CRoberts8

Example of this "dreaded condition" (upon hitting my first Double A...also in concert...)

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

Only time this has ever happened to me...hasn't happened since...I was fine, but if somebody blacked out from playing often, they should get that checked out.

Definitely have changed the way I play in the past year or so to prevent that from happening, dangerous or not.

__________________


University of Florida

Professor: Dr. Joyce Davis
Bb: Bach Strad ML 43
C: Bach Strad L 239
Eb: Yamaha 731
Picc: Schilke P5-4
Flugel: Benge 3
Cornet: Yamaha 6330

Majestic1

Dr. Joyce Davis,

Thank you so much for your compassion and generosity for sharing that video with us even though nobody in the trumpet section on both sides seemed to have had the compassion and generosity to help you during your time of need. Maybe they could not have helped from also having been in a “decompression stage”. I hope that you did not hurt yourself nor your horn.

You mentioned that you “definitely have changed the way I (you) play in the past year or so to prevent that from happening…” Could you please share with us what changes you have made?

I am sure that your valuable information will help someone in the trumpet profession.

Schwab

That isn't Dr. Joyce Davis, that is one of her students.

__________________
Dylan Schwab
Stage 1 New York

Jude

Jeanne Pocius talks about head rushes and blacking-out in her book (Trumpeting by Nature) and says she sees it in players who use an arched tongue to play the upper register. She thinks the air-stream is redirected up into the nasal sinuses rather than out through the horn and suggests using a rounded "ee" sound (Arban's "u"?) to direct the air away from the soft (rear) palate toward the hard (front) palate. Whether this works for any particular player depends on whether his palate is high/arched enough - if it's low she recommends not using the tongue arch method at all (pages 106-107 - if she comes out with an edition with an index, I'll buy it).

Jude

What about Clarini? Skydivers to a man?

Majestic1

Dylan Schwab

Thank you for that correction.

To everybody else:

Some how I get the feeling that I am in a chocolate lovers forum trying to say that vanilla is better. FYI, learning about VM was shocking to me; yet, it explained so many things to me as to how I felt throughout my years of playing trumpet, sports training and studying.

I thought that I would share this with you which I have done; so, you can do with it whatever you wish.

Have a good, healthy and happy life.

Vulgano Brother

I love chocolate! Please keep in mind that we, as trumpet players, are kinda "hooked" on our craft. We wear the scars on our lips and the callous on our left index finger like badges of honor, and generally regard passing out while playing high notes as a nifty, cheap buzz and side-effect. At the Mission we call this attitude denial. If the Surgeon General announced that trumpet playing shaved years off a person's life we, for the most part, would welcome the news as a means of getting a raise and take our practice sessions more seriously.

__________________
www.letsbuildhope.org

tedh1951

Thanks Majestic1 et al - it has been interesting reading - as for the Trumpeteering - I think I'll risk it.

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Ted

PowBob

I just joined this forum to find out about a problem I'm trying to solve concerning MY health, and came across this thread.

My problem is different although possibly minutely related, but I've taken the blackout plunge in my last high school concert on a double G from the top stair of the "risers". I fell over the stand, down the risers, and nobody helped me up either. I stood back up, put my music back on the stand, and tried to nonchalontly ask my neighbor what measure we were on, but I soon realized that in fact, that was the last note of the performance, and the show was over, and we were getting a standing ovation, with much of it being directed at my final "antic". Nobody put it past me to have just been joking around. Needless to say, I was out of it, and didn't hurt the trumpet much, but I sure was confused.

Please forgive me now for this... I stopped playing trumpet during college, as I picked up a couple stringed instruments but not too seriously, and began a career path climbing and skiing mountains.

Now I'm 41, life has changed, and at this past Thanksgiving, I picked up my trumpet after approximately 15 years to join a local Reggae band. I basically went straight into gigs, 2 a week at the least. I had to meticulously listen to their recordings and write my parts out on staff paper to accomplish this, but the lip is still cranking out some good quality after a huge lapse. Here's my problem:

2 weeks in to my renewed trumpet career, I started getting sick. Sinuses, then the chest. I had to get antibiotics, but never felt feverish, in fact, this was a wierd sickness, and it ended up lasting about 2 weeks, instead of the more normal 5 or 6 days. During that time, I was playing 2-3 gigs a week, but I started noticing how my sinuses would be suffering instensely after the gigs, throught the night, and into the mornings.

I got better finally last week, and played 3 gigs since, but after last night's New Year's show, I have it again. My sinuses are completely blown out again, I feel like I'm sick, through the night, the morning, and right now, it just feels like an infection again.

I'm now convinced that some old severe sinus infections I've had since college have made them suseptible to my trumpet playing techniques during this past month, and is causing them to react this way. It feels like a full blown sinus infection just like that.

Either I need more antibiotics to knock out whatever I had 2 weeks ago, or I'm having some kind of reaction, as a result of my playing trumpet again.

No, I'm not doing drugs up my nose and into my sinuses, and yes, I'm playing long high notes, with a couple instances of headache and ever so slight blackout vision just last night.

I don't ever remember having sinus issues when I was younger, playing trumpet day in and day out with tons of intense upper register playing.

I saw a post on the previous page from Jude, about a tounge position that directs air away from the sinus passage, but I've never heard this type of thing before, for whatever reasons. I'll look up the book that was referenced in that post.

I'm just hoping to hear from anybody who has experienced or heard of such sinus problems before, from playing the trumpet... If I feel like this in the morning, I'm definitely going to the doctor, and hopefully it'll just end there with another batch of antibiotics, but I still have to make 2 gigs a week.

Thanks for your help in advance, and please understand the original post of this thread is very simply "Food for Thought", take it or leave it, don't attack it.

Jude

Hi, after you check with your doctor, you could try contacting the author of that book, Jeanne Pocius. She hangs out at TPIN information (Trumpet Players' International Network). You can get her email address there, I believe.

Best of luck

And by the way, congratulations on being able to just pick up the horn and play! It doesn't usually seem to happen that way.