Candy Aid Musicians Fund has partnered with Sweetwater to launch a brand new initiative geared toward tackling one of the outstanding well being crises dealing with the music business right now: noise-induced listening to loss.
Unveiled this week, the Listening to Well being Fund offers musicians and music business professionals with free listening to screenings and high-fidelity earplugs in an effort to curb the persistent subject, which impacts hundreds annually.
Based on the Candy Aid Musicians Fund, roughly 40% of musicians and music business staff expertise noise-induced listening to loss. The danger is especially acute for dwell performers, audio engineers and venue workers, a lot of whom function in environments that frequently exceed protected decibel ranges.
The problem, nevertheless, extends to the broader music neighborhood as properly. A 2023 EDM.com poll discovered that almost 50% of music pageant attendees don’t put on ear safety, underscoring a wider lack of adherence to finest practices at dwell occasions.
The Listening to Well being Fund will present a free three-part listening to screening administered by licensed audiologists. Along with a overview of outcomes and training round listening to preservation, recipients will obtain Etymotic ER-20XS Excessive Constancy Earplugs, designed to guard listening to with out compromising the listening expertise.
“Screening is crucial to defending musicians from listening to loss as a result of as soon as the injury is completed, there’s no going again to ‘regular,'” stated Dr. Todd Web page, Sweetwater’s in-house doctor. “It’s heartbreaking telling a fellow musician their tinnitus isn’t fixable; that it’s too late to reverse it, and all they will do is adapt and attempt to preserve it from progressing.”
Sweetwater, finest often called one of many world’s largest on-line retailers of musical devices and equipment, additionally offers immersive sound experiences for venues and stadiums throughout the nation. The corporate’s funding within the fund displays a broader mission to assist not solely sound high quality, but in addition the well-being of those that create it.
The Listening to Well being Fund is offered now via Candy Aid Musicians Fund. Full particulars may be discovered on the group’s official website.
