How Would You Guys Take This Musician's Response Regarding Tinnitus?

So I wrote to a musician I am a big fan of recently and here is what I wrote:

I'm a big fan of yours and luv your playing. Unfortunately in September I ended up getting Tinnitus after playing. I never knew the seriousness of this condition. I am not blaming you but i wish that in your lessons you would warn players about this condition and the importance of ear protection at all times while playing. It could have helped me alot if all the drummers I looked up to warned me.

His response:

Well, this information has been common knowledge for decades. So be careful addressing others about this as you have addressed me. Cigarettes are bad for you, so is repeated loud noises, etc.

How would you guys take this? All of my friends who play music had no clue what Tinnitus was until I told them. I respect the guy and his ability but this is far from common knowledge. Really torn by the response to be honest.

 

I am with you on this one, just look at how many people wear plugs at concerts. Maybe 5% if that says it all.

 

My form of ear protection was tissue in the ears when i first started. Then i got the cheap plugs that i could never fit in my ear completely. I never thought anything about playing for 10 minutes without protection on. Out of all my close friends i was the one that always protected my ears when we played.

 

It sounds to me like he doesn't have tinnitus, and therefore does not think much about it.

I'm sure we all do things that can have certain consequences, but we aren't really aware of it until it happens. Someone with tinnitus is definitely more likely to warn about the dangers of it than someone without.

His reply could have been friendlier, and I believe he should've thanked you for your advice instead.

 

It does sound a bit like you are blaming him , even though you say you are not .
There should be more awareness I agree but I do see why he would respond like that to be honest.

 

To be fair, he might have left like OP is blaming him for his health problems.

 

All he had to say is im srry to hear that and i didnt realize it wasn't as well known as it should be. Will do what I can and thanks for being a fan. Now I understand why there is such a lack of awareness out there. sad world

 

Really, he's right. Many of us who are musicians simply should have known better but you tend to get caught up in the heat of it all.

 

I would argue that many of us figured we might have some hearing difficulties but not Tinnitus and Hyperacusis. Its a totally different beast and it goes unmentioned everywhere. Every type of place that has music at levels of 90 - 100 decibels should provide guests with ear plugs. Nobody should be suffering with this condition if people were properly taught about it. He made references to cigarettes which has tons of more awareness including infomercials which I could go back to in my years as a kid at freaking 8 years old. There is nothing on Tinnitus which is what makes his comment sound terrible, narcissistic, and stupid.

 

So it goes unmentiond everywhere , yet this guy should have said something ?

 

Of course..why should he not? Thats the problem and thats why many of us are here on this site.

 

Yes it is the reason i amd many others are here but you can't pin it down to this one person.

 

No I am not...I did say I wasnt blaming him...I am saying that by him and other drummers providing awareness it can help others especially since he makes a living partly off of video lessons. I am not blaming him but I am definitely taken back by his response.

 

Right:

and

As soon as you put "but" after "I'm not blaming" most people are going to interpret this as a passive aggressive way of blaming.

If you want a different response in the future, you might appeal the to need to spread awareness without using the word "blame".

 

I appreciate your help but without cutting out excerpts of what I wrote and actually reading the full thing you can clearly see I am coming off as a fan. I clearly said I am a big fan of yours and love your playing. There should have been no reason to take this out of context. It was simply asking him to raise awareness.

 

I would take it as: he is not interested in personally warning other people. Also, it can be hard to get the nuances of what someone means when you are having a written conversation. Seems like you both may have misunderstood the other.

I appreciate that you were well-intentioned, @Jomo. But I would just let it go.

 

With all due respect: that's what you wanted to express, not exactly what you achieved.

Unfortunately, you sound a little passive aggressive and that made him go all defensive.

I'm not talking about the content, just wording.

Edit: I think Im not clear either. I absolutely understand what you wanted to say, I 100% support you, I just think it all didn't go as planned.

 

Honestly I'd feel a bit blamed if someone wrote those words to me. I suspect you really wanted to recruit him to the cause of better awareness, and some stepping-up from those in the field to help more with that. You may even have actually achieved that by pissing him off. You may have made him think more about the subject once the reflexive pissiness wore off. Could still be a win.

 

I don't blame you feeling a little stung following his reply @Jomo. I would be too!

He should talk to some of the young tinnitus sufferers here on TT, who haven't had the benefit of decades of his 'common knowledge'.

'So be careful addressing others about this as you have addressed me'. What! Such an arrogant and dismissive response. Does he think you are going to sue him?

Perhaps you could send him the statements of some seriously big time musicians like Sting, Chris Martin, producer George Martin or Mark Ronson, the latter being one of the faces of British public education initiative Plug 'Em. Each of them, sufferers of either tinnitus or hearing loss, could teach this fellow a bit about humility and graciousness, rather than patronisation.

And speaking of lawsuits, I suspect one or two successful high profile legal actions against concert or club management, for damage to hearing, would create a rapid shift in public awareness of and protection from loud music. Moreso than all of the pleading for attention that goes on now. It would become in management's best interest to become proactive. Unfortunately, an individual proving culpability in a court of law would be nigh on impossible.

I remember many years ago, hearing of a person suing I believe, Bruce Springsteen's concert management company, for hearing loss reputedly sustained at one of his shows. I never heard of an outcome. I suspect it wasn't successful.

 

@Jomo

Although you didn't mean to blame him for your tinnitus, it does come across that way in the manner that you have structured your letter and hence his rather curt response: "Well, this information has been common knowledge for decades. So be careful addressing others about this as you have addressed me".

One has to try and be careful before mailing a letter, more so when it's sent in electronic form by email. Once the send button is clicked it cannot be changed. Before I mail a letter or send an email, especially if it's going to be long, I always write a series of drafts and print them. I go over what I've written looking for errors and making sure I have the right tone of voice. It can be quite enlightening when you print something on paper it reads completely different to what you've read on a computer monitor.

Just a suggestion: when writing an important letter or writing to someone that you don't know, always print the letter to paper and read it allowed. The ear is much better than the eyes at picking out faults and making sure that you have the right tone of voice.

Michael

 

Its probably unwinnable as things are now, but if there were regulations that stated that sound levels had to be at least pre-advised, if not actually limited, then that would place an accountability on the part of the giver of the concert that, if breached would then result in a legitimate claim for injury. Problem 2, getting medical validation for tinnitus as an injury deserving of compensation. That casts my mind back to the famously obscure Dr Fernandez in Sydney (an ENT) who told the NSW Law Society that compensation for tinnitus was "problematic" because sufferers tended to be that "type of personality" anyway.

 

You're right @PaulBe!
It's quite incredible to me that workplaces are subject to all sorts of requirements to provide warnings and protections about noise exposure from machinery and power tools, yet no such warnings or limitations seem to apply to places such as music venues. The only noise limiters I've ever seen in music venues, seem to be for the benefit of the neighbours surrounding a pub or bar, not the people actually inside. In some music venues, sound can spike up to 120db, but you'd never know.

As for concerts, no warnings are written on tickets, terms and conditions or at the actual concert sites. And certainly never forthcoming from the artists themselves.

Policing noise limits in clubs would be problematic too. You would literally need to have Environmental Protection Officers spot checking venues with db meters. That's why I fantasised about bringing legal action against venue managements. No one takes notice unless their bottom line is threatened.

As for Dr. Fernandez, well he could say that in times when scientific evidence was lacking. But in days when tinnitus is/will be definitively measurable with tools such as fMRI or better, we will be taken more seriously than simply that 'type of personality'.

 

Liam Gallagher said of course he has tinnitus and he is fucking proud of it :-/

 

Ha yes he did I remember that. Noel also has it, theres an interview with talksport i think on youtube where he discusses it.

 

Wonder how bad they actually have it though to not be that arsed by it. Years of concerts and I got it after 1 loud night club. Fuck my life. Ha ha.

 

he said it in 2010, but back then I think the Law Society was looking for a convenient opinion.

 

Could well be a moderate case but then both of them don't have full time jobs to go to, thats a huge weight lifted off. That club you went to was most probablt the straw that broke the camels back.

 

He's being defensive. Kind of a jerk.

 

When I was 17, I went to concert with my 14 year old brother and a couple of his friends. We didn't even consider wearing earplugs and certainly had never heard of tinnitus. When we got out we had temporary hearing loss. Fortunately, I was the only one who developed tinnitus. That was 23 years ago and I have a feeling that not much has changed in terms of awareness, especially among youth. Playing those levels of sound should be illegal. It's most certainly child abuse to allow kids to attend these events.

 

Not common knowledge at all. The cycle keeps repeating itself.