Happy National Protect Your Hearing Month! October is a great time for us to celebrate all things eerie (get it? ear-ie?) and to conclude our five-part series on the National Hearing Conservation Association (NHCA). Our guest, Caleb Kronen is an audiologist and director of Hearing Conservation at the Marion Downs Center in Denver, Colorado. This ep…

Cory Portnuff is a one-person institution within the National Hearing Conservation Association: he is a regular presenter at NHCA meetings, frequent council member, unofficial conference audio/visual expert, and co-author of the NHCA Position Statement on Recreational Music Exposure. In his day job, he is a clinical audiologist at the University of…

Don Finan needs no introduction to the NHCA listeners, nor those hailing from the University of North Colorado where he serves as the chair of the Communication Sciences & Disorders department. He is a favorite presenter at conferences, a talented photographer, a skilled guitarist, and a creative professor. To open a small window into his world and…

Colleen Le Prell is our guest to continue the series spotlighting the National Hearing Conservation Association (NHCA). Colleen wears a great many hats including: NHCA past president; the Speech, Language, and Hearing Department head at University of Texas at Dallas; and the faculty mentor of the students from her UT Dallas Noise Lab whom we featur…

Talking Ears Season 3 begins with a five-part series spotlighting the National Hearing Conservation Association (NHCA). Brendan Fitzgerald, past guest and friend of the show, joins Juan and Frank to discuss the 2024 conference, but the episode revolves around the voices of five inspiring audiology graduate students: Brynn Stevens (2024 NHCA confere…

This special episode of Talking Ears is a spotlight edit of episode 22 which focuses on the work of CAOHC, the Council for Accreditation in Occupational Hearing Conservation. Now in its 50th year in the current form, the organization’s history is inspiring and carries a heavy responsibility. With its roots in interdisciplinary education and advocac…

Our guest Terry Tyson is a principal acoustician at Acentech and serves on the CAOHC (Council for Accreditation of Occupational Hearing Conservation) council as the representative of INCE (Institute of Noise Control Engineering). We'll unravel all those acronyms, and use those threads to connect his musical life playing guitar in the premier southe…

Peter Dankelson wears many hats: award-winning author, motivational speaker, social media inspiration, and killer rock guitarist. His attitude is infectious, his perspective is eye-opening, and his playing is world-class. We focused on his music life and barely scratched the surface of his amazing medical journey which set the stage for the convers…

"This week on Gig Gab, dive deep into the world of hearing health with Frank Wartinger, a renowned music audiologist and podcaster! Wartinger emphasizes the importance of protecting your ears, especially for musicians and avid music fans... Wartinger and Hamilton remind listeners that in the world of music, it’s crucial to “Always Be Performing,” b…

If you are in the music industry, you are likely eligible for a no-cost hearing wellness consultation paid for by MusiCares, the non-profit arm of the recording academy. I'm this episode, Juan and Frank explain the details and discuss aspects of the recent video panel of audiologists, but please go to Tunedcare.com to check your eligibility and sch…

EmmoLei Sankofa is prolific and busy, but she was kind enough to take the time to chat with Talking Ears! In this episode, the composer of some of your favorite soundtracks (recent credits including Three Ways, Lizzo’s Watch Out For The Big Grrrls, Step Up Season 3, The Other Black Girl, and Project CC) shares her thoughts on storytelling through s…

While it is true that Brendan Fitzgerald is a fellow audiologist and is on the University of Buffalo clinical faculty, we spend almost our entire hour together discussing his work as the director of the contemporary music ensemble Wooden Cities. We ask Brendan to elaborate on what it means to have intention in live performances, how community and t…

Danielle DePalma is a world-class mixing engineer, the production manager of the legendary Bowery Ballroom in NYC, and a dear friend. She's toured with, recorded, mixed, and produced concerts for practically everyone you can name so it was tough to pick only a few, but in this episode we focus on the music of past and current collaborators Mercy Be…

Wayne Tucker is a trumpet player, singer, songwriter, composer, and soon to be author. He has shared the stage with household names such Taylor Swift, Ne-Yo and David Crosby, and jazz artists like Al Foster, Cyrille Aimee, and Kurt Elling. Since 2016, he's been releasing albums of his own compositions and songs. Wayne is also a founding member of B…

Dr. Matt Bell is an audiologist who has written and taught extensively on the subject of 'Audiologic Management of Musicians'. He has inspired countless audiology graduate students, and many of his students have gone on to do great work in the field of music audiology... we're looking at you, Juan Vasquez, co-producer of Talking Ears! Juan takes th…

Good news! Talking Ears won the 2023 NHCA Media Award. This is an incredibly meaningful award for Frank and Juan as we consider the National Hearing Conservation Association our primary professional organization as hearing conservationists and music audiologists. The NHCA Media Award was established in 1993 to recognize the efforts of creators who …

Kitten Kuroi has traveled the world as a featured singer with some of the biggest names in music, and we're thrilled that she took the time to sit down to talk with us about her ears! In this episode, we discuss how her career got started and the proactive approach she uses to keep her ears sharp while on the road year after year. She also shares t…

This is Tinnitus Awareness Week, and our friends over at the How I Got Tinnitus podcast released three episodes, including an interview with our host, Frank Wartinger! Listeners may recall that the host JD was our guest on episode #10 of Talking Ears. It was a real joy to have the table flipped around for this interview, and we don't shy away from …

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has been shown time and time again to be one of the most efficacious methods to treat tinnitus distress. In this episode, we go straight to an expert, Bruce Hubbard, PhD, ABPP, to better understand how CBT can be leveraged for the treatment of tinnitus. Dr. Hubbard is a psychologist, Past President of the New York…

Brandon Beaver stops by to talk about Philadelphia, his past musical families of Buried Beds and mewithoutYou, his experience watching his bandmates wrestle with hearing injury while on the road, and what's next now that mewithoutYou has played their farewell tour. The conversation keeps coming back to one thing... and yes, we talk an awful lot abo…

Benj Kanters, audio engineer and educator extraordinaire, illuminates us on the creation and design of his award-winning, one-of-a-kind hearing conservation workshop, Hear Tomorrow. We also get into his history as an acclaimed audio engineer, thoughts about the current state of the industry, and the future of hearing awareness education. For years,…

JD is the creator and host of the hit podcast "How I Got Tinnitus," and he's also a prolific music performer and producer. In this episode we try to answer some big questions, like how one can face their tinnitus distress by channeling it into a creative or academic outlet, and how do we even pronounce the word "tinnitus" in the first place? Music …

Audiologist Michael Santucci is the president of Sensaphonics and considered by many to be the father of Music Audiology. Since 1985, he's been innovating music performance devices, clinical techniques, and educational programs that have raised the standard of hearing healthcare for music and entertainment professionals. His products are seen every…

In this special feed-drop, we are listening in on the most recent Signal To Noise Podcast episode, "Hearing Health Matters". Talking Ears producers Juan Vasquez and Frank Wartinger joined fellow music audiologist Laura Sinnott and Signal To Noise host Chris Leonard for a panel discussion in which we fielded listener questions about hearing health. …

In this episode, we turn the microphone on Talking Ears co-producer and audiologist, Juan Vasquez. Here he shares the story of how he got to hearing conservation and audiology from a background in very loud music, and he gives the best possible answer to how these two passions can be reconciled. Good news: we will be hearing more of Juan's voice in…

Bassist and producer Eric Heveron-Smith (Postmodern Jukebox, Einstein's Dreams) joins Frank to talk about his work in jazz and other acoustic music genres. We get into hearing, monitoring, and other health considerations important for professional musicians to ensure career longevity, and get philosophical about the role of music in the world. Musi…

Here is a special bonus episode featuring Music Audiology expert Heather Malyuk, AuD. In her recent episode, there was a lot of conversation around the clinical field of music audiology that didn't belong in the episode so we split it off into a separate conversation. This is equal parts for the Music community to get a peek behind the curtain into…

Ben Runyan (City Rain) joins Frank to talk about habituation, identity, and prevention through his own experience developing tinnitus and his path to recovery. This episode features music by Ben Runyan.Por Earmark Hearing Conservation

Michael Lawrence (co-host of the Signal To Noise Podcast), joins us to talk about SPL, loudness, and the audio engineer's responsibility when it comes to exposure risk at live sound events. Expressed through his work as a system engineer and senior instructor at Rational Acoustics, he brings humanity to the technical aspects and numbers when balanc…

Dr. Heather Malyuk, a fiddle player, lifelong musician, and celebrated music audiology expert. She is the past clinical director at Sensaphonics and currently the owner of Soundcheck Audiology. Her hearing health curriculum is a unique tool designed for use by music industry professionals. In this episode, Heather shares her musical upbringing and …

This episode features conversation with Joey Di Camillo. He shares how his development of hyperacusis and tinnitus put a yearslong pause on his music career, and what he would pay to get his hearing health back. We also discuss how other traumatic life events often bring perspective to one's own problems. Music featured in this episode is by Joey a…

Rickie Mazzotta is the drummer and founding member of the Philadelphia-based indie rock band mewithoutYou, who is embarking on their farewell tour. Rickie checked in about the status of his ears, and offered some sage advice to concert goers and young musicians. The music of mewithoutYou is featured in this episode. Content Warning: this episode co…

Talking Ears is a new show which interviews music creators and lets their ears do the talking. Through stories and guests' own music, we hope to give context to the often overlooked importance of auditory wellness and hearing healthcare for music industry professionals. With so many musicians developing career-threatening hearing injuries, and spar…