Musical Injuries

Actually, there's a known risk of a certain type of aneurysm/brain injury for oboists...

link me! :toothygrin:

The principle is that the high air pressure required for some wind instruments can cause elevated pressure in various parts of your head. The brain is often mentioned--though the most credible accounts I've heard talk specifically about the eye. I'm sure you could google up something or other that mentions this. However, I haven't found any studies that establish any real correlation, so for the moment I find it a bit dubious, and I certainly wouldn't call it "a known risk" off-hand. If I'm wrong I'd love to see some references.

A guitar string snapped on me - cut the back of my hand open and flicked blood across the room. That was fun.

It seems that I have a few things going against me here...a woodwind player, double-reed, and percussionist. I might be in for some pain in my years to come. Anyone want to disagree with me?

I still believe if you do everything right... you don't injure yourself.

I mean, I play viola.. we're pretty injury prone... especially compared to cellists and violinists... So... yeah.

my mom (violist) got rotator cuff tendonitis for a while... she had trouble going grocery shopping because she couldn't lift her arm up enough to reach the high shelves. She's all better now tho!

My dad (tubist) has had nothing... but his teacher got focal dystonia and can't play anymore :<

I believe it... I was in agony trying to hold up a viola for more than 5 minutes at a time.

For the show I'm playing right now (Jekyll & Hyde) in a pit orchestra, we're accompanying college kids with less than stellar voices, so we have to play about 2 dynamic levels lower than written to avoid overpowering them. Holding up the instrument for 3 hours is enough of a challenge, but having to play piano to pianissimo 60% of the time and being unable to set the bow into the strings is really killing my back.

I hadn't realised just how much bow weight is mitigated by playing into the string...and just how heavy a 70 gram bow can feel cantilevered out away from the body for a whole evening.

i play flute, and the joint on my index finger often hurts.

When I was younger and playing the French Horn, my hands weren't big enough to hold the horn in the correct position and so I got very sore muscles between my left thumb and index finger. This is aswell as the ring on the lips that all brass players get!

not purely musical, but when I'm tying reeds, the thread digs into my index finger and pinky and sometimes makes blisters :O

Apparently it's possible to get your tongue stuck in a piccolo mouth piece - something to do with the air creating a vacumn or something (i'm not sure :(). I bet thats painful if it's possible!

I'm not too sure if marching practice would count as a musical injury if you're marching with an old school marching xylophone...

I have a nasty habit of peeling the skin on my lips. I also play the tuba.

Needless to say, a world of bloody hurt. :(

Ouch. That's gotta hurt pretty bad. Playing crash cymbals and dropping it just right so the edge lands directly on your toe hurts really bad depending on the height and the size of it...

My brain has imploded from the pressure of playing oboe for too long....

:whistling:

Oboe does hurt your head after so long of playing it. I've had that problem.

As a mallet percussionist now, our set up is battery on our right, and metronome on our left. Well, where I'm located is only about 5 feet away from the metronome. I literally have no hearing from listening to that and the battery making sure they're heard. Can my eardrums run away before I cause them too much damage? *snickers* Maybe I've already done enough...*snickers again*

Earplugs. Our band director wears earplugs. So does the entire band. He turns the Dr.Beat metronome up as high as possible, attached to a Long Ranger speaker... INSIDE the friggin' band room. And turns it higher... and higher... and higher when the drumline starts falling behind or something. I don't see the point. He turns it up louder, half the girls stop playing and hold their ears, half the guys hold their ears with one hand and play with the other, and those lucky enough to have earplugs push them in further.

I'll have you know our band director is hard of hearing. :veryunsure: If I ever become a band director in my future, I won't use a metronone inside. I'll use my freakin' hands. At least I'll get exercise, unlike my B.D. now.

Has he been told that he may be literally hurting his students? I don't know how that band is organized, but if it's under the supervision of a school, this is certainly something that the school may want to take action against, and in some cases may even be legally required to take action against... Although if he's hard of hearing, he may not even be aware of the problem.