To get back on topic......

You can try special ear plugs made for musicians. I think they were Hearos, the blue ones.

They will lower volume, without muffling the sound. Foamy ear plugs block out certain frequencies. But the plastic Hearos reduce all frequencies evenly.

Hearos that you find at a rite-aid tend to be geared towards killing noise for sleep at 32 decibals. However I`ve noticed that there are plugs that are for the pressue you would experience in planes and mountains set at lower 20-25 decibel levels.

Anyone know of any lower decibel plugs that can be found in a regular store (US)?

Those are the foamy Hearos i think.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=home/search/detail/base_pid/421214/
This is what i was talking about.
The ones I have are old, they must have changed colors.
They are washable so long a very long time.

Hmm... the 32 decibal hearos have the same design. I picked some up at lunch today along with a set for airplanes and am going to test them out tonight. Since the place where I reherse has changed from carpeting to tile... ugh.

(*** I CANNOT SPELL REHERSE CORRECTLY AS AS THE LAST FOUR LETTERS ARE A BAD WORD!!!)

Interesting... the 32db Hearos definately took out too much noise, but the sound that came through was more balanced than the 20db earplanes. The ear planes allowed more sound, but it distorted the flute somehow.

Maybe I`ll need to mail order the lower Db hearos...