Hello my friends and welcome back to my 3rd article. After talking about the Guitar Technique and our gear, it’s time to talk about a very serious subject: our health! This Subject is very long. So I decided to break this article into at least 2 parts. In this first part I’ll talk about problems of our ears and our spine and in the 2nd, about the problems of our hands. I have read many times about health issues but never because I wanted to write about it. When i decided that this is the subject for this month’s article, I honestly started a small research reading medical articles as well!  Hope you have some benefit from this article. Lets get started..

EAR PROBLEMS

Yes my friends… unfortunately music can cause some serious damage to our ears,even deafness!

This doesn’t happen in one second or minute. Its the result of continouus exposure in high volume for years.To write it as simple as it goes, lets say that when you start (listening or playing music or both), your ears are at 100% of their abilities. After a few years of being exposed in high voltage your ears will fall at arround 90%-95% of their abilities depending on the exposure you had. After a few more years you’ll fall to 80%-85% and so on, and until you haven’t see it coming you will not have the ability to listen to some of the basic frequences. And if this situation continues you’ll loose more frequences faster!

Now, If you’re not a musician, you can just start protecting yourself by not exposing your ears that often in high voltage (I know sometimes you just WANT to listen to your favorite artists as loud as possible, but doing this once in a while won’t destroy your ears) and you are set for life.

BUT: Being a musician is a completely different story. For us, listening music is not just a pleasure, it’s a way to develop our abilities. And in case you’re a touring musician who plays a lot of shows every year and rehearse a lot the danger is even bigger. The exposure is even bigger and you have to do something if you don’t want to have serious problems.

THE SOLUTION: If the problem has already started and you’ ve lost a part of your listening abilities,unfortunately… you lost it forever!! It doesn’t come back.So if you want to protect what’s left or, if you just start now and want to protect yourself from future issues which is the best, the are some ways to do it.

1. Earplugs

There are plenty kinds of earplugs.Most people,when they listen about earplugs, imagine this.

Unfortunately, this a very cheap indeed solution but they are not doing much of a work for you. They mostly decrease the very high frequences,not the high volume which is what we need. What you have to for is something like this.

Made for noise reduction this type of earplugs are a little bit more expensive but they are going an amazing job.

2.Listening Music in Lower Volume. 

I know! What I’m suggesting is difficult,but you can listen to music very loud every once in a while,not everyday.Remember! It’s the every day exposure that causes the problem not just listening music loud once in a while.

SPINE

Another great issue that can be caused in many kinds if musicians.(Guitarists,Pianists,drummers etc)

According to a research I read from a Greek University (Anastasios Christodoulou ,Professor of Orthopaedics at the Medical School of AUTH), musicians suffer very often from painful syndroms of the spine. The base of the them are the repetitive microinjuries.

More specifically, musicians suffer from mysculosceletal disorders in frequencies ranging from 39% – 87%. In other statistics 82% of the musicians (of the research) mentioned at least onemysculosceletal issue, 76% of them admitting that its very affective to their performance (not to mention their life).

The main reason for the spine problems is the bad position of the body during practicing or performing, so make sure that you have the right position when you play.

THE SOLUTION: You feel pain at your spine, back or whatever else in your body while playing? Well here is the solution: Stop asking musicians and go to the expert for this kind of problems: they are called doctors! Visit one of them before your problem get’s worse!

EPILOGUE

That was it my friends. The first part has come to an end.I really hope you had some benefit from reading this. I’ll see you next month,this time talking about the hand problems of the guitarists.

Wish you all Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Have a great time.

Written by Gus Drax.