[CAUT] Hearing Protection Desirable for Tuning?

[Andrew Anderson]

I'll have to ditto this.  I've tuned after a fine tuner here and the 
seventh octave quickly expands to +50-80 cents.  Means the lowest 
notes where you tune those partials are also oddly placed also.  The 
plugs are annoying but they really help with fatigue and you can 
always take them out to compare.  I actually found the musician's 
plugs helpful to isolate partials from the general noise--the canal 
caps sold by Diana Hofstetter.

Andrew Anderson


At 12:56 PM 10/28/2005, you wrote:
>I've never seen scientific studies on damage from the typical sound
>pressure level of tuning pianos, but I've met a bunch of older tuners
>who had lost it.  I've been using ER15's for many years and my hearing
>has stayed very good.  Now if I could just do something about the damage
>done to my hands by cranking on that tuning lever all these years!
>
>dp
>
>David M. Porritt
>dporritt@smu.edu
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: caut-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces@ptg.org] On Behalf Of
>Jeff Olson
>Sent: Friday, October 28, 2005 12:45 PM
>To: College and University Technicians
>Subject: [CAUT] Hearing Protection Desirable for Tuning?
>
>I was surprised to learn that anyone believes that normal tuning would
>generate decibels anywhere close to ear-damaging levels.  My
>understanding
>is that the "average" person can safely tolerate eight hours of
>continous 85
>db.  I'd guess the decibels normally generated by a piano tuning would
>be
>around 45 - 65 db, unless one is tuning the piano Jerry Lewis style :).
>
>I'm wondering what your basis would be for believing that tuning
>represents
>a threat to hearing (or does it simply seem more comfortable to you to
>wear
>earplug/filters?).  Is it personal experience, or are you aware of
>scientific studies that confirm this possibility (I'm not aware of any,
>but
>that doesn't mean they don't exist)?
>
>Best,
>
>JO
>
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