URGENT NEED OF ADVICE!

[TexEuph96]

I'm a high school student, I have braces, and I will be getting them off May 10th, 5 days after my auditions for next year's band. However, I have a gum recession on my front lower teeth and will be getting a gum grafting procedure to replace the lost gum tissue on May 18th. I have to get this procedure, I have lose 3mm of gum tissue and therefore 3mm of bone tissue that CAN'T be replaced. The cost of this is that I will not have regular food for 2 weeks, and worse, I WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO PLAY EUPHONIUM FOR 2 MONTHS! I won't play for the remainder of the school year and for the summer. This is worrying me! I will have only 8 days to get used to not having braces and then I won't be playing for 2 months! I need to know what to do! Should I play as MUCH as I can in those few days?? Or will it only hurt me more? What should I do after the 2 months is up!? Will I lose too much progress!? I'm afriad, I REALLY need professional advice because neither my lesson teacher has had braces or this complication or one of my directors who is a bass trombonist! Please help me!

[PigLord]

I am no professional (a senior in high school actually) and have no experience with this kind of surgery, but I can give the advice I have. You should play your normal amount before this surgery because no matter how long you play before it, the same amount of decline will happen during those two months. While you cannot play during those two months, there are other musical things you can do. If you have not studied music theory, this could be an excellant time to do so, as this can really help you play music. If you have a piano at hand and do not know how to play it, this could be a good time to learn as, if you have aspirations to be a music major, you will most likely have to at some point and, if not, it will help you be a better musician and would also help you with the theory you could learn. Also (if you are allowed to sing) that is another excellant tool in music making that is also generally required for music majors. If you have both the piano and singing, you could practice pitch matching by playing a note and trying to sing it back which would help intonation greatly when you do start playing again (and, coincidently, is also generally required for music majors). Once your two months is up, you will have to get used to playing without braces and without the tissue you have lost. The most important thing would be to not get into new bad habits when you start playing again. Pretty much, you will probably be able to play around your same ability, but with less finesse and a slightly worse sound. You will not lose too much progress, as I have seen many slackers in high school who are great players who come back from summer break without practicing and get going fast. This is when your private lesson teacher would be able to help you best at getting you back in shape, but you should also know what is correct playing and do what you have done before; keep practicing until you get better. You will get through this and good luck to you.

[davewerden]

I wouldn't worry too much. Just practice as usual before the surgery. Focus more on basics, perhaps. When you come back to the horn after the layoff, really focus on basics and don't push yourself too far too soon.

But you don't have to "waste" the two months. You could learn some piano as mentioned above - that's a handy thing to have. Same for theory.

You can also exercise your mind on euphonium playing. Find some recordings of two players doing the same piece. Listen to both carefully. If a particular passage sounds better from one player compared to the other, figure out why. Is it tone, rubato, vibrato, articulation, subtle dynamic changes, etc. Rinse and repeat! Branch out into trumpet music. Find a few versions of the Haydn or Hummel concertos, two of the staples of the literature. Compare different players as I mentioned above. You can find considerable differences in some cases. Or if you have played any solos that come from the vocal or string world, find recordings in the original version and listen to those. If it's a vocal, listen to the way a singer might change the phrasing to match the words (we should do the same thing!). Etc.

I used to take several weeks off if schedule allowed. And the famous trumpet soloist Doc Severinsen, during the peak of his career (which was a long peak, by the way), took the entire summer off each year and spent it on his horse ranch. He just had to be careful to practice correctly when returning.

[davewerden]

Oh, and if you are a church-going person, get there every week and sing those hymns! As you do so, focus on phrasing. Take a big breath at the beginning of the line and don't breathe after two bars like most of the congregation will - sing through to the end of the phrase. Be sure to focus on pronouncing the words in the context of musical line. Sing the rhythms correctly. If you have a good ear, try the bass line or tenor line. You'd be surprised how much you can learn by paying attention instead of just "going through the motions." Even if your voice isn't great, you can still try to do a great job on the above-mentioned items. It will improve your overall musicianship.

[RickF]

TexEuph,

Sorry to hear you have to have this proceedure done... and also that you have to take a pretty long break from playing. This has to be discouraging for you.

There's already been good suggestions made above, but I have just one more to add. I had to take a 3 month break from playing two years ago due to some muscle problems. When I started back to playing, I didn't start back with fundamentals as suggested above, but rushed back pretty quickly. Consequently I started to use too much lip pressure to get the high notes. I'm still working on correcting this after two years. This results in me not having much endurance.

Good luck. Hope everything about your proceedure goes smoothly.

[TexEuph96]

Thanks for the advice, I asked my directors about this and they said I will not be playing in our spring concert which is 4 days after surgery and I will not play in the annual June marching camp when new kids come to rehearse next year's show music. I will ask my peridontist about the procedure to see if i can play for miniscule amounts a day (30 min) without straining myself. The procedure will be done on a lower part of my mouth which isn't really too close to where i put my mouthpiece. I will probably get a bad response but I will still try. Till July 18th, ill just learn music theory as you all suggested and sing to get better as a player when away from the horn. I hope everything works out at the end of this ordeal and I'll let all of you know how I turn out. What will be hard it to resist playing with a euphonium and marching baritone mocking me while sitting in the corner of my room and when i oil the valves and grease slides, I can't play!

[Eupher6]

I had a couple small places (one on the upper gumline and one on the lower) in which I had grafting surgery done about 10 years ago. Gums were receding due to aggressive toothbrushing.

While these areas were not in the front of the mouth AND as I am not at all your physician, I just thought I'd chime in and say my total layoff on the horn was less than a week.

Perhaps your recovery will be quicker than anticipated and you can return to playing earlier than your doc is currently saying -- after all, they try to give you a "worst case scenario" so as to fully prepare you for that possibilty.

Hoping your recovery is quick and painless - mine was NOT without a fair amount of discomfort, but that was largely due to the mouthguard being too long and therefore gagged me. (I had to have a mouthguard to protect the roof of my mouth because that's where they harvest the tissue to graft onto your gums.) It sounds awful, and it was no picnic, but hey, the drugs are legal and they work!

Good luck!

[TexEuph96]

I will definietely not play for the first month to be sure, but I will buzz around and play some long tones without too much pressure after that. I wish my recession wasn't on my very front teeth! It's actually exactly where the rim meets my lips when I really examine the mouthpiece positioning I am hoping to recover quickly since I'm still very young and my body heals faster than it will later in life but for the first 2 weeks I wont be able to put a horn on my face due to the mouthguard you mentioned and I will be icing my mouth most of the time.

[BillHrnjak]

TexEuph,

I am not going to give you any advice other then to really listen to the Doctor and be patient. I will try to reduce your anxiety a little with my own story.

About three years ago I saw the local community band perfoming at a downtown Farmer's Market on a Thursday evening. I had played Euphonium in high school and swithched to bass trombone in college. That was over 40 years ago! That's right, I had not played any instrument or blown any horn for over 40 years. That night, at the concert, I stood behind the three Euphs and I was surprised that I was fingering the notes and that I could still read the music from that distance. The next day I borrowed a valve trombone from a neighbor's widow and started to make a few sounds. That weekend I found a Boosey & Hawkes Imperial 3valve compensator in a pawn shop 200 miles away for $400. I bought it, washed & cleaned it and it played great. I started playing an hour a day, in two 30 minute sessions. The following Thursday I went to the community band rehearsal with no horn and sat between two of the eupers and just sight read and fingered the notes. The fellow on my right had 47 years of continuous performance with this band and commented after the rehearsal, "Bill, you sing the notes better and more in tune then I play them". I really didn't realize that I was singing along, but I fit right in. The next week I was there with my horn and the participation and the chops have grown and grown. I play euph in two community bands, bass trombone in a college band and and bass trombone in a swing band. I play at least an hour and a half a day, sometime more and do as many as four rehearsals and/or performances a week on top of practice. I'm happily retired and this is my brain excercise every day.

Now, about 35 years ago I had a serious accident the broke my jaw and knocked out about half of my teeth and cracked most of the rest. I have a full upper denture and a partial lower plate, and I only have three of my original teeth on the bottom (incisors with crowns) with no implants. If I can play, and play well and play strong with all of these negatives, you should be able to get through your 3 month recovery period very easily and just fall right back into playing your horn. I'm not minimizing your fears or your desire to not fall backwards, but I will try to impress on you how smart and quick your body is and how your muscles and muscle memory will just be there for you.

You are young , strong and healthy and this is a blink of the eye in your life. Trust in yourself and the healing powers of your own body. Think Positive!!

Bill in California

[TexEuph96]

That made my day! Hearing that story made me grateful for what I have the oppotunity to do and how I should be grateful for my health. I'll work harder when I get back to playing and I'll keep playing in my mind everyday until then!