If hosts were aware that they were causing irreversible damage to the hearing of their friends and family, they might be more adamant about turning down the volume.
By YAKIR FELDMANWedding (photo credit: ING IMAGE/ASAP)
Weddings should be consecrated, inspirational occasions where friends and relatives gather to witness and give best wishes to two people who care for each other as they embark on a lifelong commitment.Weddings should be memorable and joyful events, with music playing a key role in setting the tone and mood.Unfortunately, at too many weddings, music plays a more sinister role. The music is often so loud that communication between guests sitting at the same table can be achieved only by shouting. Other guests, overwhelmed by the noise to the point of suffering discomfort and sometimes pain, seek refuge by huddling in restrooms, distant parts of the venue and even outside the hall.Some celebrants are able to tolerate remaining in the main hall only by stuffing their ears with cotton or more sophisticated earplugs. Is this really what wedding hosts want for people they care about? On occasion, assertive individuals suffering from the excessive noise approach the host or band leader and plead with them to lower the volume, but their pleas almost always fall on deaf ears (pardon the expression). These guests generally receive no more than a sheepish “What can I do?” grin and shrug of the shoulders. If hosts were aware, however, that they were causing irreversible damage to the hearing of their friends and family, perhaps they would take action and simply turn a knob a bit to the left to bring the noise level below the threshold of pain and damage.Loud noises can cause both temporary and permanent hearing loss, as well as other issues, such as tinnitus, a condition in which the sufferer is plagued by perpetual, unceasing disturbing noises, even though no actual sound is present.How can noise cause hearing loss? The human hearing system depends on sensory cells in the inner ear that bear hairlike, delicate microscopic projections whose function is to convert sound waves to nerve impulses that the brain can interpret as recognizable sounds. Damage to these fragile elements impairs our ability to hear, and a primary cause of that damage is excessive noise.Noise-induced hearing loss is gradual and cumulative, so one generally is not aware of it while it is happening. It develops imperceptibly over a period of years. Once damage occurs, however, the hearing loss is permanent.There is no known treatment; no medication, surgery or even hearing aid can truly correct hearing damaged by noise.SOUND IS measured in decibels. Just as a thermometer goes below zero, so does the decibel scale. Zero dB denotes not absolute silence but, rather, the lowest level of sound that is discernible to the average human (people with exceptional hearing can hear sounds as low as minus 15 dB). A soft whisper is about 20 dB. Normal speech is about 60 dB; a noisy vacuum cleaner is about 70 dB.The decibel scale is logarithmic; for every increase of three decibels, the sound is twice as loud. That is why we hear huge differences between, for instance, 70 dB and 85 dB. The 15-decibel gap means the noise is approximately 32 times louder.
The upper 70s are considered annoyingly loud to most people. A passenger car zooming by you at 105 kilometers an hour creates noise of about 77 dB. A garbage disposal tips the scale at about 80 dB and a loud motorcycle can reach 90 dB.At what point does damage to our ears occur? A “Dangerous Decibels” research study published by a consortium of universities from the US, New Zealand and Singapore created guidelines factoring in both decibel levels and exposure time. For example, the average human ear can tolerate 85 dB for up to eight hours before damage begins to occur.From that benchmark, the permissible exposure time is halved for each additional three decibels. Thus, most people can safely hear 88 dB for four hours; 91 dB for two hours; and 94 decibels for up to a single hour. By extension, 112 dB is likely to damage one’s hearing in less than a minute.This is confirmed by the US National Institute of Health’s National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders: “Long or repeated exposure to sounds at or above 85 decibels can cause hearing loss. The louder the sound, the shorter the amount of time it takes for noise-induced hearing loss to happen.”Accordingly, the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration mandates that employers must provide hearing protection in work sites where the noise exceeds 85 decibels and imperils workers.ARE WEDDINGS in Israel dangerous to our health? Theoretically, no. The reason that weddings in our country should not be harmful to us is that a law that went into effect in 2006 requires catering halls to install decibel meters to govern the noise generated by bands. If the level exceeds 85 decibels, the power supply to the band is supposed to be automatically cut off. By law, failure to install the device should cause the catering hall to lose its operating license. The Environmental Protection Ministry noted that the law was necessary because the average level of noise from music at weddings was in excess of 100 dB – with peaks even beyond that.One hundred dB of noise, according to the international consortium findings, can begin to cause irreversible hearing damage in less than 15 minutes.Unfortunately, there is a gap between legal theory and ear-pounding reality. When In Jerusalem went to an event hall near our Jaffa Road offices to ask about noise-level safeguards, the manager flatly refused to respond (“I don’t speak with journalists”).We returned to the hall the same evening while wedding music was blasting and switched on three different decibel meters that we downloaded onto our cellphones.While we cannot attest to the accuracy of the decibel meter applications, we can report that, standing in the back of the hall near the exit, far away from the band’s loudspeakers, all three meters registered noise level peaks well above 85 dB. At no point was the power supply to the band diminished. If there is a law-mandated noise control device in the establishment, it apparently was not activated that evening or did not work. Decibel meter app We contacted a local musician and got an explanation.“Even though halls install these legally mandated decibel meters, the bands get around them by arriving at the venue with their own equipment. Even if they connect to the hall-provided PA system, that system is entirely redundant.“From the band’s perspective, a sudden loss of power to all of their delicate equipment is potentially extremely damaging. At the very least, booting it all up again and getting it back into balance is a lengthy process. A band cannot take that risk.“Also, there are huge differences in sound quality between different amplification systems. Bands carefully tune their instruments to their amplifiers so that the balance is – to their ears – optimal. Some bands even come with their own sound man, whose job it is to set the ‘sound stage.’ He cannot work with a different system every night! And if the hall amplification system fails, the band – not the hall – will be blamed.”So, basically, the amplification system provided (by law) by the hall is an expensive red herring.“Nearly all band musicians wear expensive custom-made earplugs while playing,” the musician further noted, “precisely because they know that continuous exposure to loud noise can damage their hearing.Yet they don’t extend this courtesy to their clients, whose unprotected ears are out in front of the speakers, not behind them!” WHAT IS it like to suffer from hearing loss? Celebrants dancing in front of mega-speakers blaring loud music may not be thinking about consequences they may have to deal with later in life, but an Israeli in his 60s living in New Jersey shared with In Jerusalem how his life – both professional and personal – has been impacted as his impaired sense of hearing increasingly deteriorates.“I currently have low-frequency hearing loss, along with tinnitus, which in my case sounds like a roaring rush of a jet engine that is always on in the left ear and a kind of galloping or throbbing sound in the right ear. I recently voluntarily gave up my job because the tinnitus can mask almost all other sound, especially speech. We did a lot of work with offshore people, and I couldn’t hear conversations well enough via the phone lines and Skype. I just couldn’t hear; it was extremely distressing.“I went into a kind of panic about not being able to work, like never again forever, so I freaked out a bit.I have to deal with what I have left now. My hearing is not coming back. There is a surgery (cochlear implant) to connect an artificial hearing aid directly to the inner ear nerves, but it’s still catastrophic and no medical person would recommend it now (maybe later).Anatomical view detailing the fragile components of the human inner ear“The best prognosis is ‘no change’ from the current state, but since last spring I’ve been feeling an inexorable decline in my ability to hear, coupled with a loss of comprehension.Even when I can hear sounds, I cannot discern enough words to make sense of what a person is saying. For example, I try to have conversations with my son, but he has a modern male way of mumbling and speaking in low tones, so I hear a murmur, not distinct words. It’s very frustrating.”HOW CAN you protect your hearing? As with pregnancy, the most effective solution is abstinence: Avoid exposure to damaging noise levels entirely.If you must venture into loud venues such as wedding halls, ear protectors can mitigate the strength of the noise reaching the sensitive parts of the inner ear. The most effective protection, totally blocking the ear canal, can reduce noise by 15 decibels or more. Cotton or inexpensive foam earplugs have less value, and may reduce the noise by only 7 decibels or less.Very effective professional earmuffs are also available, but one would hardly want to sit at a wedding table wearing them.You can also distance yourself from the offensive loud speakers by moving to another room or going outside the hall entirely.Another approach is to download a free decibel meter onto your phone and show the band leader or hall manager when the legal limit is being exceeded. If no remedial action is taken after your complaint, insist on your legal rights and communicate your intention to report the incident to the relevant authorities.Custom-fitted silicon earplug worn by a musician for protection from loud sounds during performancesFor the sake of the next generation, if you spot babies or young children being exposed to noise at damaging levels, inform the parents of the long-term danger. Even the most caring parents who invest in costly car seats, baby monitors and so forth may not be aware of the danger they are exposing their children to in a wedding hall.If you are invited to a wedding, let the host know in advance that volume is a serious concern, and if you are having a wedding, inform the venue and the performers that you will not tolerate a situation in which you may inflict irreparable harm on your friends and family.One father of a bride recently wrote into the contract with the band that every time he had to ask them to lower the volume to within legal levels, he would subtract NIS 500 from his final payment to them.Not surprisingly, there was no infraction that night.