Play it by ear – as long as you can

Let the music play – but not at the expense of your hearing. That’s the message that comes from research showing that professional musicians are almost four times more likely to suffer from noise-induced deafness than the general public. Not only that, they are 57 per cent more likely to have tinnitus, which is not exactly sweet music to anyone’s ears. The online journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine has published research gathered over a four-year study period of more than seven million German citizens. During this period, just under 284.000 cases of hearing loss were recorded, 238 (0.08 per cent)…