Shortly after I started studying with Carmine in 1973, he started wearing flight line ear muffs during lessons. Apparantly he was starting to have dizzy spells, one of them occurring down on the street, and it was diagnosed as resulting from having too much exposure to very loud trumpet playing, especially in the high register. I think one his students was a pilot and brought him the ear muffs. They worked perfectly in that they protected his inner ear and in no way impeded his ability to analyze a student's embouchure.