About six percent of the general population have what they consider to be loud tinnitus. Tinnitus can come and go or be continuous, and may be in both ears or just one ear. These are only examples.
Some individuals hear chirping, screeching, or even musical sounds.
However, tinnitus always consists of fairly simple sounds for example, hearing someone talking that no one else can hear would not be tinnitus - this would be called auditory hallucination. Tinnitus is usually static noise in the auditory system that is associated with loss of sound from the external environment. Therefore, tinnitus is common and in most, but not all, cases it is associated with some degree of hearing loss. The most common causes of tinnitus are damage to the high frequency hearing by exposure to loud noise or elevated levels of common drugs that can be toxic to the inner ear in high doses. For example, after you have been to a loud rock concert you may experience tinnitus for a while in association with dulling of hearing.