The Project
Have you ever had a ringing in your ears after attending a concert? Did it beep or did you generally have worse hearing? Your hearing is put under enormous strain at such events. The worrying question: Do musicians really hear worse because of their own music-making?
This is the question that we - 3 students from the Immanuel Kant School in Rüsselsheim and passionate musicians - have dedicated ourselves to.
As part of our “Youth Research Project”, we will examine our school’s two big bands and a comparison group. We will show the extent of hearing impairment directly after a rehearsal and after years of making music. Are there hearing impairments and if so, which ones? We want to research that! Firstly, we will measure sound levels during school band rehearsals and compare them with guidelines from the world of work, which specify exactly what volumes you can be exposed to and for how long without risking hearing damage. Secondly, we will audiometer all 30 members of the band before and after the rehearsal, i.e. document their hearing ability. Can hearing loss be proven in musicians, some of whom have been actively making music for 20 years or more? Or is it just a meaningless saying that musicians have “bad ears”?
In addition, 70 test subjects will be measured as a comparison group. The musicians’ possible hearing loss can therefore be compared not only with ideal hearing, but also with that of their peers. All 100 test subjects fill out a questionnaire in which we ask about their listening habits, among other things. “How often do students listen to music on their MP3 players during the week and what noise levels are students exposed to on a 24-hour day, and how does that affect their hearing? It is also interesting to see which instrument in the band is judged to be the loudest. Can this explain the different hearing curves? Should hearing protection be introduced to protect musicians, or are there other solutions? - this is also the subject of great interest at our school, or is currently being discussed in public: is there a reason to regulate the noise level in concert halls?
