Horn-playing and deafness

[MrGongGong]

Thanks for this
will have a read
always good to read the real thing not a journalists impression !

[Hornspieler]

Try this for the full text of the referenced research (online view of fulltext, also PDF download option, note licence terms)

Not got time to read it properly a.t.m. but looks robust enough on a first scan.

Couple of things about the physics occur w.r.t. the discussion above about what might be problematic about the horn (assuming the "self" noise dose is a/the problem rather than players being in the firing line of other instruments):

A false assumption.

Trumpets and trombones may not be as much of a problem as they might seem on first inspection - for their players at any rate, providing they don't play into their stands. Most obviously, the bells point directly away from the player. Then, both instruments act as pretty good collimating lenses - a very large proportion of the energy is radiated out in a narrow beam straight along the axis of the bell. This is apparent to an audience, trumpets/trombones are very directional even listened to from a long way off. A small change in the direction the player points the bell in makes a big difference to what and how much of it you hear. Sitting directly in front of either is not a good place to be however...

Trumpets and trombones normally sit on a riser towards the back of the orchestra and their sound is directed above the heads of the players in front of them.

Meanwhile, and whether this perception is correct I won't speculate about on this thread for obvious reasons, it certainly seems from the outside that the horn section is immersed in a bath of their own sound unlike the trumpets/trombones who deliver most of their energy out into the space in front of them.

Either there is a space in front of them, or they are directing their sound towards the heads of the players in front. You can't have it both ways.
..... immersed in a bath of their own sound? No more than someone sitting in the middle of the cello section.

Given the inverse square law that will roughly govern the energy at a given distance from the main radiating point of the instrument, it won't take much for the lower peak power capability of a horn (by 6-8 dB or whatever it is) to be cancelled out by its different directionality properties and the proximity of the bell to the ears of the player or his/her neighbours. Also, low-medium severity industrial hearing damage tends to result from prolonged exposure to high-ish doses rather than brief periods of extreme intensity. Taken together, these might partly explain why trumpets/trombones fare better. Millions of bars rest...

Try telling that to a trumpet player who is about to play a work by Bruckner or Mahler.

The most disturbing experiences I've had were being at the back of violin sections in front of both the main and extra brass in rehearsals of Belshazzar's Feast and Mahler 8 in spaces only just big enough to hold all the performers. I can't imagine how anyone's hearing could survive doing that on a regular basis without ear defenders...

I can't imagine anyone being able to play in an orchestra wearing ear defenders.

I have read the full text of the research and would pose my own questions:

Were the participants of this study all professional horn players? I would suggest that there are not that many in Australia, so was it that small percentage of professionals who were reported as suffering hearing loss?

Writing, not as a horn player, but as a former Management and Productivity consultant, I can assure you that you can use statistics to prove whatever you have decided to prove; by simply arranging them to suit your case.

HS (A.I.M.S)

[Simon B]

This is a subject of interest to me, and one I've had some passing involvement with in the past. That there is a particular problem with horns is a new one on me and both surprising and initially counterintuitive. However, I go with the science and (insofar as there is any) it seems there may be... It is therefore particularly interesting to try to understand why.

I want to stress that I'm not trying to squabble or be abrasive. What would pass as perfectly normal robust inquisition in scientific circles, particularly challenging assertions, can be perceived very differently outside...

A false assumption.

Can you point to the evidence that substantiates this? Nobody would try to contradict your anecdotal evidence on this, for obvious reasons. But it is nevertheless anecdotal evidence, which is often a poor predictor of complex scientific "truth"...

It is well understood that the mechanisms for causing permanent damage differ between sustained and transient noise, as do (markedly) the damage thresholds. See, e.g. "Nature of Orchestral Noise", O'Brien et al, where from their careful and large-scale measurement-based experiment they conclude "The findings indicate that the principal trumpet, first and third horns, and principal trombone are at greatest risk of exposure to excessive sustained noise levels" Self-noise is obviously the differentiating component here, there's no other viable hypothesis in which the other trumpets/trombones/horns could reasonably be absent from the list. They go on to say that "the findings also strongly support the notion that the true nature of orchestral noise is a great deal more complex than this simple statement would imply." which is, of course, the point really...

Trumpets and trombones normally sit on a riser towards the back of the orchestra and their sound is directed above the heads of the players in front of them.

Indeed, and given that being sat in front of them is a very bad place to be this is the obvious first militation measure. Nowadays they're also usually arranged to have a huge empty space in front of them, and then a line of reflectors ("screens") is put in the firing line between them and the nearest others. With the implementation of European Directive (2003/10/EC) via the Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005, various legal dosage limits were lowered significantly. Measures such as layout changes, screens and repertoire management have had to be implemented to try to stay within the law. But then you know all this already, presumably...

Either there is a space in front of them, or they are directing their sound towards the heads of the players in front. You can't have it both ways.

I was carelessly using space in the technical sense in which a space can be full or empty, it's still a space. But that's just pedantry. Substitute "zone" or "area" or anything else, it makes no difference from their p.o.v. other than that heads would both reflect and absorb up to a point.

..... immersed in a bath of their own sound? No more than someone sitting in the middle of the cello section.

Indeed, and how much greater a maximum Sound Pressure Level does a horn produce than a cello? A lot. 20dB? 30dB?

Try telling that to a trumpet player who is about to play a work by Bruckner or Mahler.

Yes, but those examples are chosen precisely because they're deviations from the norm, outliers even. Consequently, they have a restricted effect on long term averages. They do of course contribute to trumpet 1's presence on the list of at-risk as in O'Brien et al.

I can't imagine anyone being able to play in an orchestra wearing ear defenders.

But some current players 100% certainly do, some of the time. In at least one particular televised 2013 Prom by one of the BBC orchestras, musicians ear defenders or simple earplugs were clearly visible sticking out of their ears in some shots! They can be regularly seen (albeit as unobtrusively as possible) putting them in and taking them out during performances of certain repertoire. Again, presumably you know this anyway...

I have read the full text of the research and would pose my own questions:

Were the participants of this study all professional horn players? I would suggest that there are not that many in Australia, so was it that small percentage of professionals who were reported as suffering hearing loss?

On pp591 the authors clearly state "One-hundred and forty-four professional French horn players participated in this study on a voluntary basis (Table I)". 100% of the sample were "professionals", and there is further nuancing of what this means. This was the international conference of the IHS, so presumably participants attend from around the world.

Writing, not as a horn player, but as a former Management and Productivity consultant, I can assure you that you can use statistics to prove whatever you have decided to prove; by simply arranging them to suit your case.

HS (A.I.M.S)

You can't "prove" (which amounts to an accepted threshold of uncertainty anyway) anything that isn't true via statistical methods to anyone with sufficient understanding of them. Proper peer-review will usually scythe straight through attempts to do so. The problem is that, inevitably, most people don't know and don't want to know their t-test from their auto-covariance and can't discern the careful from the incompetent from the deliberately misleading. Journalists specialise in misrepresenting them to create a story and disreputable authors capitalise on a general lack of understanding in order to deceive.

In the case of the original paper under discussion, the statistical element to the research is both limited and elementary. Looking at the detail, they have actually both done careful significance testing and been conservative, if anything tending to dismiss signals in the data below quite large thresholds. Ultimately, they don't really say anything other than that professional horn players are demonstrably at risk of industrial hearing damage, which isn't exactly a startling outcome.

[MrGongGong]

Interesting stuff

I frequently meet orchestral players these days who use ear protection, usually ones that attenuate ALL frequencies rather than "plugs"
and many drummers use them (or even industrial ear defenders !) for practice

[Hornspieler]

This is a subject of interest to me, and one I've had some passing involvement with in the past. That there is a particular problem with horns is a new one on me and both surprising and initially counterintuitive. However, I go with the science and (insofar as there is any) it seems there may be... It is therefore particularly interesting to try to understand why.

Indeed, and given that being sat in front of them is a very bad place to be this is the obvious first militation measure. Nowadays they're also usually arranged to have a huge empty space in front of them, and then a line of reflectors ("screens") is put in the firing line between them and the nearest others. With the implementation of European Directive (2003/10/EC) via the Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005, various legal dosage limits were lowered significantly. Measures such as layout changes, screens and repertoire management have had to be implemented to try to stay within the law. But then you know all this already, presumably...

........I was carelessly using space in the technical sense in which a space can be full or empty, it's still a space. But that's just pedantry. Substitute "zone" or "area" or anything else, it makes no difference from their p.o.v. other than that heads would both reflect and absorb up to a point.

........In the case of the original paper under discussion, the statistical element to the research is both limited and elementary. Looking at the detail, they have actually both done careful significance testing and been conservative, if anything tending to dismiss signals in the data below quite large thresholds. Ultimately, they don't really say anything other than that professional horn players are demonstrably at risk of industrial hearing damage, which isn't exactly a startling outcome.

Sorry, Simon, but we must agree to disagree.

Yes, orchestral players might well suffer a certain degree of hearing loss, but no more for horn playewrs than any other members of a symphony orchestra.

Reflective screens in front of the brass players? How would they see the conductor?

Certainly I have seen screens surrounding players in Television or Pop music recording sessions, but close examination will reveal that all the musicians are wearing not ear defenders but headphones - often including the conductor/MD.

Remember the saying that was uttered by a famous politician some years back (can't remember who)

..."There are Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics. The most dangerous of these is statistics."

I shall not bother to reply further to this discussion.

HS

[MrGongGong]

Reflective screens in front of the brass players? How would they see the conductor?

Perspex ........... like most orchestras use these days ? (haven't you noticed ?)

like this

http://www.whitebox3.com/acoustic_shield.htm

and so on

http://www.musicianshearingservices.co.uk/what-we-do/hearing-loss/

[Simon B]

Sorry, Simon, but we must agree to disagree.

That is fair enough, and I regret failing to do so sooner myself on previous occasions. Messageboards in general would be better for more of it beyond a certain point .

The rest of this isn't an sly attempt to have the last word. No, really! Just to clarify a few factual things in case anyone else is reading (unlikely perhaps)...

Yes, orchestral players might well suffer a certain degree of hearing loss, but no more for horn players than any other members of a symphony orchestra.

Maybe; I'm just parroting apparently reputable research. Actually, the paper that triggered this thread merely states that they are at greater risk rather than investigating whether they are - this being a conclusion of another study it references.

Reflective screens in front of the brass players? How would they see the conductor?

I should have just said screens or perspex screens - reflective because they're translucent to light but reflectors of sound. Just like the glass in a window they absorb little sound but reflect a lot. The major orchestras, particularly the BBC ensembles, use them often in concert. Even at the Proms, where the first line of defence on the massive RAH stage is spacing, screens are also deployed. For example (inserted by link to http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/s...ilharmonic.jpg):



Whopping gap between the heavies and the nearest victims, then each back-row bassist has a screen behind them. There are probably a few others around, though harder to spot, e.g. to protect the harps. A gap has been engineered in behind the horns, they haven't bothered particularly to protect the strings from the percussion other than by distance as this is the Last Night of The Proms not Messiaen's Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum...

Certainly I have seen screens surrounding players in Television or Pop music recording sessions, but close examination will reveal that all the musicians are wearing not ear defenders but headphones - often including the conductor/MD.

The term "ear defenders" historically suggested things that look like headphones as worn by, say, workers doing a spot of pneumatic road drilling. However, contemporary musicians' ear defenders are like hi-tech versions of earplugs which are inserted into the ear canal. You could look someone in the eye from 3 feet away and not be able to see any sign of them. It's not conjecture, but a statement of fact that ear protection was used in parts of one particularly noisy symphony at the Proms this year. Probably, there were numerous other instances.

Remember the saying that was uttered by a famous politician some years back (can't remember who)

..."There are Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics. The most dangerous of these is statistics."

I shall not bother to reply further to this discussion.

HS

There's a lot in this old favourite about statistics. The connotation that gets missed is that statistics are very much like guns. Guns/statistics aren't dangerous - it's the people who use them!

[Gordon]

Re:: screens in that ""screen" [sorry!] - aren't they there to isolate the multimic'd radio sound, just as they are used in recording studios?

[Simon B]

Re:: screens in that ""screen" [sorry!] - aren't they there to isolate the multimic'd radio sound, just as they are used in recording studios?

Not in that case, no. That is the purpose of the screens HS was referring in the context of studio work though, yes? Which IIRC is an area you know quite a bit about yourself.

I don't know how easy it is to see what's going in the pic for others, but I chose it as it depicts the (to me) familiar scenario. If it's possible to see clearly and you look closely, you'll see that those particular screens partly wrap around the heads of the bassists. They're there purely to protect the players, and are similar to the examples in Mr GG's links.

To complicate things there are padded (i.e. absorbent as well as reflective) types that are sometimes used by woodwind players, particularly bassoonists (who presumably can play with very little movement if they choose) that look a bit like head restraints.

None of them do a huge amount (4-7 dB ish IIRC) but that can be enough to make a useful difference over time or in exceptionally noisy works.