A banjo player finds success with Bernafon’s Live Music Plus
(photo Jens Kruger)
By Bruce Bowen, Association of Adult Musicians with Hearing Loss Updated
I am a 5-string banjo player and I posted in the past about some of my experiences trialing Siemens and Oticon aids.
I finally ran across the article by Hockley, Bahlmann and Marshall Chasin entitled ‘Programming hearing instruments to make live music more enjoyable’ at the Hearing Journal vol 63 issue 9 pp 30 to 38.
This article discusses the test of Bernafon’s Live Music Plus using real musicians. Now this is good science.
I highly recommend this article to hearing impaired musicians. In fact I wish this site would put up a ‘sticky’ notice with the above articles web address. I consider it a must read.
Bernifon Vérité 9
The banjo is a loud instrument and easily overloaded the circuitry in the Siemens and Oticon aids which caused distortion which could not be corrected.
My 5 years old Phonaks were a little better but also produced distortion. It appears that the Bernafon Co. listened to Mr. Chasin and came up with ‘Live Music Plus’. I am happy to say that it works.
The banjo puts out around 85dB at 2 1/2 feet but the Vérité 9 model I am trying really works. The banjo sounds like a banjo again and distortion is not much of a problem. The right side works great. As my left ear is more impaired than the right I get a little distortion in both speech and music modes from the additional recommended amplification but I am confident that fine tuning will take of it.
I am also on the V.A. ‘s medical program and if there are other veterans out there who have hearing problems and are musicians or music lovers the Bernafon’s are available through the V.A. system. You need the models with a “9” in the name as this designates ‘Live Music Plus”. My audiologist also likes the programming software and the graphics on the computer screen are large and easy to read.
I used to think that all one needed to do was get a pair of hearing aids, get them adjusted and that would be that. In the age of digital hearing devices, it does not work that way for people that enjoy live music.
Speech versus music
Marshall Chasin’s articles have been very valuable in pointing out that there are different parameters for human speech and for music.
Most of the hearing aid companies make aids for speech rather than for music/musicians. I would guess that they figured out that the percentage of musicians is rather small in the perspective customer population. I hope you have time to review some of Marshall Chasin’s articles.
At jam sessions I’ve had people walk up, glance at my ears and walk away. I guess they saw the hearing aids and figured that this guy can’t possibly be a musician even though I’ve played for 30 years plus.
There are also older musicians in my area who would not be caught dead with a hearing aid and choose to use amplication for their instruments/voices. While this may be a cheaper option in the short run because amps cost less than hearing aids, the added volume may cause them to loose their remaining hearing even faster.
I play mostly bluegrass and out of a local jamming population of about 2 dozen people ( many over age 60 ) I’m the only one with hearing aids. The stigma about hearing aids is real.
Another area which has been getting more attention these days is the knowledge level of audiologists. I was fortunate in having an audiologist at my local V.A. clinic who was willing to learn with me about the different options available.
Audiologists are trained with respect to human speech but not necessarily in area of music. So basically it took about a year of reading articles, trying different brands of aids and then discovering that Bernafon made the series 9 aids that were designed with a real live music option.
Thanks again to Marshall Chasin for his untiring work in this area. It made a real difference for me.
All the best-Banjo Bruce, email 4buffalobruce “at” shasta.com
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