is tinnitus going to mess me up?

[tomwest19]

Hi, for as long as I can remember I've almost had a ringing in my ears. Most of the time I don't even notice it, but if I'm in a quiet room or if I try to listen for it I can always hear it. I always thought this was completely normal and that everybody had it, but I recently decided I wanted to start making music and started checking out this forum and read some stuff people posted about tinnitus. Over the past days I've started to stress about it and I feel like its gotten worse, so maybe its partly mental. Will tinnitus make it hard for me to produce music?

Also, I know people will tell me to go see a doctor, but is there anything a doctor can do about it?

 

[0128672]

Try not to stress about it. I have tinnitus and it's never been a problem working in Logic. Find some projects to distract yourself, and if it helps your peace of mind, talk to your doctor about it.

 

[MacNut]

Just learn to live with it. Nothing to fix it.

 

[casperes1996]

There are several kinds of tinnitus with different causes. Depending on what variant you have, a doctor may or may not be able to do anything about it. Some variants are psychological others have physical reasons - I will add here that I'm by no means a doctor and this is just my current understanding and I'm open to corrections.

In any case, when it comes to music productions, actually, may very talented producers, audio engineers and musicians have reduced hearing and/or tinnitus. For a lot of them it is caused by excessively loud music damaging their hearing over time - too many omit proper protection, but they can still fully do their job.

Now it may depend how you otherwise react to different frequencies but in general I'd say that you should be able to make music just fine even with tinnitus or reduced hearing, though you may need to also bring in visual waveform analysis to make sure that levels are proper for frequencies you may not pick up perfectly; Though that relates more to reduced hearing than it does tinnitus.

I'm sorry about your condition - I hope it doesn't get any worse. But I'm happy to say you'll not have to put any dreams of music production on the shelf.

 

[Huntn]

Hi, for as long as I can remember I've almost had a ringing in my ears. Most of the time I don't even notice it, but if I'm in a quiet room or if I try to listen for it I can always hear it. I always thought this was completely normal and that everybody had it, but I recently decided I wanted to start making music and started checking out this forum and read some stuff people posted about tinnitus. Over the past days I've started to stress about it and I feel like its gotten worse, so maybe its partly mental. Will tinnitus make it hard for me to produce music?

Also, I know people will tell me to go see a doctor, but is there anything a doctor can do about it?

I don’t think tinnitus will interfere with your ability to produce music.

How old are you? As with most things relating to health, you either want to be proactive and catch the things early that can be fixed, or be oblivious and maybe face a worst case scenario. Are you a gambler?

Tinnitus can or does represent a hearing loss, and an ear doctor might want to test your hearing because an unequal amount of hearing loss in one ear over the other could represent the presence of a tumor, and then they might call for an MRI. I had this happen to me, tinnitus, and because my mother had a tumor in the vicinity of her ear, they had me get an MRI. It was not a tumor, just hearing loss.

 

[eyoungren]

The thing about tinnitus is that you only hear it when the noise around you quiets down - or if it's a bad day when it's louder than the ambient noise around you.

Unless you're making ultrasonic music for dogs it's not going to affect you. Plus you'll be focused on the music you're making, rather than a sound inside your head. Distractions lose focus when we concentrate on something else.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

Yes, you should consult a doctor but know this: hearing damage is cumulative and irreversible.

That said, there are plenty of professional musicians with some level of hearing damage who are still able to excel at their jobs. While a typical person might naturally imagine rock musicians to be the type who have hearing damage, it's actually even more common in classical artists who tend to have much longer careers than rock/pop musicians.

Oh, and it's worth pointing out that Ludwig van Beethoven was profoundly deaf in the latter part of his life: when he wrote his greatest works.

 

[jparker402]

I have it. Find it kind of soothing; crickets singing me asleep at night!