Talking Ears – Détails, épisodes et analyse

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 episode we'll talk about his relationship with NHCA, his work as a music audiologist and hearing conservationist, and his musical life.

Music in this episode is by Caleb's band, Kronen.

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 Colorado Hospital Hearing and Balance Center where he oversees the tinnitus and musicians hearing programs.

We sat down with Cory to discuss our experience at the 2024 NHCA conference, consumer audio safety, verification of hearing protection devices, and why preventative care should be a cornerstone of every clinical audiology encounter.

Music in this episode is from two recent releases by past Talking Ears guest and friend of the show, Eric Heveron-Smith: Tiny Previous Things and Free, featuring Daisy Castro and Isabel Castellvi.

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 sound and collaborating with filmmakers. We first met through MusiCares and the tele-audiology platform at tunedcare.com, and this fantastic program is discussed at length in the episode. Also, listen close to catch all the references to morse code and how is informs some of her compositions. 

Music heard in this episode is from her soundtrack releases, as well as her critically acclaimed 2019 album, Geometry. 

Speaking of being busy, you can hear EmmoLei take on the role of guest host of The Disney Hits Sirus XM show on the date of this release.

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 the people involved influence the outcome, and what constitutes musical aesthetics. Maybe next time we'll get into music audiology and hearing loss prevention for performers, but for now, we enjoy his beautiful and oftentimes challenging music.

In this episode we'll hear music by Brendan Fitzgerald, Wooden Cities, and improvisational duo FFFFaultyTower.

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 Bell, Sharon Van Etten, Hailey Wojcik, Field Mouse, Christina Picciano, and Emily King. Danielle also pens eye-opening articles on concert management and production on SoundGirls.org, and we get into the important conversation of representation in the music industry. Her attitude toward prioritizing personal well-being extends beyond herself and benefits the artists she works well and the concert-goers who have the good fortune of experiencing one of her productions. You can read more about Danielle and her time at Purchase College (which we somehow didn't touch on in our brief interview) in Women in Sound, written by Madeleine Campbell.

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 Brass Against, a unique group which reimagines the music of Rage Against the Machine (and other artists) with a huge horn section and energetic stage show. In this interview, we hear music from his most recent EP, "I'll Never Stop", as well as his many records and collaborations.

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 the host chair for this episode to interview Dr. Bell, his mentor and arguably the reason he is an Audiologist today. Music in this episode features Matt Bell in various bands including Raindriver and The Feel.

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 serve to heighten public awareness of the hazards of noise and who take the time and effort to bring hearing conservation related issues into public light. Past winners include John Eichwald (CDC Noise Induced Hearing Loss Workgroup), Kevin O'Connor (Ask This Old House), Gordon Hempton (The Sound Tracker), Cara Buckley (The New York Times), and Brian Fligor, just to name a few. NHCA's mission is to prevent hearing loss and other auditory disorders due to noise and secondary environmental factors in all sectors of society, and we are enthused by the increased awareness and attention being aimed at the hearing healthcare of music and entertainment industry professionals.

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 the inspiration behind her upcoming album, American Refugee, which in part reflects on how her experience of traveling abroad has changed over the years.

We would also like to thank MusiCares and Tuned for connecting us, and for all the great work the organizations are doing to help music professionals. If you or someone you care about is a music professional in need of hearing care or other health and support services, contact MusiCares: 800.687.4227 or Musicaresrelief@musicares.org

All music from this episode is by and/or featuring our guest, Kitten Kuroi.

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 the big questions and faux-frenemy banter. To listen to the full episode, aim your podcast player to How I Got Tinnitus and enjoy the positive and refreshing approach JD brings to the sometimes heavy and hard topic of tinnitus.