Posted by Mary Ann on December 18, 2003 at 15:21:48:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Teaching and reality posted by Doug Elliott on December 18, 2003 at 14:58:09:
I am not sure that you two are talking about the same thing.
I have a horn-playing friend who has focal dystonia. It had sudden onset, worsening over about three days and ending in complete "failure" during a performance. It has been a few years now, and she has made little progress in fixing it, altho she stubbornly keeps trying.
Observing her trying to produce a concert F above middle C: her pucker/smile muscles will not hold still, but instead incontrollably alternately smile/pucker in a quivering fashion, with a _lot_ of motion; there is a tone produced but it is not useful. She said that at the same time the embouchure failure occurred, she also started having problems with her tongue, which also did not act as it had before.
While there may be some causal relationship as you describe it, from my reading and observing my friend (recommend you read the web site referred to) it is a brain problem, not a muscle problem. From what I have observed (I took part in a FD study at the IHS in Indiana last summer) the muscles could function properly if they were getting the right electrical signals to do so. I read a very interesting article written by an oboeist who cured her hand dystonia by focusing differently on how she perceived her hand. Not by doing any physical exercises.
If you can reverse focal dystonia in brass players, more power to you. But I think you may be referring to malfunction rather than focal dystonia. I already respect your intellectual/rational approach to embouchure, and as I have stated before would study with you if I lived anywhere in your vicinity.
Mary Ann