Klarinet Archive - Posting 000344.txt from 1998/08

From: "David C. Blumberg" <reedman@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Trumpet Playing Can Be a Heart Stopper
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 23:59:34 -0400

Trumpet Playing Can Be a Heart Stopper
A study of trumpet players shows that tooting and marching can be a
heart-stopping performance in more ways than one.
By hooking trumpet players to electrocardiographs, Texas researchers Leigh
Anne
Hunsaker of Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene and Darhyl Ramsey of the
University of North Texas in Denton, have shown that the heart goes through
all
sorts of odd contractions and arrhythmia in trumpet players.
The results of their study are in the current issue of the journal Medical
Problems in the Performing Arts.
One action in particular, the Valsalva maneuver, actually causes the heart to
stop momentarily, Hunsaker says. The maneuver is done by closing the airways
and then trying to blow out air.
The strain slows and then stops the heart from beating. Fortunately, the music
doesn't stop and neither does the trumpet player. The heart quickly
jump-starts
itself with what's called an escape beat, followed by a normal heartbeat.
"There's nothing abnormal about it," Hunsaker says. "The same thing happens
when a woman is in labor and is bearing down."
It is, however, instructive to trumpet players, says Hunsaker, who teaches
trumpet.
"The higher and louder they play the more physical stress there is," she
explains. "What it means to us as trumpet players is that we try to play as
relaxed as possible."
In their study, Hunsaker and Ramsey compare the resting, rehearsing and
performing ECGs of trumpet players in the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the
University of North Texas Band and other students and professionals. They even
record the heartbeats of a nervous man performing his masters degree recital,
during which he had a sustained heartbeat of 160 beats per minute, she says,
about double his resting rate.
The study is one of a growing number that look at the health of performing
artists, says Kris Chesky, director of research and education for the
University of North Texas Center for Music and Medicine in Denton.
"It's a very important study," Chesky says. "It's not suggesting that there is
a risk associated with playing the trumpet, but it shows what kinds of
dramatic
effects it can have on the heart."
By Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery Channel Online News

David Blumberg
reedman@-----.com
http://www.sneezy.org/clarinet/Music/Blumberg.html

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

   
     Copyright © Woodwind.Org, Inc. All Rights Reserved    Privacy Policy    Contact charette@woodwind.org