Posted by Ed Vinson on April 26, 2001 at 23:40:01:
In Reply to: Dumbest Lip Injuries posted by SD on April 26, 2001 at 21:33:53:
my high school buddies and i in the tuba section decided to try and bore out a mouthpiece on our own. we did a very crappy job and left the raw brass exposed on the newly enlarged bore. i was using this mouthpiece in my college marching band and got a terrible case of brass contact poisoning in two different spots on my upper lip. i developed two blisters at first that gradually got worse as i tried to continue playing on it anyway because my jury was a few weeks away. the sores became so bad that pus would leak from them all day long and it was physically impossible for me to play AT ALL. i ended up getting an incomplete for private lessons and still have a scars there now but they don't inhibit my playing. i made up my jury after my christmas holiday (Plog 3 Miniatures 1st and 2nd mvt.) and got an A for lessons the previous semester. if you ever have the urge to bore a mouthpiece out yourself, be sure you plate or coat it with something or your face could get messed up too.