even overtones in the lower notes, cause irritation and pain in my ears. The only instrument I can play right now is my clavichord, with no pain or irritation. I hope this is not permanent or I may have to give up piano playing altogether.

[scottmcc]

You should probably get a for real hearing test and see your local ENT physician afterwards.  Sooner is better, although temporary threshold shifts like this are generally not a big deal. But still check it out.  Ps I'm an ENT.

[goldentone]

How are you doing now, Derek?

[essynia]

Haha, I know a guy who burst his eardrum at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert "back in the day" -- As entertaining as the story is (when HE tells it), he is now deaf in his left ear despite multiple eardrum reconstructions.

Hope all's well with you, Derek, and protect your ears! There are so many people who wish they would have done so in the preliminary stages.... Tinnitus (or worse) is no picnic!

[Derek]

I think I was a little sensitive from the concert and also a lot of swimming over vacation. I repeatedly went underwater. It's just so fun to swim under water. Anyway...what I eventually found out was my room has horrible acoustics, and there is nothing wrong with the piano. I don't have a problem with headphones on and there are some settings which seem to be EQ'd better for my small room. So...its all good now =)  The Roland HP-302 is a fantastic digital piano. It actually makes me feel like playing a lot. I used to play a lot when I was still living at my parents house, they have a big studio grand (a petrof). But when I moved out, I got this tiny Roland F-100, which is ok to have "something to play," and was fine for improvisation, but it didn't feel right playing classical pieces on it.  The HP-302 makes me feel like I can be a "serious amateur" even though, it still falls short of a grand, it is definitely acceptable for someone who wants to pursue good piano playing.

[lostinidlewonder]

I saw recently a video of a survey done on how loud people set their earphone at with their music devices. Most young people had their headphones blaring way too loud and thus there is a prediction that in the future we will experience more and more hearing related problems caused by listening to music!

At "rock" concerts they are just ridiculously loud and the majority of people who attend these concerts regularly all have some form of hearing degradation whether they are aware of it or not! The damage is pretty much irreversible you can never repair the ear so it works like it used to, so I would for one take great care over what you expose your ears to!

It is not surprising that we can expose our ears to damaging sound levels without realizing it. I found this a big problem when I practiced on my digital with headphones. Sometimes I would change over to say the Pipe Organs and have the sound blasting into my ears and I would be so in joy over the sound I would forget that my ears are under strain. When I finish I would take off the headphones and my ears would be ringing. I guess this type of damage is not as bad as a rock concert that could hit over 110db.

They really should invent headphones that you can set the actual dB level instead of the ambiguous Volume number representations they use.

[essynia]

Yeahh -- How come they don't have the dB volume headphones??