Photo credit: Terje Sollie from Pexels
by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition
The New York Times writes about the seasonal playlists that musician and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto complied for the Kajitsu restaurant in New York City. Sakamoto approached the chef with this list because he could not bear the music the restaurant played for its customers.
Not every restaurant can have a music pro compile its playlist, but at the least they can turn down the volume and let their customers enjoy their conversation.
And you don’t need a sound meter to know if it’s too loud or not. If you can’t carry on a normal conversation without raising your voice to be heard, or you strain to hear your dining companions, the ambient noise level is above 75 A-weighted decibels.
Not by coincidence, that is also the auditory injury threshold, the sound level at which hearing damage begins.
Remember: if it sounds too loud, it IS too loud.
