Can amateur music damage your hearing?
June 24, 2019 9:00 AM Subscribe
I know that adult professional musicians are at high risk of hearing loss. But what about childhood amateur musicians? Is (say) practicing the trumpet for an hour or two a week safe for kid's ears? If so, what's the dividing line between a harmless level of practice and a harmful one?
I should note that:
1. I'm looking for scientific information -- I already have lots of anecdotal information.
2. I know there may not be studies that focus specifically on instrument playing by children, so I'd welcome advice on extrapolating from whatever studies that do exist.
3. I know that hearing protection will mitigate risk, but for purposes of this question, I'm interested in the effect on unprotected hearing.
Thanks!
I should note that:
1. I'm looking for scientific information -- I already have lots of anecdotal information.
2. I know there may not be studies that focus specifically on instrument playing by children, so I'd welcome advice on extrapolating from whatever studies that do exist.
3. I know that hearing protection will mitigate risk, but for purposes of this question, I'm interested in the effect on unprotected hearing.
Thanks!
Best answer: Here are two peer-reviewed scholarly research studies:
Prevalence of noise-induced hearing loss in student musicians (2010) It shows that student musicians (age 18-25) are more likely to to have a 15dB notch in hearing; 45% compared to 11.5% prevalence in the general population.
Importantly: Overall prevalence of [Noise Induced Hearing Loss] was 45%, with 78% of notches occurring at 6000 Hz. The proportion of the total population with bilateral notching at any frequency was 11.5%, mostly occurring at 6000 Hz. There was a significant increase in the frequency of notching in students who reported more than two hours per day of personal practice. There were no significant associations for instrument group or other noise exposures. The data suggest that susceptibility to NIHL among students of music is not uniform and cannot be ascribed solely to the instrument played and other exposures.
See here for another description of common hearing loss around 6kHz among student musicians.
My take: wear ear protection whenever practicing extensively. You did not ask about this but there is another whole body of research as to when and how musicians use ear protection, and how effective it is.
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:47 AM on June 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
Prevalence of noise-induced hearing loss in student musicians (2010) It shows that student musicians (age 18-25) are more likely to to have a 15dB notch in hearing; 45% compared to 11.5% prevalence in the general population.
Importantly: Overall prevalence of [Noise Induced Hearing Loss] was 45%, with 78% of notches occurring at 6000 Hz. The proportion of the total population with bilateral notching at any frequency was 11.5%, mostly occurring at 6000 Hz. There was a significant increase in the frequency of notching in students who reported more than two hours per day of personal practice. There were no significant associations for instrument group or other noise exposures. The data suggest that susceptibility to NIHL among students of music is not uniform and cannot be ascribed solely to the instrument played and other exposures.
See here for another description of common hearing loss around 6kHz among student musicians.
My take: wear ear protection whenever practicing extensively. You did not ask about this but there is another whole body of research as to when and how musicians use ear protection, and how effective it is.
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:47 AM on June 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Whether a sound will damage your hearing depends on 1) how long you are exposed to it, 2) what the decibel level is, and 3) how close you are to the source. According to this excellent website on children's hearing protection by the National Institutes of Health (it's worth looking at with your kids):
"The impact of noise adds up over a lifetime. If you are exposed to loud sounds on a regular basis, your risk for permanent damage increases over time. Even a single but long-lasting loud event can cause damage. Sounds at or below 70 dBA are usually considered safe, even if they last a long time. Noises are more likely to damage your hearing if they are:
85 dBA and last a few hours.
100 dBA and last at least 14 minutes.
110 dBA and last at least 2 minutes."
Your child will be close to the source by definition if they are playing the instrument, and you can measure the decibel level with a phone app. If it's under 80dBA (that is the official limit, although preferably under 75 dBA according to the World Health Organization), you're fine. If you are concerned that the decibel level is too high, hearing protection will help, or you can fit your instrument with a mute.
posted by epanalepsis at 10:00 AM on June 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
"The impact of noise adds up over a lifetime. If you are exposed to loud sounds on a regular basis, your risk for permanent damage increases over time. Even a single but long-lasting loud event can cause damage. Sounds at or below 70 dBA are usually considered safe, even if they last a long time. Noises are more likely to damage your hearing if they are:
85 dBA and last a few hours.
100 dBA and last at least 14 minutes.
110 dBA and last at least 2 minutes."
Your child will be close to the source by definition if they are playing the instrument, and you can measure the decibel level with a phone app. If it's under 80dBA (that is the official limit, although preferably under 75 dBA according to the World Health Organization), you're fine. If you are concerned that the decibel level is too high, hearing protection will help, or you can fit your instrument with a mute.
posted by epanalepsis at 10:00 AM on June 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
Best answer: It's worth noting that both of the studies found by SaltySalticid involve undergraduate and graduate music students, who usually practice one to two hours per day, not the one to two hours per week you're talking about.
posted by Johnny Assay at 11:41 AM on June 24, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by Johnny Assay at 11:41 AM on June 24, 2019 [3 favorites]
I would also take under advisement what Johnny Assay said and add to that that any child learning an instrument will be practicing more than 1-2 hours a week. At least 30 minutes a day was what my practice cards required, so 3.5 hours a week minimum. (I also played trumpet for many years!)
posted by fiercecupcake at 12:28 PM on June 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by fiercecupcake at 12:28 PM on June 24, 2019 [1 favorite]
Are you asking about practicing by yourself? Because I was in a high school band from grade 6-12 and I would never have described it as particularly loud, unless you happened to be sitting next to the drums. I played trombone and not trumpet. I certainly never played particularly loud when practicing by myself. With the full band I was kinda loud, for a non-amplified band instrument.
Full band sessions (with a snare behind your head) and not an oboe or a sax, or tuba - that could be loud.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:47 PM on June 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
Full band sessions (with a snare behind your head) and not an oboe or a sax, or tuba - that could be loud.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:47 PM on June 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
This is related to an interesting question that I was just talking about with some trumpet-playing friends recently, namely: Why is the damn percussion section (in an orchestra, usually stationed directly behind the trumpets) so much louder when we're not playing?
There is apparently some evidence that the act of playing a wind instrument activates the tensor tympani muscle, which is responsible for deadening loud external sounds along with the sounds of chewing. (The theory is that playing a wind instrument is enough like chewing to activate the reflex.) Certainly it lines up with my experience and those of my colleagues, where we are much less affected by loud noises while playing -- including loud noises we make.
Another important consideration is that a trumpet is designed to send sound away from the player. It's not going out equally in all directions, in other words, but focused forwards. Because of that, even if you're practicing in a smallish room, the sound you get back has traveled through at least 15 feet of air, plus it has bounced off at least one wall, incurring losses along the way. Piccolo players, by contrast, frequently do wear hearing protection in their right ear, because the sound is coming from inches away from that ear and is more omnidirectional.
This is all good news because hearing protection for wind players, and brass players in particular, is extremely complicated. Because part of the instrument is inside your mouth and against your jaw, you receive a significant amount of sound by bone conduction. Unfortunately the pitch of the bone-conduction sound is sometimes very different from the pitch leaving the instrument, making it almost impossible to play in tune with earplugs in1. You see this in images of recording sessions all the time, where the whole brass section has one ear out of the monitors because it all goes to hell when you block both ears. So folks tend to either selectively put plugs in only one ear, or only at certain times, or know when it's coming and sneak a finger in their ear.
At any rate: while the evidence is clear that musicians are more at risk for hearing loss, there is substantial evidence that this is because they are in the presence of other musicians who make noise near them more than the average person, and in nearly all cases not because of their personal practicing. (Obviously if you are a percussionist and it's Rim Shot Day you're going to need to put some earplugs in.)
1This is a true fact that I'm pretty sure is totally un-researched, in case anybody wants to steal my hypothetical future PhD thesis topic.
posted by range at 3:46 PM on June 24, 2019 [7 favorites]
There is apparently some evidence that the act of playing a wind instrument activates the tensor tympani muscle, which is responsible for deadening loud external sounds along with the sounds of chewing. (The theory is that playing a wind instrument is enough like chewing to activate the reflex.) Certainly it lines up with my experience and those of my colleagues, where we are much less affected by loud noises while playing -- including loud noises we make.
Another important consideration is that a trumpet is designed to send sound away from the player. It's not going out equally in all directions, in other words, but focused forwards. Because of that, even if you're practicing in a smallish room, the sound you get back has traveled through at least 15 feet of air, plus it has bounced off at least one wall, incurring losses along the way. Piccolo players, by contrast, frequently do wear hearing protection in their right ear, because the sound is coming from inches away from that ear and is more omnidirectional.
This is all good news because hearing protection for wind players, and brass players in particular, is extremely complicated. Because part of the instrument is inside your mouth and against your jaw, you receive a significant amount of sound by bone conduction. Unfortunately the pitch of the bone-conduction sound is sometimes very different from the pitch leaving the instrument, making it almost impossible to play in tune with earplugs in1. You see this in images of recording sessions all the time, where the whole brass section has one ear out of the monitors because it all goes to hell when you block both ears. So folks tend to either selectively put plugs in only one ear, or only at certain times, or know when it's coming and sneak a finger in their ear.
At any rate: while the evidence is clear that musicians are more at risk for hearing loss, there is substantial evidence that this is because they are in the presence of other musicians who make noise near them more than the average person, and in nearly all cases not because of their personal practicing. (Obviously if you are a percussionist and it's Rim Shot Day you're going to need to put some earplugs in.)
1This is a true fact that I'm pretty sure is totally un-researched, in case anybody wants to steal my hypothetical future PhD thesis topic.
posted by range at 3:46 PM on June 24, 2019 [7 favorites]
Best answer: You have framed your question with a bias in favour of answers which are backed by research findings. That is fair enough - but you should be aware that you are quite unlikely find studies which are directly relevant to a particular child, practising particular pieces on a particular instrument in a particular environment for a particular amount of time.
Given all of these unknowns, all we can really summarise is that there are are many scenarios which are safe and some which sufficiently dangerous to be avoided. I think it is quite important to find a music teacher who is aware of the issues and who will work with their students on them: both individually and in groups. Performing and practising at safe volume levels is a skill that musicians need to learn. That can mean knowing that playing your drum in somebody else's ear can cause them permanent hearing damage, or understanding how to play while wearing ear protection, or simply the benefits of playing quieter so as to be able to listen to others properly. It also means being of warning signs for one's own hearing: tinnitus or temporary hearing loss after a practice session for example.
In the UK there was a recent landmark court victory in a case brought against London's Royal Opera House by a viola player who was playing at the Royal Opera House in London. In this case the claim was for acoustic shock caused by a single rehearsal session where the sound levels for that part of the orchestra were 130 dbA - equivalent to an aircraft taking off. The musician in question had been sitting right in front of the brass section it the time. The case is interesting in that it involves classical musicians playing non-amplified instruments rather than those standing in front of Marshall stack all day. With respect to trumpet players and brass sections more generally - it probably point to the risk of those in front of them being higher than it is to the players themselves (as mentioned above).
posted by rongorongo at 2:51 AM on June 25, 2019
Given all of these unknowns, all we can really summarise is that there are are many scenarios which are safe and some which sufficiently dangerous to be avoided. I think it is quite important to find a music teacher who is aware of the issues and who will work with their students on them: both individually and in groups. Performing and practising at safe volume levels is a skill that musicians need to learn. That can mean knowing that playing your drum in somebody else's ear can cause them permanent hearing damage, or understanding how to play while wearing ear protection, or simply the benefits of playing quieter so as to be able to listen to others properly. It also means being of warning signs for one's own hearing: tinnitus or temporary hearing loss after a practice session for example.
In the UK there was a recent landmark court victory in a case brought against London's Royal Opera House by a viola player who was playing at the Royal Opera House in London. In this case the claim was for acoustic shock caused by a single rehearsal session where the sound levels for that part of the orchestra were 130 dbA - equivalent to an aircraft taking off. The musician in question had been sitting right in front of the brass section it the time. The case is interesting in that it involves classical musicians playing non-amplified instruments rather than those standing in front of Marshall stack all day. With respect to trumpet players and brass sections more generally - it probably point to the risk of those in front of them being higher than it is to the players themselves (as mentioned above).
posted by rongorongo at 2:51 AM on June 25, 2019
Best answer: Some weird information on here. I'm an audiologist, a musician, and I manage a program educating high school and college-aged musicians about hearing loss and hearing protection. There is plenty of good, empirical evidence for the following information.
1) 85 dB is safe for under eight hours a day for most adults. For every 3 dB increase in sound level, your safe time is cut in half (so 88 dB is safe for 4 hours, 91 for 2, etc).
2) Safe exposure is a function of dose. You can be exposed to a short amount of time to a very high level or a longer amount of time to a lower level with the same risk of noise induced hearing loss.
However, another consideration is that 85 dB measured on a sound level meter or in the adult ear canal is likely not the same level in a child's ear canal. Children have smaller ear canal volumes, and thus the sound pressure level will be higher in their ear canal than the air. So erring on the side of being conservative (I too agree with the 70 dB level mentioned above) is a good idea.
So - if your child is truly only practicing an hour or two a week, with very little other noise exposure, damage is less likely. However, if they are also playing in band, listening to loud headphones, attending sporting events or loud religious services or some kind - all of this factors in as well.
The trumpet can get loud (it's bogus that because the sound is "moving away" from the trumpet that there is reduced exposure - the sound leaves the trumpet bell very close to the player's head, and sound resonates from the tone holes and the actual body of the trumpet as well). It's worth measuring how loud your kid is playing and then making a choice about hearing protection and/or other noise exposure based on that. The free NIOSH sound level meter for your smartphone will give you a perfectly reasonable idea of the level.
You should not count on the Acoustic Reflex (the tensor tympani muscle reflex) mentioned above for any kind of lasting noise reduction. The reflex decays, and is only useful for about a 3 dB reduction for typically less than 30 seconds.
Hearing protection for musicians is not that complex. I typically recommend musicians' plugs - custom if it's an option. They reduce noise in a much more flat manner and don't give you that bass-heavy sensation that foam plugs give. Most musicians can solo practice perfectly well with a good set of earplugs in. For group practice or performance where having at least one ear open might be particularly important, one earplug can be worn, and switched half-way through. The advantage of this method is that it still cuts your dose in half.
Noise induced hearing loss, which I myself have, is insidious and is a much larger problem than most of us know. That notch that musicians get between 4-6 kHz appears only after years of damage to the auditory nerve, which doesn't show up on the typical hearing test until it starts to manifest as threshold shift. You are very smart to be concerned! That said, there are ways to balance enjoying playing music, even loud music, and being smart about your hearing.Play the loud music, but not too long or too often. Give your ears breaks - if you played a lot of loud music today, don't expose yourself to other high levels that day. Wear hearing protection if you can and when you need to. Get a regular hearing evaluation.
posted by Lutoslawski at 7:38 AM on June 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
1) 85 dB is safe for under eight hours a day for most adults. For every 3 dB increase in sound level, your safe time is cut in half (so 88 dB is safe for 4 hours, 91 for 2, etc).
2) Safe exposure is a function of dose. You can be exposed to a short amount of time to a very high level or a longer amount of time to a lower level with the same risk of noise induced hearing loss.
However, another consideration is that 85 dB measured on a sound level meter or in the adult ear canal is likely not the same level in a child's ear canal. Children have smaller ear canal volumes, and thus the sound pressure level will be higher in their ear canal than the air. So erring on the side of being conservative (I too agree with the 70 dB level mentioned above) is a good idea.
So - if your child is truly only practicing an hour or two a week, with very little other noise exposure, damage is less likely. However, if they are also playing in band, listening to loud headphones, attending sporting events or loud religious services or some kind - all of this factors in as well.
The trumpet can get loud (it's bogus that because the sound is "moving away" from the trumpet that there is reduced exposure - the sound leaves the trumpet bell very close to the player's head, and sound resonates from the tone holes and the actual body of the trumpet as well). It's worth measuring how loud your kid is playing and then making a choice about hearing protection and/or other noise exposure based on that. The free NIOSH sound level meter for your smartphone will give you a perfectly reasonable idea of the level.
You should not count on the Acoustic Reflex (the tensor tympani muscle reflex) mentioned above for any kind of lasting noise reduction. The reflex decays, and is only useful for about a 3 dB reduction for typically less than 30 seconds.
Hearing protection for musicians is not that complex. I typically recommend musicians' plugs - custom if it's an option. They reduce noise in a much more flat manner and don't give you that bass-heavy sensation that foam plugs give. Most musicians can solo practice perfectly well with a good set of earplugs in. For group practice or performance where having at least one ear open might be particularly important, one earplug can be worn, and switched half-way through. The advantage of this method is that it still cuts your dose in half.
Noise induced hearing loss, which I myself have, is insidious and is a much larger problem than most of us know. That notch that musicians get between 4-6 kHz appears only after years of damage to the auditory nerve, which doesn't show up on the typical hearing test until it starts to manifest as threshold shift. You are very smart to be concerned! That said, there are ways to balance enjoying playing music, even loud music, and being smart about your hearing.Play the loud music, but not too long or too often. Give your ears breaks - if you played a lot of loud music today, don't expose yourself to other high levels that day. Wear hearing protection if you can and when you need to. Get a regular hearing evaluation.
posted by Lutoslawski at 7:38 AM on June 25, 2019 [3 favorites]
Sorry, I'm not going to belabor this but just to state clearly, brass instruments are literally acoustic horns and have a decidedly non-symmetrical emission pattern. There is also no such thing as a tone hole on a modern brass instrument (having lost their usefulness with the invention of valves 150 years ago). Even if your child is playing a replica baroque instrument, you can investigate the SPL emerging from a tone hole by opening the spit valve in a modern instrument while playing to find it is near-zero.
If you are in a very small, highly reflective room it won't matter how directional the sound is, but the larger the room and the less-reflective the surfaces the more of an impact you will feel. (Doc Severinsen notoriously practices in the smallest, hardest space he can find, but he is considered an extreme outlier. He also has spent 60 years doing one of the most damaging things possible, standing right in front of a big band every night with no hearing protection, so it's not surprising he needs to boost what he gets back when he's just practicing.) This is one reason why e.g. bassoonists are in such peril in an orchestra -- the trumpets behind them unleash a sound that is built to speak to the back row of a large theater, and the sound experienced by the bassoonists is worlds apart from what the trumpet players themselves hear. When the Boston Symphony did SPL testing on stage the results in front of the brass section were something like 30dB higher than the sensors in their row.
There is no meaningful sound emission from the walls of a brass instrument (certainly not when compared to what leaves the bell) and there is ample experimental evidence to show this -- the most trivial of which is the success of practice mutes, which remove the vast majority of the sound by dampening the end of the bell. Somewhere around here I have scanning laser vibrometer studies I did 20 years ago that show the same thing.
None of this is to downplay the very real risks of hearing loss but rather to try to be realistic about where that loss is coming from and where to best put your mitigation efforts.
posted by range at 8:33 AM on June 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
If you are in a very small, highly reflective room it won't matter how directional the sound is, but the larger the room and the less-reflective the surfaces the more of an impact you will feel. (Doc Severinsen notoriously practices in the smallest, hardest space he can find, but he is considered an extreme outlier. He also has spent 60 years doing one of the most damaging things possible, standing right in front of a big band every night with no hearing protection, so it's not surprising he needs to boost what he gets back when he's just practicing.) This is one reason why e.g. bassoonists are in such peril in an orchestra -- the trumpets behind them unleash a sound that is built to speak to the back row of a large theater, and the sound experienced by the bassoonists is worlds apart from what the trumpet players themselves hear. When the Boston Symphony did SPL testing on stage the results in front of the brass section were something like 30dB higher than the sensors in their row.
There is no meaningful sound emission from the walls of a brass instrument (certainly not when compared to what leaves the bell) and there is ample experimental evidence to show this -- the most trivial of which is the success of practice mutes, which remove the vast majority of the sound by dampening the end of the bell. Somewhere around here I have scanning laser vibrometer studies I did 20 years ago that show the same thing.
None of this is to downplay the very real risks of hearing loss but rather to try to be realistic about where that loss is coming from and where to best put your mitigation efforts.
posted by range at 8:33 AM on June 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
Maybe worth noting that the research I linked above does clearly say that there was no discernible effect of instrument played. I too thought at first that drums and trumpets might be more damaging than an acoustic ukulele, but that is not supported by the study.
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:48 AM on June 25, 2019
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:48 AM on June 25, 2019
Lots of others have provided great data, so I'll just provide an anecdote: one of my friends has some non-trivial hearing loss attributed to practicing the drums in a small room, throughout highschool and college. He now wears and is a big proponent of acoustically-neutral earplugs, like those made by Etymotic.
I also know a bassoonist who wears them at rehearsals, for the reasons mentioned by range above—not because of the sound from their own instrument, but due to the row behind them.
Another friend used to wear hearing protection when practicing the bagpipes, but I think has since switched to doing indoor practice with a sort of simulator that works electronically and you listen to via headphones.
Anyway, if I were playing a loud-ish instrument in a small room full of hard surfaces, I'd definitely want to wear flat-frequency-response hearing protection. It just seems prudent, and for a younger person there doesn't seem like a huge downside just as a precaution. I suspect most kids don't play an instrument for enough hours per week or enough years in their lifetime for really significant hearing loss, but learning to use hearing protection when around loud noises is probably a reasonable lesson to instill in itself.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:55 PM on June 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
I also know a bassoonist who wears them at rehearsals, for the reasons mentioned by range above—not because of the sound from their own instrument, but due to the row behind them.
Another friend used to wear hearing protection when practicing the bagpipes, but I think has since switched to doing indoor practice with a sort of simulator that works electronically and you listen to via headphones.
Anyway, if I were playing a loud-ish instrument in a small room full of hard surfaces, I'd definitely want to wear flat-frequency-response hearing protection. It just seems prudent, and for a younger person there doesn't seem like a huge downside just as a precaution. I suspect most kids don't play an instrument for enough hours per week or enough years in their lifetime for really significant hearing loss, but learning to use hearing protection when around loud noises is probably a reasonable lesson to instill in itself.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:55 PM on June 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
Kadin2048 raises a very good point: the acoustics of the music room can be a really big deal for ear stress, more than just mere quantified sound pressure levels. My school band rehearsed in a somewhat padded room that didn't sound great, but it was fairly unthreatening, compared to the problems that many musicians face with amplified music in random acoustic spaces.
posted by ovvl at 6:08 PM on June 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by ovvl at 6:08 PM on June 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
Sorry, I'm not going to belabor this but just to state clearly, brass instruments are literally acoustic horns and have a decidedly non-symmetrical emission pattern. There is also no such thing as a tone hole on a modern brass instrument (having lost their usefulness with the invention of valves 150 years ago). Even if your child is playing a replica baroque instrument, you can investigate the SPL emerging from a tone hole by opening the spit valve in a modern instrument while playing to find it is near-zero.
Fair and interesting point - I am not an acoustician of brass instruments (sax player myself). But near-zero SPL? Wow, would love to know what sort of room and sound level meter you're using to get that reading.
I encourage you to measure the SPL at your son's ear when he's practicing. Perhaps it is near zero. In that case, no need for hearing protection. If it is higher than 70 or so, consider hearing conservation measures.
posted by Lutoslawski at 11:39 AM on June 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
Fair and interesting point - I am not an acoustician of brass instruments (sax player myself). But near-zero SPL? Wow, would love to know what sort of room and sound level meter you're using to get that reading.
I encourage you to measure the SPL at your son's ear when he's practicing. Perhaps it is near zero. In that case, no need for hearing protection. If it is higher than 70 or so, consider hearing conservation measures.
posted by Lutoslawski at 11:39 AM on June 27, 2019 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks for the responses, everybody! I think we will be using hearing protection, or choosing a quieter instrument.
posted by yankeefog at 9:55 AM on July 3, 2019
posted by yankeefog at 9:55 AM on July 3, 2019
This thread is closed to new comments.
Here's the quote: Now an effect of almost four times higher risk is significant and should be looked into, but to have a clear picture of what is happening here we should have an idea of what the absolute risk is - if the overall risk is small, four times a tiny risk can still be tiny and might not justify much additional action. The sample in the study included about 2300 professional musicians - we could be talking about as little as 8 people in the musician cohort versus one person in the same size general population cohort or as many as 1000 musicians versus 300 random people; the fact that this number is omitted makes me suspect it's on the smaller size.
The other thing that strikes me as unclear is that every kind of musician is lumped together in the professional musician category; I am not at all a doctor, but I would find it reasonable to expect that, say, musicians that play the kind of loud rock music that makes your bones vibrate have a lot higher hearing loss than someone playing the viola in a string quartet. So if you're trying to evaluate the risk to a child practicing the trumpet, I don't think this is reliable data to go on.
Furthermore, the group of children practicing music is much, much larger than the group of professional musicians - if there is any discernible effect, I think it would be much easier to detect and substantiate.
posted by each day we work at 9:35 AM on June 24, 2019 [8 favorites]