 PRESS
RELEASE: NARAS FOUNDATION
Gives H.E.A.R. Largest Grant Ever!
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12/18/98
For immediate release:
H.E.A.R. Receives Largest Grant Ever from Grammy's®
H.E.A.R., a grass roots non profit organization that specializes in hearing
loss prevention for musicians and music fans announced today that they
are to be the recipient of the largest grant that the Recording Academy
(the Grammy's®) has ever awarded. The Recording Academy is giving
H.E.A.R. $30,000 over a two year period as seed money to begin collating
data that H.E.A.R. has collected on musicians and
hearing loss over the past ten years.
H.E.A.R. hopes to raise a total of $178,000 in order to hire a research
scientist, statistician and to obtain the necessary equipment to help
compile and analyze over 10 years worth of data which they will make available
to the public and the scientific community. H.E.A.R's data is in the form
of pure tone audiograms (hearing tests) and surveys which cover all aspects
of hearing health for musicians and their
constituency.
"This is the largest project of its kind to date as very little data
exists on this huge population (mainly 18-34 year old). In fact OSHA (Occupational
Safety and Health Administration) guidelines don't even list the music
industry as an occupation being at risk for noise induced hearing loss"
exclaims Kathy Peck, Executive Director of H.E.A.R. "Michael Greene
and the Recording Academy are leading the Music and
Entertainment Industries on these important issues."
Seeing a need for hearing health education for musicians, H.E.A.R. got
its start in 1988 when Kathy Peck (then bassist for the seminal punk band
the Contractions) suffered from hearing loss aggravated by noise exposure
when opening up for Duran Duran at the Oakland Coliseum. She joined forces
with Dr. Flash Gordon, MD. from the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic,
San Francisco.
Pete Townshend of the Who was one of the first musicians to speak out
about his hearing loss and helped H.E.A.R. get started with a donation
of $10,000. Since then many musicians have helped out by doing Public
Service Announcements for H.E.A.R. Including Ray Charles, Lars Ulrich
from Metallica, Les Claypool from Primus and Lee Ranaldo from Sonic Youth.
H.E.A.R. is now seeking donations and grants to match the Recording Academy's
funds in order to raise the rest of the money to complete their research.
Other H.E.A.R. projects this year include the Active Physics curriculum
textbook Īs chapter on hearing loss and loud music entitled "Medicine."
developed by the American Physics Teachers and The American Institute
of Physics and funded by the National Science Foundation. This is the
first high school textbook that deals with the real issue of noise induced
hearing loss facing America's youth. The textbook is distributed by New
York publishers "Its About Time" to over 300 high schools in
the US.
For more information contact H.E.A.R.
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