While you still can!
By Coleman Cecil

Much ado is made in regard to vocal care and wellness but what about our hearing? It is the singers most gifted reference, and still even attached to our heads, it remains forgotten and taken for granted. But one day Without a listening reference, the voice might as well sing in the key of "Q sharp". This tool which we gage all things musical and any other incoming audio information. Think about what you would not be able to do if all the sudden sounds were faint and muddled. If Karaoke is your gig, you're also a mini sound man (or woman). Adjusting pitches, clarity, balance, tonality, effects, even sizing up the acoustic resonance of a given room. GONE Damaged hearing severely lessens our quality of lives. To a musician or Disc Jockey or Karaoke Jockey that is the career equivalent of loosing a most precious limb. Life's aging process already diminishes our sound preceptors naturally at varying rates, and your profession risks further damage. It cannot recover itself from prolonged excessive levels. Ringing after gigs? Possible damaging exposures.

Consider your hearing now, while it still works, before the damage. Take it from me if you must, I have lived my life with moderate - severe genetic hearing loss. The loss is not unlike Permanent Threshold Shift. Auditory deficits of upwards of 25% (loss to total tonal capacity in certain ranges) in each ear. More loss occurs on my left side than my right ear. My left range is down 45%. Because of this, I learned to hear and sense sounds differently while other sounds I cannot hear at all. I'm told that certain sounds, like lobsters squealing and those annoying Christmas chimes that play round the clock in stores everywhere I am blessed not to hear. Although I cannot focus my hearing as all noises come in equally missed-balanced and indistinguishable in noisy environments, though it is not understood how I learned to speak as well as I do. Beyond doubt are my gifted abilities in music and what hearing I do possess and an uncanny comfort in silence. I somehow compensated and learned another way. I unknowingly learned to read lips. I can hear into some of ranges I lack through detecting harmonics and my brain fills in the gaps. Pitches perfect and relative, blending tones all heard, but more with my brain's ear. I mentally record exacting sounds and they're stored, it was simply less confusing to process in my narrow audio band. Pitch and tonal controls were learned very early and even exploring the way sounds moved and transferred through objects. Learning these audio subtleties was helpful but certain vibrations I could not detect, yet I could tune my piano. Vocally I do not hear myself the way others do either. Speech shows slur at times. The brain compensates this process by the urge to mimic sounds to the point that maddened my parents. I expertly mimicked police sirens, as one would hear them from the inside of a moving car. Complete with the Doppler (approach and decay) effect I could imitate the siren's pitch, attack rate and rhythms of the wailing rate's rinse and fall as if it were approaching from behind. I got their attention. There was little detection and even less understanding in1962.
RESEARCH SAYS

A typical nightclub DJ system can easily measure beyond the 100-db range. Based on the Ontario Health and Safety Act, the maximum exposure time to this level of sound coming from the speakers, is just 2 hours before damage begins to occur. (See the table below) Younger people were tested and monitored as a group, and frequently attended these exposure levels, generally show no hearing loss in their age group. Research shows this same group exhibited a hearing loss of 10dB at the 4kHz range after only five years with almost 0.4% of this young listening population losing enough hearing to impair speech intelligibility. They should not have experienced these losses. Hearing degradation, in this group, need not occur for another 35 to 60 years!
DJ's and Karaoke disc jockeys (KJ's) could experience greater risks depending upon the exposure rate and frequency of their shows. Often we play at these rates as long as the customer requires. I one typical gig I measured approximately 97db with peaks at 110db only to look up and see the bar manager thumbing upward and wanting it louder. If I had said no because of a noise levels. I'm sure I would have not been asked to return. Concerns for safety takes a back seat to party. Noise Abatement laws are not geared to promote safer noise levels. I carry a copy of the Noise Abatement Section of the municipal code with me.

San Diego County Municipal Code only spells out requirements for complaint offenses, not for health safety reasons. They refer only to relative measures. Chapter 5; Disturbing, Excessive, Offensive Noises states (sources) can be declared in violation of Noise Abatement and Control section 59.5.0502 part 2 Violations (A):"operation of any sound production or amplification device in such a manner as to be plainly audible 50 feet away from the building, structure in which it is located." It's reasonable to think that noise should be measured on a decibel meter, with an established scale of damaging decibels and not by the human bothering scale.
Three Types of Hearing Loss
Acoustic Trauma: This exposure causes permanent and immediate permanent hearing damage. It occurs when a person's hearing is exposed to a sudden, excessive noise. (i.e.: an explosion, 140 -dB) Temporary Threshold Shift: This is a noise induced chemical imbalance in the inner ear and will go away when time is spent away from the noise source.
Permanent Threshold Shift: This is a noise induced hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea, an organ covered with tiny hairs and nerves. Higher pitched frequencies are a common cause of this type of hearing loss. The loss occurs because the hairs for those frequencies are more fragile. People think that they are "getting used to the noise," in reality the ear no longer hears the damaging frequencies and the listener perceives a lower volume. So the listener turns up the volume even more.

Save what hearing you have and adopt some of these easily implemented preventative measures:
1) Position the DJ setup behind the dance floor speakers. It's not as noisy behind the speakers as it is in front of them.
2) Try using ear plugs. Many ear plug options exist for musicians which protect the ears yet allow a clean enough sound through. Even custom tailored ear plugs.
3) Get Check-ups! If you DJ (or KJ) regularly and are exposed to excessive noises for extended periods of time, you should see an audiologist once a year.
4) Nutritional supplements are also available. Research has found correlation between serum magnesium levels and noise induced permanent hearing threshold shifts. That means going down to your drug store and buying a bottle of magnesium supplements. You might be less likely to receive permanent ear damage once you do.
5) Beginning DJs (and KJ's) should train to mix and monitor at very low volume levels. It is a natural tendency to turn the headphones (and/or monitors) up too loud while training to mix and the same (damaging) sound level can effected right through the headphones.
6) A dance floor that overwhelms your listening monitor, can be equally harmful, turn the monitor off. Consider training to learn to compensate for the delay created by signal processors, amplifiers, and echoes.
7) Leave the headphone slightly off your ear to soften the impact. Know your music well enough, that you don't need to hear the music clearly, just enough to catch the beats and cues. once you get the knack for it.
8) Purchase a decibel meter from Radio Shack so you will know what your levels are. Nothing replaces correct information. Know your ­dBs.
9) Learn to cue and set levels visually.
As a Karaoke jock I do carry a decibel meter as I can't always trust my ears in the upper ranges. I set those levels by levels, metering and checks are by the book. Some people comment on my sound. Some ask How I do it- Honestly? I don't know.
Conserve hearing... you and your guests.

O. H. S. A. Table
Recommended Maximum
Noise Exposure Levels
Audio levels (dB) Exposure(Hrs)
90 8
92 6
95 4
97 3
100 2
102 1.5
105 1
110 0.5
115 0.25
115 + No Safe Exposures

Are you exposed to dangerous noise levels at work? At karaoke shows? Do you like loud and why? Should there be Audio level warnings? Should KJ's carry ­dB meters and supply plugs?
Lower the volume and uh, next song please

Email your opinions to KaraokeKlassics@aol.com.
Karaoke Meets Steroids!
MusicPlayground's Interactive Music Experience Changes the Face of Karaoke as We Know It.