Noise exposure
Occupational noise exposure levels, Leq, 360 (dB) for each group
were calculated using the Leq data from Quian et al. (2011), adjusted
for the 360 h musicians are contracted to play per year, while 2000
is the number of hours that is typically used to determine noise
exposure for an industrial worker (i.e., 8/hr day). Consequently, the
corrected noise exposure for the orchestral musicians studied here
is equal to Leq 7.5 dBA.
Leq;360ðdBÞ ¼ Leq þ 10logð360=2000Þ ¼ Leq 7:5 dBA
As shown in Fig. 2, brasses had the highest level of exposure,
followed by woodwinds and percussion/basses. Violins and violas/
cellos had the lowest levels of exposure. This pattern of noise
exposure by instrument is consistent with a recent study of two
orchestras conducted by Schmidt et al. (2011), in which the highest
levels of exposure was also found to be in the brasses.