Klarinet Archive - Posting 000482.txt from 2003/03

From: "Leslie Schultz" <mewsic-ls@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Playing with braces
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 11:02:11 -0500

My clarinet teacher in high school, Brad Behn, played professionally
with braces for several years. He got braces in his late 20's while playing
2nd and e-flat clarinet in the Tulsa Philharmonic. I know it was disruptive
for him, but he worked around it. I had braces in middle school, and I
found that once the pain associated with having them adjusted went away,
they weren't too bad. The other clarinetist at my high school who I kind of
competed with had braces the whole time until about April or May of our
senior year. I couldn't tell a difference in his sound once he had them
off.
You can work around this, but you need to be very careful with what
you're doing with your embouchure. Practice will looking in a mirror, and
do lots of long tones (of course, that's good advice for everyone). And by
all means, definitely use some kind of cushion for your lower teeth. I use
OCB cigarette paper, since it's cheap and doesn't come gummed, but I don't
know if that might be too thin for braces. Just experiment. Good luck!
Leslie
----- Original Message -----
From: "Karl Krelove" <karlkrelove@-----.net>
Subject: RE: [kl] Playing with braces

> I don't know how long "recently" is, so I don't know how much adjustment
> time you've had. I have had a number of students over the years play with
> braces. None was comfortable at first and I don't remember anyone giving
it
> up ultimately because of them. You'll adjust - yes, you'll need to take
the
> retainer out and make sure you don't lose it in the process - they're not
> cheap to replace (I've had many of them left after lessons). The nice
thing
> will be at the other end of the process - playing will become much easier
> again and you will have straight teeth added to the bargain.
>
> For what it's worth, one of my daughters played flute all the way through
> school with braces. You can do it.
>
> Karl Krelove

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