05/05/2023
Take care of your hearing
For anyone serious about DJing or Producing as a career…
This is what happens when you don’t protect your ears after 30 years.
The red is my right ear and the blue is my left. As you can see, I have severe hearing loss starting around 1500Hz to 8000Hz. This means it is difficult for me to clearly hear the simplest things.
Instead, I have a constantly swirling sound in my head that is reminiscent of being in a large field full of Cicadas all around me. Even when I try to block any sound from coming in my ears, that perpetual loop of high pitched noise is a constant.
Sometimes the tinnitus is so bad, I literally have to lay in bed and do nothing until I can convince my brain I can manage with it running in the background. Sometimes it causes shifts in equilibrium, but I am getting better at pushing through it, for now.
Every gig I play takes more and more time to recover from, which is why you see me trying to leave as soon as possible after I’m finished and why I am normally not there until just before I go on.
I have had custom ear plugs molded for me over 10 years ago, when I had my last hearing test and had half the damage, yet I never really disciplined myself to utilize them when I absolutely should have.
I just want to hopefully convey to others, not to make the same mistakes with your ears as I have done with mine. Every single moment of every day is a challenge because not only do I have trouble hearing simple things like my wife’s voice (without looking at her mouth as she talks), but the severity of tinnitus is sometimes debilitating and leaves me unable to function until I can forcefully trick myself into ignoring it.
Hopefully some of you will see this and make any necessary changes to prevent this from happening to you. Get your ears checked every few years, and get some molds done to wear at shows. Trust me here on this one.
Best,
dave ak1200
