Playing and health issues

[Mark Gorman]

May I begin by saying thank you for letting me join.

I began playing a few years ago but didn’t stick with it. I’m now back with renewed enthusiasm. I’m determined to give it a better go, particularly as I am approaching retirement.
I’m wondering if anyone has experience of playing with a couple of specific health issues. Firstly, I had a bad bout of Covid, a couple of months ago. I’m still struggling a bit, particularly with breath control. Has anyone else had similar issues? Some of my sporting acquaintances say that deep breathing exercises can help.
Secondly, I’ve suffered from tinnitus for the best part of 20 years following and ENT infection. I’m not experienced enough as a player, to determine is this has an impact. I would welcome any experiences you have.

[Kevin Pfeiffer]

Dear Mark, how is your playing going? Based on my own experiences, I don’t see tinnitus being a problem (above and beyond the usual annoyance it brings one). Regular practice will help your breath control, particularly with the larger instruments.

Best wishes,

Kevin (also new here)

[Mark Gorman]

Kevin
Thank you for the reply.
The playing isn’t going too badly. I’m practicing regularly. The long covid is definitely still having an impact on breathing. This seems to be more of an issue with my alto than the tenor. I was presuming that it would be the other way round, due to the wider bore of the tenor. It may be down to the individual instruments. My practice alto is a plastic Yamaha. Whereas my tenor is a wooden Adler, which must be about 50 years old. The Adler definitely needs a soft breath to produce a good tone.
I’m hoping that regular practice will help my breathing. I’m a cycling coach, so I ride a bike regularly, a bit of a struggle with the breathing. My colleagues seem to indicate that it could take 12 months to fully recover.

I’m glad that the tinnitus isn’t likely to have an impact. As I am playing alone, it is difficult to tell.

Regards

Mark

[Jacqui]

Hi Mark, Are you still playing? I’m new here, but think I can offer some encouragement for folks with health issues that (might) impact their playing. My experience is, just keep going, it is surprising how much progress can be made, even in the face of difficulties. But the trick is to practice little and often. Several short sessions a day rather than one long session. I agree your tinnitus is unlikely to hamper your playing, unless its very intrusive.

[Mark Gorman]

Jacqui

Thanks. I will give the multiple sessions a try. Up to this point I have just been doing one session per day.

[Linden]

Mark – I developed bi-lateral tinnitus about 12 years ago. I developed sound sensitivity at the same time. I haven’t ever experienced any additional issues when playing the recorder and I learned coping strategies for both the tinnitus and the sound sensitivity and actually the recorder became a distraction. You’d think all that squeaking would make things worse – but it didn’t!

I agree that breathing exercises would be useful as would anything that develops lung capacity. Dolmetsch used to suggest swimming – he thought it would make recorder players healthier too. How is it going in any case?

[Mark Gorman]

Linden

Thanks. It is going slowly. I still have the long covid issues, although they are gradually improving. Talking to my cycle coaching colleagues, it would appear that 12 months is a fairly representative period, to expect the issues to persist.
I am going to try Jacqui’s suggestion of multiple short sessions rather than my normal one long one.

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