Klarinet Archive - Posting 000637.txt from 1996/10

From: "Sydney R. Polk" <jazzman@-----.NET>
Subj: Re: What do you think of the following? I'm puzzled.
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 1996 17:12:00 -0400

>I had to go back into the hospital for a week to have an angiogram and that
>was followed by an angioplasty which involves doing yucky things to the heart
>and then photographing it.

>Anyway, the physician found out where my blockage was and zapped the daylights
>out of it so I'm fine. But it is what he said later that has puzzled me.

>He showed me on the photographof my heart that the main cardiac arteries were
>very large, much larger than the patients with whom he generally dealt. And
>he began to ask me what did I do to get such large cardiac arteries. For one
>thing I did not even know if that was good or bad, so I was hesitant to
>comment but finally I told him that I played a lot of clarinet, mostly the
>larger clarinets.

>And the cardiologist said that he found this to be the case with many players
>of large wind instruments. In effect, he suggested that the years of playing
>act as aerobic exercize to the heart and enlarge the cardiac arteries in
>a very positive way. He went so far as to say that my blockage was large and
>would, all things being equal, have led to a serious problem beyond that of
>a heart attack, and that what prevented that was the large arteries.

>Does anyone else know anything about this? Is this even vaguely correct
>or was the cardiologist just woolgathering.

>I never thought of playing a bass clarinet as being a form of aerobic
>exercize. But maybe it is.

>====================================
>Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
>(leeson@-----.edu)
>====================================

I'm glad they found the problem with your hear and fixed it.

Maybe some good does come out of playing tenor and bari sax, bass and
contrabass clarinets. Its aerobic to play them and aerobic to
cary them!

Flute couldn't hurt, it requires more air than anything else.

I would just play bari sax but there is not enough music.

Syd Polk
(Currently playing piccolo, flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, soprano sax
and bass sax in West Side Story; bass and contra-alto clarinets in wind
ensemble; bari sax bass clarinet and flute in jazz band; and piccolo,
flute, soprano sax, alto sax, tenor sax, and baris sax in salsa band)