Hearing Loss Claim at Royal Opera House

[J Pearce]

A lot of orchestras are leaving an empty row between perc/brass and the next row of wind, and many are touring with wrap round acrylic shields for those in front of particularly instruments.

I'm an amateur percussionist, and often wear my moulded earplugs when playing louder repetoire, especially for things like clash cymbals and gongs/tam-tams.

Interestingly despite having worked for some fairly large organisations within 'noise creation' departments I've never had a baseline hearing test, nor been supplied with hearing PPE. Is the industry really taking this seriously enough?

[Simon Lewis]

Is the industry really taking this seriously enough?

 

Given the slightly higher profile given to this story by the press, there might be a few orchestras (or their insurers) who will start looking at this a bit more closely!

Furthermore, changes to sentencing guidelines for health and safety offences might also sharpen the corporate mind....

 

 

 

[GridGirl]

This is very, very interesting. I think the news report is perhaps a little misleading in its report of the "peak" level - the only thing that I have seen at that level was an onstage whip crack in a ballet production of Don Quixote - and they altered the whip to quieten it after that reading came in. Even a cymbal crash or big snare hit doesn't get close to that. It's also interesting that he's pinning it to one specific event because in my experience, while that may tip you over the edge, it's unlikely to be the sole cause and I would think he'd suffered damage over the years leading up to the event.

 

We work very, very hard to protect our players' hearing. We have an absolute disaster of an orchestra pit in the Opera House, plus the complications of the harbour stage as someone alluded to earlier. We have a multi-page hearing conservation policy, which is a part of our union agreement; every production is monitored for noise and I feed the results into a big complicated spreadsheet which then gives me a graph of each player's noise exposure, based on their roster for the season. If their weekly average tips over 85dB, we take steps (re-rostering, ensuring they wear earplugs - most of our players have moulded plugs which we pay for, or put in a head shield) to reduce their exposure. The harbour stage pit, oddly enough, causes us fewer problems because we pack it with acoustic blanketing and because players are mic'ed, they can often play more quietly as they're not having to balance themselves against the rest of the orchestra (we have a fantastic sound engineer to do that!). This year's harbour production is Turandot, which is one of the loudest operas in the repertoire, and thanks to being able to customise the pit (half height walls in front of brass and percussion) it's quieter than it is in our regular pit.

 

Ordinarily our brass section sits behind a wall; where we can, we leave space between percussion and the back of the orchestra (usually strings in our weird setups) but we can't always do that. The only time we take the wall away from the brass is in Mozart operas where they don't play loud stuff. We still have to use head shields in front of the percussionists; they're never the Perspex ones, as that causes mutiny from those behind them (they do as much damage as they do good by slapping the sound back at the players behind them) but soft covered ones called the GoodEar - they're made by an Australian company.

 

I do have somewhere at work a few documents about noise and hearing conservation from British companies - I'll dig them up and see if there's anything from the ROH. I would be very surprised if they didn't have a comprehensive policy though; I do know they noise monitor as I was corresponding with my opposite number there about a ballet which was brought in from there (and had some very complex percussion requirements!) and he sent me their noise readings for that ballet.

 

Certainly we do have one of the most comprehensive noise policies of any Australian orchestra - there's one orchestra who has an audiologist as a horn player and theirs is up there with ours, plus he comes to speak to us regularly, and it's paying off. One of our brass players had a hearing test reasonably recently and his results were almost identical to his results from when he first joined the orchestra nearly ten years ago.

 

A number of interesting implications here http://www.bbc.co.uk...t-arts-35938704

 

This could be viewed either way - we do not have enough accurate information. 137dBCpeak is the upper action level in CONAWR 2005 but it's not clear if it really means 'peak' as we understand it. What's needed is a noise exposure profile - preferably the one the employer should have taken when carrying out the initial risk assessment ;-) There should also be a baseline audiogram taken when the musician was hired...together with subsequent health surveillance. Without this information it would be hard to determine whether the issue of NIHL and Recruitment was due solely to exposure in this job, or if he already had hearing damage. The issue of lack of information and training may be a valid one, but we don't know what the employer actually provided.

Although such claims are commonplace in industry, it will be interesting to see how this turns out....

 

I should also add that we require new players to get a hearing test when they commence working with us, and we encourage (and pay for) annual hearing tests. Over the past twenty five years of noise monitoring we have built up a pretty comprehensive database of noise profiles for all of the common operas and a lot of the uncommon ones so we have a head start on working out noise exposure. Occasionally I do come up against an opera I have no readings for, but the music staff and library can usually recommend something similar I can use as a reference until we get the noise readings in.

 

I also think this paragraph in the Guardian report is very telling:

 

The son of a composer, from the age of 10 he spent in excess of six hours a day practising and rehearsing. He played the viola with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and BBC Symphony orchestras, before joining the prestigious Royal Opera House orchestra in 2002.

 

Long-term hearing damage is very often caused by your own instrument - our horn playing audiologist was very clear on that. It's particularly the case where you have a physical connection between your head and the instrument (so not a cello or double bass) suspect if they get in any audiologists with musical knowledge as expert witnesses, this will come up. As I said, Valkyrie might have tipped him over the edge but he'd been bashing his own ears up since the age of ten. Most of my guys wear earplugs when they practise these days.

[kitlane]

I just stumbled acrossthis PDF whilst updating some lecture notes. This is an HSE Mythbuster document from 2007. Here is a snippet.

 

Orchestras regularly play at 90-95 dB - so no more Wagner then

 

The tighter noise exposure action values will not outlaw particular pieces from orchestras' repertoires but the loudest pieces may be played less often. The aim is to protect musicians' hearing so that they can continue in their profession and go on providing pleasure to the public. The Royal Opera House for example will still do the Ring Cycle, but schedule the performances to allow the musicians recovery time in what is anyway a physically demanding work. The draft practical guide offers other suggestions in relation to suitable venues, orchestra layouts and elevating the brass so that they can be heard without having to play through five rows of fellow musicians.

[kerry davies]

Thanks to Hannah Gridgirl for the details and I make no apology for repeating this yet again;

I should also add that we require new players to get a hearing test when they commence working with us

If you don't know what your hearing is like to begin with then you can't measure a deterioration in it. Anybody and everybody who works in the noise creation business needs to get a test and, in the UK, they are free as advertised on TV.

[david.elsbury]

Think it's Anna, Kerry ;) :)

 

Yes this is interesting reading, wonder what the eventual outcome will be

[djw1981]

If I can offer a situation I am familiar with for discussion.

 

A once/twice a year event has a band (drums/bass/guitars/keys) and orchestra on stage, with a choir behind the oprchestra. Due to the band noise (despite IEMs, drum screen and guitar amps in the basement), the orchestra is mic'd up with flown foldback speakers. Due to stage shape, the band is to one side of the woodwind, the orchestral percussion is behind the woodwind, and brass to the other side of the woodwind. The conductor is very clear that this is the only layout that is acceptable to him in this venue.

 

There have been occasional complaints (over the years) from woodwind regarding the noise they receive from other musicians, which is possibly made worse by the foldback.

 

The orchestra is not fixed, with a regular core, but other musicians play as they are able. Some have thus voted with their feet and no longer play for these events.

 

The event is such that the participants first get together on the day at about 2pm, and rehearse until approx 6pm, with the event 7.30pm-9.30pm.

 

Does anyone have any advice for things we should be doing - my concern would be that any claim would currently be difficult to defend as we have no readings, but the posts above suggest that it is long term exposure which is a bigger issue.

[GridGirl]

If I can offer a situation I am familiar with for discussion.

 

A once/twice a year event has a band (drums/bass/guitars/keys) and orchestra on stage, with a choir behind the oprchestra. Due to the band noise (despite IEMs, drum screen and guitar amps in the basement), the orchestra is mic'd up with flown foldback speakers. Due to stage shape, the band is to one side of the woodwind, the orchestral percussion is behind the woodwind, and brass to the other side of the woodwind. The conductor is very clear that this is the only layout that is acceptable to him in this venue.

 

There have been occasional complaints (over the years) from woodwind regarding the noise they receive from other musicians, which is possibly made worse by the foldback.

 

The orchestra is not fixed, with a regular core, but other musicians play as they are able. Some have thus voted with their feet and no longer play for these events.

 

The event is such that the participants first get together on the day at about 2pm, and rehearse until approx 6pm, with the event 7.30pm-9.30pm.

 

Does anyone have any advice for things we should be doing - my concern would be that any claim would currently be difficult to defend as we have no readings, but the posts above suggest that it is long term exposure which is a bigger issue.

 

Some sort of shielding between percussion and woodwind. Be that individual head shields (I highly recommend the GoodEar shield - and Kolberg Percussion make something very similar) or a wall up to 1200mm high, anything will help. We're using a wall in front of percussion and behind woodwind for Opera on Sydney Harbour and it's effective enough that even for Turandot, when the 5 percussionists (plus timpani) are all making a hell of a noise almost continually, the wind players are comfortable without headshields. Here's a photo, before we bumped the pit in; we ended up taking out two of the five perspex pieces because they were so effective the conductor and the percussionists couldn't hear each other talking, and the percussionists couldn't hear any of the rest of the orchestra. The pit has about 50% of its wall surfaces covered with the acoustic blanketing - we start there and add or subtract as necessary.

 

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e26/kiwitechgirl/9E9C18B0-6C4C-469B-AECE-56AF7EBFD30A_zpsyudk1lqv.jpg

[GridGirl]

So I've had a bit of a dig around in my Noise folder at work, and found a couple of documents; one is from the BBC and was written in 1998 but is still relevant, if brief. The second one is a lot more in-depth, and more recent. Both are interesting reading and I would think that the ROH orchestra is part of the ABO, as one of the authors was the Orchestra Director there for six years.

BBC Noise Awareness leaflet.pdf

British ABO_A_Sound_Ear_II.pdf

[Simon Lewis]

Anna,

 

Many thanks for your input and the links to those documents - very useful in demonstrating that the issues were well known and documented at the time when entertainment noise became specifically identified in UK noise law*.

 

Simon Lewis

 

 

* not that entertainment noise was ever excluded from the '89 regulations....!

 

 

 

Edited April 4, 2016 by Simon Lewis

[Simon Lewis]

Does anyone have any advice for things we should be doing - my concern would be that any claim would currently be difficult to defend as we have no readings, but the posts above suggest that it is long term exposure which is a bigger issue.

 

The Purple Guide is pretty helpful... It summarises the responsibilities under "Noise" as follows:

• The Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005 apply to exposure of all employees and contractors to loud music at events.
• Although volunteers are not covered by the Noise at Work Regulations, s3 Health & Safety at Work Act does apply to them.
• The Health & Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 also applies to the exposure of the audience to loud music.
• The risks to employees and others at work from exposure to noise should be assessed.
• Exposure of employees and others to harmful noise levels should be reduced so far as is reasonably practical.
• All those with duties to control exposure to noise should communicate and co-operate with each other to manage the risk. Everyone working at events needs to take personal responsibility for their own noise exposure and to take reasonable care not to damage their own hearing or that of other people.
• There is a legal responsibility for personal hearing protection to be used in some areas if noise levels cannot be controlled at a safe level.
• Many noise control measures are simple and cost-effective.

 

 

 

[GridGirl]

The more I think about this, the more I think the player isn't that likely to be successful in his case. Everyone in the orchestral/opera world knows that Wagner is loud. When you have seventeen brass players, there's really no other way that it can be. For something of that magnitude, orchestral management will have had every possible method of PPE on standby ready to go; the original article says that he was not given proper training on how to use his 28dB earplugs. Unless they're those squishy foam ones, which do need to be rolled up tightly before putting them in your ears and you can insert them in a way that is less effective, it's not hard - stick them in until you feel them seal. I use the "Christmas tree" plugs (Etymotic ER20) when I'm playing in our orchestra big band; they're one step down from a fitted moulded plug but still pretty good, and it's really not rocket science to put them in. It's tricky without knowing the full circumstances of the case, but it seems to me that a) he should have asked for more info if he didn't know and b) really a lot of the blame can be laid at his feet. I have 70+ musicians to worry about; I can't worry about every single thing for everyone, and rely on players to come and see me if they have an issue. If I don't know they have an issue, I can't solve it. This GIF really sums up my feelings on the matter:

 

http://I.imgur.com/bZcRPFL.gif

 

(Clearly it's a performance, so not the first time this has happened - and if you saw a percussionist behind you with a giant hammer, wouldn't you try to find out when he was using it so you could write STICK FINGERS IN EARS at the appropriate moment in your part?!)

[Simon Lewis]

I suspect we will not know all the facts - unless details are reported from the case. The duties placed upon employers and employees in UK's Health and Safety at Work act; Management of Health and Safety at Work regulations and Control of Noise at Work regulations are quite specific. If the employer cannot demonstrate there having been "training and information" given to the employee it does weaken their defence (as would any alleged derogatory comments about hearing protection). It's hard to argue against these and the law works on the basis of the employer proving they acted correctly. This is where baseline hearing tests, risk assessments, in-situ measurement, noise exposure reduction methods, rotas and health surveilance is crucial.

The "you should have known it would be noisy" argument doesn't fully work because there is recognised need for people to gain work and there is not the option to necessarily select work on the basis of least noise exposure. It is more likely to work in his favour as the employer knows it's loud and ought to have done something to deal with exposure...

Although it is likely that only those details which support the musician's case are being reported, the employer's apparent defence doesn't look too good...

On the other hand, there may well be issues of contributory negligence from the musician which would weaken his case...

However, the person judging this might make a difference.... one environmental noise case where live outdoor opera was alleged to be a nuisance was deemed by the (presumingly music loving) judge as "not being a nuisance - as it would be just as loud as Opera needed to be" ;-)

 

 

 

Edited April 8, 2016 by Simon Lewis

[MarkA74]

This is an interesting story, as I've been wearing two hearing aids for the past seven years, due to work induced hearing damage.

 

I've spent all of my career (20 years in August 2016) doing corporate AV (conferences, awards shows, product launches, exhibition) & through the years of exposure to loud noise (mainly awards shows) my hearing has been damaged to the point that the audiology consultant has said that my auditory nerve basically acts like a 40dB drop on a normal hearing level, effectively like put a pad on a channel.

 

I've had contact with these "no-win-no-fee" companies & given them all the info, but neither have ever come back to me with a view to following up on a claim.

 

When you're op-ing graphics from FoH or doing camera op or followspot op on an awards show it's a bit difficult to do wearing earplugs!

 

Pity I can't seem to claim, as a few grand would be very handy! :-)

Edited May 5, 2016 by MarkA74

[GridGirl]

I wonder how this case is progressing. It was brought back to mind because my colleagues and I had a long chat with the audiologist who does all our hearing tests and fitted earplugs this week - we've been sending people to him for ages but had never actually met the guy. Turns out he's a death metal drummer when he's not being an audiologist! Anyway, we discussed this claim and he reckons that without a baseline hearing test from when the player started at the ROH, it would be very unlikely that the damage can be pinned on them. And even then, if the workplace had issued him with earplugs and a directive to use them, they have done all they can. I'm sitting in the orchestra "pit" currently (we're actually out of the pit and in a studio - singers are on the front steps of the building!) and noticed one player has tissue paper wadded up in his ears. I KNOW he has proper fitted earplugs because I sent him the referral to get them, but I can't force him to wear them. And wadded up tissue paper isn't going to do a damn thing for his hearing.