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My right ear often buzzes when I am playing at louder volumes and occasionally when I am in the car. I try to keep it fairly clean and my hearing is OK. I was wondering if anyone else has this issue.

Don't worry, it is probably just tinnitus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus" target="_blank" target="_blank

It isn't harmful, nothing to be alarmed about. You probably mildly damaged your hearing while you were younger, there is no cure. Tinnitus is VERY common, extremely. To show you how common it is, here is a quote from the wiki.

Heller and Bergman (1953) conducted a study of 80 tinnitus-free university students placed in an anechoic chamber and found that 93% reported hearing a buzzing, pulsing or whistling sound. Cohort studies have demonstrated that damage to hearing (among other health effects) from unnatural levels of noise exposure is very widespread in industrialized countries

I could be wrong, so I would just mention this to a doctor on your next check up, probably nothing to be alarmed about... but if you are paranoid, you COULD schedule an appointment.

randy westmoreland wrote:My right ear often buzzes when I am playing at louder volumes and occasionally when I am in the car. I try to keep it fairly clean and my hearing is OK. I was wondering if anyone else has this issue.

Get your Eustachian tubes checked.

Have you noticed the circumstances of the experiences in the car? Do they happen when there are major shifts in elevation?

Klaus

Hi Randy.

There are a couple of things that may be involved. Is there a specific pitch where this occurs? Personally, my skull is pitched at A so if I play an A really loudly my vision blurs a bit because of the skull vibrating sympathetically with the pitch.

You may be having some of the vibration from the embouchure traveling up the eustachian tubes as stated earlier, and this would be normal. It is also possible that you are getting some "ringing" due to too much of the embouchure buzz traveling up the tubes and impacting the tympanic membrane. This would cause a period of overexposure to sound waves and result in some ringing.

It's also possible there is a pressure situation occurring, pitting pressure on the membrane and mimicking an overexposure situation. Do you often drive with a fan on in the car? There would be pressure changes from the interior of the car and from altitude changes (as stated earlier). When you are driving, change things around as far as where the air is going from the vents and see if there is a change over time. If you are driving with the driver's side window cracked a bit, the wind noise and tire noise from certain types of harder compound tires CAN cause over exposure.

If the window is cracked a bit be very cautious. In colder weather this could make you prone to Bell"s palsy, also known as "Cab Driver's Syndrome", because of the colder air hitting one side of the face more on a regular basis. Just a little trivia there.

Let me know if all of this raises questions. Just my $0.02. I wish you the best. Give me a call when you have a moment.

Roger

I have been on this list a LONG time and have seen a lot of people asking for a LOT of advice. This one is easy.

Don't ask a bunch of tuba players who do not know you and have never seen you. You are playing around with your hearing! RUN, don't walk to you physician and do what they tell you! Don't look for advice from anyone else!

You should see a ear specialist about this. I've suffered for years with this ringing problem and most recently balance issues too. My doctor is a specilaist in the field of Otolarnology,Ototlogy/Neurology. He has solved my balance problem and he also identified another problem that was causing hearing lose in my left ear that other missed.

When I was a kid I had "tubes" put in my ears several times. All those tubes caused scar tissue to form on my eardrums. That is the cause of my tinnitus and it is permanant. I also suffer from the "buzzing". But mine is usually caused by high pitches.

While going to this specialist for the balance problem he also discovered that my left eardrum had collapsed. I've been dealing with a hearing lose in that ear for a long time. I thought it was becasue of the tubes so I never really pursued the issue. He has done surgery to repair the ear drum and I am currently waiting for the ear to heal to find out how much of my hearing has been restored. The point is he was the only one who had the training to recognize the problem.

My right ear became afflicted with tinnitus many years ago, a ringing, out-of-tune Bb. Talk about an un-handy pitch for a musician! As others mentioned, it was caused by too much exposure to loud noises, such as bands and tools that emit sharp, percussive, loud sounds. And, no, there is nothing that doctors can do for it; mine is annoying, but has never progressed to the stage where I need to mask it with white noise in order to sleep. Unfortunately, the tinnitus is probably directly related to my subsequent loss of hearing which has led to the wearing of hearing aids---the same loud noises cause both problems. Basically, any noise which causes pain or discomfort has just caused irreversible damage, little bit by little bit. Needless to say, I really wish I'd worn hearing protection before it was too late!
Good luck with the doctors.