Since this week, the musicians, students and teachers of the municipal music school know that their ears are under severe strain and that this can have consequences. And they now know how to prevent it.
Jean Yves Paquelet, leader of the Audition Solidarité association, has thus measured the intensity of the sound coming out of the instruments and the surprise has sometimes been considerable. For example, a saxophone happily releases some 86 decibels and even up to 100 decibels on the loudest passages. “Jean-Yves enlightened us on the functioning of the ear, its fragility and what it endures, and this will allow us to educate our students, because we became aware of the intensity of sound in a more precise way. “, underlines Nicolas Grandjean, the saxophone teacher.
When the Audition Solidarité association proposed to Christine Ottogalli, the director of the municipal music school, to come and raise students’ awareness of hearing problems, she was immediately won over: “I found this fundamental approach. , the information is provided in a fun way for children. I accepted all the more easily as this service was completely free.”
This information, Christine Ottogalli also extended it to the pupils of the Montebello school of the class of “The Orchestra at school” (OAE). More than half of the students admit that they have already experienced ringing or whistling in the ears, which are signs of hearing fatigue. “These manifestations of fatigue are felt younger and younger, a sign that the ears are being damaged earlier and earlier in the population and that it is high time to take care of it”, notes Jean-Yves Paquelet.
Since 2008, this electronic organ and saxophone teacher has already made more than 500,000 musicians aware of the fragility of the ears. It must be said that the ears are also shaken under headphones and headphones, and in everyday life.
On the humanitarian side, the association equips disadvantaged deaf and hard of hearing children to restore their hearing. For sustainable development, it participates in the recycling of more than 3,000 devices per year.