I had my career brought to an abrupt halt almost 10yrs ago from what I now know as embouchure dystonia. I have tried many, many methods to try and over come it, to no avail. Including long periods of laying off, different embouchures, etc.... I read one mans approach to helping people with this condition and he mentioned that the uncontrolled movement happened when the mouthpiece touched the lips, not before. It hadn't occurred to me that this was the case. But after reading that I noticed that it was indeed true for me as well. It was a "conditioned" response of sorts. Anyway, I don't want to stop being a musician and I don't want to not play a brass instrument. So I thought that if I changed the stimuli to my embouchure maybe my dystonia would go away. So I sought out the way I could most change the stimuli and still remain a brass player. I switched to playing the Tuba. And much to my delight, I don't have those uncontrollable lip movements anymore and I can play relaxed AND controlled on the tuba. Tuba was my second choice way back in beginning band, and now it just might be my salvation as a musician. I know this might not be considered a cure for most. But for ME, it so far has brought back joy in playing again. One thing I did find out is BBb and F tuba fingerings are all messed up, lol.
-James __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
