Smith, Kieren
Dangers to Musician Hearing at BYU
Faculty Mentors: Jeremy Grimshaw, College of Fine Arts and Communications
Tracianne Neilsen, College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
At any stage in a musical career, musicians experience large quantities of high-level
sound. Noise-induced hearing loss penetrates many musicians’ lives and is cumulative
over a lifetime. Some performing artists understand this risk, but many either remain
unaware of or choose to ignore the risk, lacking sufficient motivation to protect their
hearing. Students especially seem prone to high noise exposure and few use hearing
protection. Recently, concern about noise-induced hearing loss among music students
has increased. Studies in the UK, including at the Royal College of Music, have
indicated potential for noise-induced hearing loss in student musicians1,2. Noise
exposure in music ensembles is not only based on the type of ensemble, but also the
instrument played and its location within the ensemble. In order to understand and
increase awareness about student musicians’ daily noise exposure, sound levels during
rehearsals at Brigham Young University were measured and ensemble rehearsal rooms
were acoustically characterized.
Noise dosimeters were used to measure sound levels and make dosage calculations
in four ensembles at Brigham Young University. Each of these ensembles rehearses for
two-hour periods twice a week. Six to ten members of each ensemble wore noise
dosimeters for the duration of the rehearsal. Different musicians were chosen each day
in order to achieve coverage over the entire ensemble.
The resulting Dose values have been compiled and mapped spatially for each
ensemble in order to show the distribution among the ensemble (Figure 1). A Dose
value indicates the percentage of recommended daily noise exposure experienced
during a particular time. For example, a Dose of 100% would indicate that the hearer
reached their maximum recommended noise exposure for the day. Standards
organizations such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and
the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) set different soundlevel
values for allowed noise exposure according to what they consider safe conditions.
The dots in the figures represent the positions of the dosimeters during the
rehearsals and the lowest dot on each graph represents the location of a reference
microphone, placed at the front of each room, near to where the conductor stands.
Values were graphed for each ensemble in its usual rehearsal space, resulting in a map
of both a band and an orchestra in each of BYU’s main rehearsal spaces, consisting of
both a smaller (750 m3) and a larger (1050 m3) room.
The band Dose is higher than that of the orchestra, a result of higher levels
experienced during the rehearsals. Some band members received more than 30% of their daily allowed noise exposure in the 2-hour rehearsal interval according to OSHA.
In the bands, instruments receiving the highest dosage include the percussion and low
brass players, as well as instrumentalists sitting directly in front of brass instruments,
such as the alto saxophone player who sat directly in front of a trumpet player in the
band in the larger room (the darkest spot on the left side of the map).
In addition to higher average levels in the band than in the orchestra, we also noticed
a possible difference between the two rooms, with musicians in the larger room
experiencing higher Doses than in the smaller room. In order to further investigate this
difference, reverberation times for the two rooms were measured to see if any pattern or
difference could be observed. A small observed difference, with the larger room being
more reverberant, perhaps contributes to the disparity observed in the dosage.
In performing all these measurements, we gained a better understanding of the
noise exposure experience by student musicians during both band and orchestra
rehearsals. While no musicians exceeded their dosage according to OSHA, many
nearly reached or surpassed recommended dosage according to NIOSH, which uses a
different standard. In order to contextualize the ensemble experience within students’
daily routines, future research plans include performing full-day measurements of
musician noise exposure. These measurements will take place during ensemble
rehearsals, personal practice, performances, and other activities during the day. We
hope to better understand the noise contribution of ensemble rehearsal as well as other
activities to the overall noise dosage of the musicians. It is hoped that such information
can be used to encourage student musicians to protect their hearing.