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 conference award winner), as well as four students from UT Dallas presented research posters - Conner Jansen, Allison Woodford, Emily Myers, and Azalea...

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 advocacy reaching back to 1965, CAOHC’s mission is to “advance best practices in occupational hearing conservation worldwide through credentialing,...

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 southern rock tribute band, High Noon. Terry is the perfect example of someone who is thinking of sound from multiple perspectives and his insights alone...

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 conversation. Oh well - I suppose you'll just need to become a fan of Pete's and read his book to get the full story! In this episode, we'll hear music by...

"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,” but that also means taking care of your health, especially your hearing, to ensure longevity in your career."

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 schedule your visit. Applicants must be able to document employment history in one of the following areas 1) Five years employment in the music...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 City Cognitive Behavior Therapy Association (2016-2018), and Founder and Director of CBT for Tinnitus, LLC. In this episode, we ask him to explain...

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 about ears on this show, but in the end, music is all about the people. Music heard in this episode is by or featuring Brandon Beaver with...

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, Benj has been an inspiring mentor and friend for the entire Talking Ears production team. This episode features music by composer and guitarist...

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 heard in this episode was written, performed, and or recorded by JD.

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 everywhere from the biggest stages on Earth, to 254 milesabove Earth in the International Space Station. His ceaseless work inspires clinicians to...

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. We also got into the technical details and importance of hearing testing for music industry professionals. Please enjoy, and do consider...

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 upcoming episodes of Talking Ears! Music in this episode was written by or features performances of Juan Vasquez. Additional music by Gunsling Birds.

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. Music heard in this episode features performances by Eric Heveron-Smith with various groups including Moonshine Rhythm Club, The Capitalist Youth,...

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 the clinical world, and an open invitation to the Audiology community to hear more about our subspecialty.   Music in this episode is by and/or...

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.