The University of Colorado is protecting student musicians’ hearing

Authored by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition

The CU Boulder Today newspaper reported that members of the University of Colorado’s Golden Buffalo Marching Band are having their hearing protected, thanks to a collaboration of doctoral students in the college’s Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and Westone Laboratories. The collaboration offers student musicians custom-molded hearing protection at a discounted rate.

Photo credit:  Jack Carey

Noise-induced hearing loss is an occupational hazard for professional musicians playing all sorts of music, from classical to rock to those in marching bands. It’s a good thing that the doctoral students involved in this effort recognized the problem and took action to deal with it. 

My only quibble with the program in Colorado is that the marching band members shouldn’t have to pay for their hearing protection. This seems like something the university should provide. All other colleges and universities with marching bands — and high schools, too — should consider implementing similar programs. At the very least, universities should supply commercially-available hearing protection, if not the better but more expensive custom-molded ones.