p2pnet - rss feed: Pete Townshend on hearing loss
p2p news view / p2pnet: The Who guitarist Pete Townshend says headphones can be dangerous – really dangerous and he blogs that earphones, not live sound, “do the most damage.”
In his own case, he’s talking mainly about studio earphones and states carefully, “If you use an iPod or anything like it, or your child uses one, you MAY be OK. It may only be studio earphones that cause bad damage. I only have long experience of the studio side of things (though I’ve listened to music for pleasure on earphones for years, long before the Walkman was introduced).
“But my intuition tells me there is terrible trouble ahead” >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No New Resolutions
By Pete Townsend - Pete’s Diaries
In the seventies I discovered I had badly damaged my hearing. I stopped touring with the Who a few years later. Hearing problems - made worse by my lack of self-care because of my heavy drinking on the road - were my chief concern at that time. When I refused to tour as a solo artist quite a few people called me lazy. When I began work in the quieter world of book publishing quite a few people thought me pretentious, despite my considerable success. I did feel churlish, and felt maybe I had overreacted.
Subsequently in 1989 I found that if I was careful on stage, and used smaller guitar rigs, my hearing didn’t get any worse during a tour. A lot of fans complained my sound was not what it used to be, but there was no way I could back to massive six foot high amplifier rigs.
Another grand tour is now promised in 2006. This is a tour that rather depends on me writing new songs. This process has taken a long time. Many people may wonder why such a simple thing as recording a demo should take so long. I’ve spoken about the problem of cracking the right kind of material for the Who - but there is something else going on.
I have hearing trouble.
I have backed away from saying anything to medical or music journalists about my hearing. I think I am lucky, my case is not typical. I stopped touring and rock recording early enough to prevent the damage advancing too fast.
I’ve often said that although the Who have a reputation for being loud, as a live band we were usually only as loud as everyone else. We were, with Pink Floyd, simply one of the first UK bands to develop effective PA systems. People often confused the size of the rigs we started to use with loudness, not improved quality. By the way, this is not exclusively a British disease: the main leap in volume at live shows started in San Francisco with Bill Graham and the Grateful Dead.
But today, this very morning, after a night in the studio trying to crack a difficult song demo, I wake up realizing again - reminding myself, and feeling the need to remind the world - that my own particular kind of damage was caused by using earphones in the recording studio, not playing loud on stage. My ears are ringing, loudly. This rarely happens after a live show, unless the Who play a small club. This is a peculiar hazard of the recording studio.
The point I’m making is that it is not live sound that causes hearing damage.
Earphones do the most damage.
In a studio there are often accidental buzzes, shrieks and poor connections that cause temporary high level sounds. Playing drums with earphones on is probably a form of insanity I think, all those gunshots, so much louder than a real gunshot, but how else can a drummer hear the other musicians? When I work solo now I often avoid using a drummer, simply to keep the overall sound levels lower. Also, one might have to work for several hours to perfect a studio performance. As the work progresses, the ears shut down and one needs a higher volume. If you stop to rest your ears (and you need to do so for at least 36 hours to do any good) you lose the current performance. It is a tough call.
I have unwittingly helped to invent and refine a type of music that makes its principal proponents deaf. It takes time, but it happens. This is, I suppose, no worse than being a sports person or dancer who knows they have a limited working span, and their body will suffer. The rewards are great - money, fame, adulation and a real sense of self-worth and achievement. But music is a calling for life. You can write it when you’re deaf, but you can’t hear it or perform it.
Last night, I was working with a piece of music that depended on me finding a correlation between the harmonic clusters in a piece composed using a computer - rather electronic in nature - and the overtones of a normal acoustic piano. With my hearing rolling off severely now at around three or four kiloherz, I don’t have much luck with high harmonics or piano overtones (I can still hear speech OK). Needless to say, I didn’t finish what I started. I drift back to the familiar tools of acoustic guitar and piano with my experimental tail between my legs.
If you watch the movie currently playing on TowserTV (I write this on December 29th 2005), the Who performing at Irvine in August 2000, you will see John Entwistle attempt to play his grand bass solo on the song Five Fifteen. You may find yourself wondering why such a fluid, expressive and accomplished player should continually drift out of time with the drummer (Zak Starkey). It happened because John couldn’t hear properly. John still gives an astounding display, but he rarely stayed in time in that solo.
Hearing loss is a terrible thing because it cannot be repaired. If you use an iPod or anything like it, or your child uses one, you MAY be OK. It may only be studio earphones that cause bad damage. I only have long experience of the studio side of things (though I’ve listened to music for pleasure on earphones for years, long before the Walkman was introduced). But my intuition tells me there is terrible trouble ahead. The computer is now central to our world. If downloading has a real downside it may not be the fact that musicians will get their music stolen - in truth, they appear quite ready to give it away for nothing. The downside may be that on our computers - for privacy, for respect to family and co-workers, and for convenience - we use earphones at almost every stage of interaction with sound.
I am forced to continue to take my time in the recording studio. Those 36 hour hearing rests are infuriating now that a tour is announced, frustrating and agonizing, but compulsory.
January 4th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
WOW!!! You guys have Peter Townsend writing for you now??!! Totally awsome! Welcome to the site Mr. Townsend, I’ve been a fan of your music for years.
January 4th, 2006 at 6:09 pm
Look again. It’s a post from his blog.
Cheers!
January 4th, 2006 at 7:55 pm
Well, with studio headphones you can turn up the music volume much higher than you can with 5$ iPod earplugs. So its not the headphone that causes damage but the loud volume. I’d turn it down or use protective earplugs (oropax e.g.) on stage if I have a loud instrument. It may take some time to be accustomed to the new sound, but you won’t loose your hearing.
January 4th, 2006 at 8:16 pm
I’ve seen this story on other sites today. People seem to be confused about the cause of Pete (and Roger Daltrey’s) hearing loss. Hearing loss is caused by excessive sound pressure levels at the ear drum over time. It does not matter at all what the source is. A poster commented that studio headphones can go louder than iPod earbuds. That may be true but don’t kid yourselves, since earbuds are inserted directly into the ear canal they can easily be driven to damaging levels with typical portable mp3 players. All that time on a VERY loud stage had to have contributed to Mr. Townshend’s problem as well. IMHO he stressed the headphone angle so people would make the connection to their own behaviour. He’s right, your iPod can severely damage your hearing.
January 4th, 2006 at 8:25 pm
If your ears are hurting or ringing after listening then turn it down. If you step in to traffic and a car hits you, do not step into traffic. When my kids or myself go to a live show we bring ear plugs just incase it gets to loud. That does not happen much anymore as the sound at concerts is much better than in Townshend’s big days. I do think that at concerts a good sound check should be done to provent ear damage in mind. Rock on Pete !
January 4th, 2006 at 9:09 pm
Boy do I find this timely.
I’m an older rock fan, been that way all my life. It was only after I reached my adult years that I could buy better equipment, be it stereo or whatever.
I’ve also been one that has been around loud noises all my life. Whether it was from woodworking tools and construction, or the military and artillery, or working around turbines, or listening to insanely loud music.
It was only later that I became aware of hearling loss and what it does. Now in the military it wasn’t unusual to have ear plugs and use them. But tell me it does much good around a turbine engine or even a turboprop. Military craft aren’t known for sound deadening. With the artillery, after an hour or two of firing, your eyeballs bulged out from the pressure the earplugs were putting on your internal makeup. You would have to dig the plugs out of your ears because sound pressure from the guns had pushed them in so far.
Mechanicing and operating turbine gas compressors (with the same engines used in helicopters) after 20 years takes its toll, even with ear plugs. Not only turbine but reciprocal engines that are two stories high with catwalks and ladders to reach the cylinders. Cylinders big enough that if they were removed you would have no trouble at all sliding down through to the base of the engine where the crankshaft is. When they run, every thing around them vibrates and the noise levels of the turbocharger are insane.
I’ve had car stereos that could play at volumes where you could feel your guts move to the sound pressure, where a free hanging shirt material would move from the sound pressure inside. It’s a wonder the glass remained inside the vehicle.
Or going to concerts, being right down on the front. For New Years, went to a city party. Live bands on a trailer stage for the crowds. The acoustical preformance was great, but when the next band fired up for their sets, I moved away, blocks away where I could still hear them playing. Up front the shrill high pitched noises were irratating to me.
I no longer hear as I once did as you can gather from the above. Yearly hearing tests showed that most of the higher end frequencies are severely affected. I still hear bass and voice level frequencies but even they are somewhat diminished over the normal hearing of average people.
It matters not the source, earphones, earplug headphones, or just plain loud noises. You hear them at insane levels of loudness, you will pay later without hearing protection. Worse, you won’t even notice it till like me. I find now that if two people are talking, or if the tv is on and some one is talking, I can’t tell who said what.
I’m not bitching about what I’ve heard, much of it voluntary done on purpose. I’m saying if you value your hearing, think about it first. As loosing your hearing is a painless experience for most. You don’t even realise it is happening as it does.
January 4th, 2006 at 9:41 pm
My daughter and I were on a bus recently and there was a kid with a CD player sitting in the back. The music was so loud we had to move.
Apart from the noise pollution, what was it doing to his hearing?
Cheers!
January 4th, 2006 at 11:30 pm
“[If] You hear them at insane levels of loudness, you will pay later without hearing protection.”
This is correct. The word “insane” may be misleading. Most people will say to themselves, “Well, I don’t listen at insane volumes.” when in fact many of them may be damaging their hearing. Years of playing in Rock-N-Roll bands has damaged mine, that’s for sure.
January 5th, 2006 at 2:28 am
It’s interesting. I find when I’m on public transport, such as a bus or a train, I often end up not being able to hear what I’m listening to very well over the noise of the traffic or other people talking, if they’re talking loudly. So I turn it up.
It isn’t until I get into a quiter place that I realise how loud I’ve had it turned up and turn it down again.
I do try and keep the volume as low as possible so as not to do too much damage to my hearing. However, I am beginning to notice some ranges of my hearing are fading. I suspect this is due to rock concerts mainly.
I’d suggest anyone who regularly goes out to loud concerts, or plays in a band where playing loudly is a part of what you do, invest in a pair of ear plugs.
You can get plugs, I hear (sorry), which block all frequencies equally and so don’t detract from the quality of the sound as much as cheaper ones, which might block certain frequencies more than others.
If anyone has any more idea about these, please say so.