Saturday 15 April 2017

Live in Balance: A to Z Challenge - M is for...

M is for...Music

Linzé Brandon, Live in Balance, Goals 2017, online journal, #atozchallenge
While doing research about happiness and the journey towards that state, I read about the need for silence. You can read more about that in the post on the letter E (click here).
What I did learn though was that many people, mostly the younger generation, wants to drown out the noise around them by playing their music loud. And I mean LOUD!
If you are a parent of a tween or teenager, you are probably nodding your head in exasperation right now. What is frightening though is the high levels of sound pressure these young people are injecting into their ear canals with their iPods and earphones. Be prepared, they will be deaf or hard of hearing, long before you, their parents.
Apparently telling them that, has the exact opposite effect - they just turn the music volume up higher.

On my sound...

Once I read about how our ears function, and the risks we are exposed to, I downloaded an app for my smartphone to measure the sound levels in my own environment. I am happy to report that they were lower than I thought. This also made me aware of the volume of my own music. Yes, I am not that young anymore, but I prefer to have my hearing still intact for years to come, so I toned down the volume of the sounds I can control, including listening to the music that I enjoy.
In my work environment, I sometimes get exposed to the firing of weapons, and on that I have to say we are diligent in wearing our hearing protection. And that is definitely a good thing since I have suffered almost no hearing loss as a result (our medical check-ups include hearing tests) of that.
You might think I don't care for the kind of music with a loud beat when in fact, I am a fan of hard rock, heavy metal, rock, pop, blues, jazz, contemporary and classical music. So yeah, I did need to lower the volume on my enjoyment of music in both my car and my iPod.
Enjoy your music, but think ahead a few years to when you still might want to hear the harmonies of your favourite songs float into your ears.

Two of my favourite songs right now (YouTube links): Second-hand heart and Sound of silence.

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