Perception of Hearing Loss in Orchestral Musicians

Musicians are at risk for hearing loss due to noise exposure and presbycusis (1, 2). Compared to non‐musicians with hearing loss, musicians with hearing loss show improvements in speech understanding in a background of noise, but by self‐report do not perceive an advantage (3). This project aimed to explore this further by studying six orchestral musicians aged 42‐64 with a perceived hearing loss. Scores on a variety of assessments were compared to published normative data and a survey was also completed. No significant differences were found between the musicians and the normative data. Survey responses indicated that overall, the musician participants did not have concerns with hearing themselves play music or with how well they hear music in general. Participants did report concerns with hearing in background noise, room acoustics, following conversation, and noise exposure from music. Participants also noted occasional difficulty in noise, reverberant environments, and when visual cues are lacking. These findings suggest that musicians may have unique concerns related to their hearing, even if their perceived handicap secondary to hearing loss is no larger than would be expected based on their hearing loss alon