Klarinet Archive - Posting 000414.txt from 1997/07

From: "Diane Karius, Ph.D." <dikarius@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: tongue piercing
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 20:03:01 -0400

With the preface that, while I was a guinea pig for many a scientific
experiment during my time as a graduate student, I'm not quite bold
enough to serve as a guinea pig for the required experiment here ----

>From a physiological/anatomical standpoint, I suspect that piercing
one's tongue would have negative impact on one's tonguing -
particularly on speed and sensitivity (e.g. stocatto tongueing in the
altissimo range ...). The tongue is extremely muscular - during the
piercing process, some muscle would be damaged (either in the body of
the muscle or in the origin/attachment of said muscle). This would
force the muscle to remodel - in this case replacing contractile
tissue (muscle) with non-contractile scar tissue. This would
certainly change the function of the muscle (and probably not for the
better). Even after healing, the physical presence of the jewelry
could alter the physical and sensory environment of the tongue
muscle and alter contraction that way.
Even if the tip of the tongue is not directly pierced, none of
our muscles move in isolation (tongue included) so movement at the
tip of tongue is likely to be altered by the piercing farther back.
As a "non-tongueing" example - many of the distinguishing features
of our signatures are determined by the movement of the arm
at the *shoulder* - the fine motor control of the hand allows us to
write smaller, but contraction of muscles at the shoulder (some of
which aren't obvious even to the owner of the muscle) is essential to
the style of writing). (Thus explaining in part why it is effective
to tell someone whose fingers are too tight while they play to relax
their neck and shoulders...)
Diane R. Karius, Ph.D.
Department of Physiology
University of Health Sciences
2105 Independence Ave.
Kansas City, MO 64124
email: dikarius@-----.EDU