How good is your hearing?

[Colin Pykett]

This topic has been aired here from time to time in various guises, but I thought I'd raise it again with a new twist - how does one actually know when one's hearing is not what it was?  The question might seem to have an obvious answer, but if my experiences are anything to go by, things are not always quite that straightforward.  In my case it wasn't nearly as straightforward as judging when I needed to change the prescription for my glasses, which becomes obvious for many of us in middle life when we can't see computer screens etc as well as we used to.

But first a disclaimer - I am a physicist by profession, not a doctor.  So everything here is offered in good faith but drawn solely from my own experiences.  Consequently, if you have any doubts about your hearing you will need the services of a health care professional to advise you what to do about it.

I first began to realise I had presbyacusis (age-related hearing loss) some years ago.  How?  Because I can distinctly remember listening to a recording of the recreated 'Bach organ' at Arnstadt in which the two cymbalsternen clanging away seemed to sound much less prominent than previously - and at Arnstadt they are LOUD, consisting essentially of large bicycle bells hit by metal hammers.  Funnily enough in retrospect, the fact that my hearing might be at fault didn't occur to me, so I spent ages ferreting around with the sound card settings in my PC, and even went to the trouble of measuring the frequency response of my audio amplifier before testing the tweeter units in my loudspeakers.  It quickly became obvious that the speakers were fine when the same problem arose when listening with headphones, though.  So I then tried various other recordings with noticeable high frequency content, one of them being the last movement of Brahms's Variations on a Theme of Haydn where he uses a triangle (loudly derided by Elgar IIRC!).  Result: I couldn't hear the triangle at all.

So then it dawned - I had progressive bilateral presbyacusis which seemed to have come on quite suddenly.  The GP referred me to an audiologist who discovered 40 dB (a factor of one hundred) loss of sensitivity at 8 kHz, corresponding roughly to the top note of a Fifteenth stop.  Having seen that audiogram, I rushed to the nearest organ and - lo and behold - I could indeed barely hear that note!  Although I was astonished, the audiologist was quite laid back and said that I was merely one of many suffering from moderate age-related hearing loss which was quite normal for someone of my age.

So what to do?  I quickly found that hearing aids are completely useless for music, for me, although quite good for most other social situations (not unreasonably, they are mainly optimised for speech for which they do a good job).  But they have been debated here at length more than once, so I'm not going to open up that subject again.  The best solution I've found is to use a pair of graphic equalisers in my hifi system, but again, this only applies to me and it might not be at all acceptable to anyone else.  I've also put them in each channel of my home VPO, though sometimes I forget to bypass them when someone with better hearing comes to play.  This results in the visitor trying to say, usually as politely as possible, that "the upperwork on this instrument is absolutely dreadful"!  By the same token, if I don't use them myself when the visitor has departed, the instrument sounds as though its loudspeakers are inside a box of cotton wool ...

What does all this mean for organ builders, voicers, organ advisers and others involved with the instruments (both pipe and digital) we are expected to purchase and enjoy if their hearing is similarly affected - perhaps unbeknown to themselves?  Your guess is as good as mine, and I'd only suggest that they are the aural equivalent of an art critic with defective vision, not to put too fine a point on it.

 

[pwhodges]

Hearing aids are developing by leaps and bounds.  My wife's hearing aids (absolute latest top of the range in-ear Phonaks) have a number of settings, and she says the music setting in particular is amazing in comparison to earlier models; though as her deafness is congenital, she has no ideal to judge against.  In their normal default setting (which is actually adaptive) she now hears birdsong which she's never heard before.  But yes, they are expensive, I'm afraid.

It's a little while since I tested my own hearing, but I think the top is down to about 10kHz, maybe a little lower (I haven't determined a reference volume to listen at, which affects the apparent result).  I am not conscious of the loss as a change of apparent sound quality, but have started to realise that conversation in adverse conditions is now that bit harder to follow, even though it seems to sound the same - which is a curious contradiction!  Still, the result is probably not bad for age 77.  I've also had continuous tinnitus for more than half my life, but curiously it's never really interfered with hearing other things, or even been a nuisance at all.  It's very high-pitched, but I have never been able to identify it as a note for some reason.

I had been planning when I retired to make a couple of Hauptwerk sample sets of organ of interest to me, building on my sound recording experience and expertise.  But when I started experimenting with techniques, I realised that one of the most crucial aspects of this work is noise reduction - because sample noise is additive from every single sample - and this noise is naturally concentrated in the highest frequencies.  But in the top octave or more I would be unable any longer to judge the retention of required frequencies against the suppression of unwanted ones - and so I might end up making samples that sound perfect to me, but are clearly defective to those with younger ears.  Inevitably similar considerations must affect pipe organ builders and maintainers.

Paul

[sbarber49]

I mentioned on a previous topic that if the whistle block is on it will cause distortion with middle to high organ notes. I have it turned off on my "music" setting (and organ one). My audiologist had never heard of this so it's worth my mentioning it again.

I also have top of the range Phonaks and they are good - if perhaps not really worth the extra money. Mine can be controlled through my phone and I can stream the television directly to them. Also any music or speech on the phone. There is a basic equaliser on programmes. I still can't hear very high notes and I have no idea if what I'm hearing is what people with "normal" hearing experience.

Stephen

[Colin Pykett]

7 hours ago, pwhodges said:

... in the top octave or more I would be unable any longer to judge the retention of required frequencies against the suppression of unwanted ones - and so I might end up making samples that sound perfect to me, but are clearly defective to those with younger ears.  Inevitably similar considerations must affect pipe organ builders and maintainers.

Exactly.  I've been producing sample sets for the best part of 25 years, but now have the same problem - I can still make them sound OK to me but can no longer judge how they might sound to younger ears.  In the pipe organ world, John Norman wrote a candid and honest account of the effects of his own high frequency hearing loss in an essay entitled "The ear can't hear as high as that", Organists' Review, February 2011.

[madorganist]

I've found that the top notes of the Fifteenth can no longer be heard, but I can hear the top notes of the 2' flute - I wonder why?

[MikeK]

An interesting topic & pertinent to my own experience. 
I recently changed my Phonac hearing aids to Oticon ones, on the recommendation of my hearing specialist. These are superior  to my previous aids in all respects, bar one, organ music! Anything above around 400hz has a tremolo effect, which has so far proved impossible to remove, despite various tweaks by my hearing specialist & Oticon. I am awaiting the next tweak! In the meantime I resort to my old Phonac aids when playing or listening to the organ.

[John Robinson]

At the phenomenal age of 71 years, I too suffer from pronounced hearing loss in the higher frequencies, quite probably due to unnecessarily loud volume settings of Emerson, Lake and Palmer in my younger years.
I have had Phonak hearing aids for over five years now.  These latest models, fitted a year ago, are excellent and listening to organ music now is far more pleasurable than before.  I'd certainly recommend them and, of course, a competent audiologist.

Another facility which I'd recommend is hearing aids with the provision of BlueTooth, which permits listening to music on the computer or television with a better frequency response than listening directly from the speakers.  I can also turn the TV speakers off, of course, when Marge is busy doing something else, such as speaking to her mother on the telephone!

[pwhodges]

Hmm - I just did a test, and find that I cut out at around 8kHz now - i.e. top of a fifteenth.  Increasing volume doesn't help, and the cut-off is quite sharp, so I don't feel the need to consider hearing aids yet.

Paul

[Steve Goodwin]

I know my HF response has been dropping for years - I'm 73. Like others, I seem to top out around the top of the 2'. For me, one ear is much worse than the other.

My normal speech hearing is not too bad so I only have a single NHS hearing aid which I wear when out. It was unusable for music and eventually I got them to add a 'music' setting which turned it from unusable to lousy! Haven't yet tried any private hearing aids so all suggestions welcome...

It is certainly true that younger people (i.e. under 60!) who come and play my HW organ sometimes comment that the upperwork is a bit shrill. 

It's interesting to think that not only are we not hearing the higher notes specifically but we are are also experiencing a totally different tone from many stops that involve higher harmonics.

Steve

[A G Preston]

I remember the saxophonist Gerald McChrystal expressing his worry to me a few years ago that musicians do not take the risks of hearing loss from loud environments seriously enough.  There are now different earplugs that are supposed to attenuate loud noises without blocking out detail that a musician would need to hear in performance.  Can anyone vouch for them?