Klarinet Archive - Posting 000459.txt from 1997/07

From: Lisa Clayton <clayton@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: tongue piercing
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 14:02:55 -0400

At 08:39 PM 07.14.97 -0700, you wrote:
>I am not considering having this done. It was a question that I asked
>because I wanted to know. My brother has various piercings and I was just
>in an inquisitive mood. By the way, out of the 20 or so messages I have
>recieved about this post, I have received three answers to my question.
>Thanks to those who responded to my ORIGINAL question. You know, I
>appreciate all of those people who tell me to shove a crowbar up my *ss :),
>but I find your contribution to be useless and a waste of bandwidth. Sorry
>if I have offended you... actually I am not.

This reminds me of the discussion of clarinet and sexual energy we had
some months back (and NO, I DO NOT want to start THAT one up again).
The flames I got from that one were colorful, to say the least, so
believe me, I understand.

But to bring up a point someone else mentioned, yes, teachers will
probably encounter some students with tongue piercings. And yes, there
are some clarinetists who will consider tongue piercings for a variety
of reasons-- because they are casual players, because there are
ethnic traditions to be considered, etc. For what it's worth, if
a tongue piercing is done by a good piercer, it causes minimal damage
and scarring to the tongue. If the piercing is far enough in the
back of the tongue, and the gauge is small enough, it might not
interfere with tongueing. However, swelling and healing takes
a few weeks, and during that time playing would probably be impossible.
Additionally, an extra object in your mouth would probably change the
acoustics of your mouth cavity, and someone considering a piercing
would have to take that into account.

I have several piercings (conservative by my culture's standards, btw)
but none on my tongue or lips-- the latter, IMHO, would probably be
far more damaging to my clarinet playing, but both would affect my
playing too much to be seriously considered.

FWIW, here's the web site for the Gauntlet: http://www.gauntlet.com
if anyone wants to learn about body piercings. They are good,
reputable piercers.

Lisa Clayton
clayton@-----.edu

------ Lisa K. Canjura-Clayton <*> clayton@-----.edu
/ http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~clayton <*> http://www.jonsimsctr.org

/ Hank: "Cooties are what we used to call the germs girls had."
/ Bobby: "You mean like chlamydia?" -- KING OF THE HILL