 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2012-06-06 18:32
Didn't want to hijack the thread on Michele Zucovsky's fifty years with the L. A. Philharmonic, but it made me wonder ... has anybody published any serious research connecting the clarinet or other wind instruments with healthy longevity? I have nothing but anecdotal evidence: I know quite a few amateur and professional wind players still actively playing in their 80s; we all know about Stanley Drucker; and I have the impression that I'm in better shape than a lot of 64-year-olds with arthritic knees simply because playing winds is a decent but not murderously strenuous cardio workout.
But of course it's easy for that type of discussion to descend into rank quackery. Hmmm -- I have to ask my husband to whack a few inches off my hair whenever it grows long enough to give me whiplash when I sit on it. Does that mean playing the clarinet encourages hair growth?
Yes, over the years, that sort of thing has appeared in respectable medical journals. See "The Effect Of Music on the Growth of the Hair," by an anonymous writer in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Volume 134, February 6, 1896, p. 154. The article is available online at http://books.google.com/books?id=25EEAAAAJ#%20violinists%22&pg=PA154#v=onepage&q&f=false
According to this terribly earnest and therefore unintentionally funny article,"The piano and the violin, the piano in particular, prevent or arrest the loss of the hair."
Nevertheless, the writer reports that, "Louis Ries is compelled to use a hair restorer, and John Tiplady Carrodus could easily count the hairs which remain." (Ooh, how commendable: reporting the negative information along with the positive! Can this be ... science? Er, well ....) Louis Ries was the second violinist in the Norman-Néruda Quartet (whose leader had become Lady Hallé by then) at the Popular Concerts in London's St. James's Hall. John Carrodus was leader of the London Symphony Concerts (not the same as today's London Symphony Orchestra) in St. James's Hall. The article mentions Eugene Ysaÿe and Joseph Joachim as examples of virtuoso violinists with full heads of hair, and reports that Charles Hallé (concert pianist and conductor of the Hallé Concerts in Manchester, who had died a few months before the article came out) had a full head of hair until the end of his life.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2012-06-06 18:36
WRONG. My hair started falling out only a few years after I began playing clarinet. Of course my father had the same problem, but he only played piano.
Ken Shaw
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2012-06-06 19:00
I've found that when I play clarinet, my own hair is unaffected but my cats, and any other audience members within hearing range, start to lose THEIR hair (if not their lunches).
As far as age, every day I get one day older, but as I get older, a day becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of my age, so in effect I'm aging more slowly each day, on a percentage basis (this effect has nothing to do with playing the clarinet, of course, I merely mention it to obfuscate the issue at hand and to annoy the Lady Lelia).
Back on topic, I pose this counter-question: If, instead of practicing and performing on the clarinet we were using that same amount of time to exercise or do active sports, would we live longer?
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Author: Campana
Date: 2012-06-06 19:13
I can think of a scientific reason why clarinet players should have better teeth than most. Assuming that they clean their teeth before playing or practicing to avoid beloved instruments being filled up with food particles.
My trumpet playing friend feels no such obligation, he just fills up his trumpet with hot water and gives it a good shake.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2012-06-06 21:48
Wow, I barely brush my teeth once a day !!!
This is pretty anecdotal stuff at best. When I was a student (70's) the word on the street was that you would be fat and bald if you stuck with the clarinet (based on I suppose the majority of clarinetists around at that time).
Many orchestral wind players get put out to pasture in their sixties (in fact look at all the young faces in the Vienna Philharmonic !!!). Stanley Drucker was a bit of an odd case. But he earned every minute with that flawless technique and sure sound........every time.
Still, if you have music with you in your life in a real meaningful way you will FEEL better no matter what your age.
................Paul Aviles
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Author: Garth Libre
Date: 2012-06-07 02:39
Since I started back playing my clarinet after a decades long layoff, what I've noticed is a tightening of the jawline, and a toning of the facial muscles. All this is very subtle but I can see it. In less than six months I feel I'm a bit younger looking. For the record, I'm 5'9" and 58 years old, 157 lbs and about 3 or 4 pounds overweight. I do regular road biking, and yoga at least once a day. About five years ago my hair started to thin a bit. It takes a careful haircut to make me look like I have a youthful hairline. I see no reason why exercising the face wouldn't improve facial muscle tone but I still think it's a stretch to say that it will preserve hair. I see healthy men with severely diminished hair and severely sick men with full heads of hair. The secret for retaining hair into one's older years has not yet been discovered. I use saw palmetto supplements but still have lost some hair. Maybe I would have lost more but that's only a guess.
I was hoping that playing clarinet would cure my snoring issues, but my wife assures me that it hasn't.
Garth, 305-981-4705. garthlibre@yahoo.com
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Author: Bill
Date: 2012-06-07 15:08
I always think of Harold Wright, who aged so much and died at 67. He looked older. I think of this more often than I should.
Bill Fogle
Ellsworth, Maine
(formerly Washington, DC)
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Author: Buster
Date: 2012-06-07 19:54
I can see it now at the local pharmacy:
Shelves of Rogaine book-ended by cheap Chinese-made clarinets.
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Author: MichaelW
Date: 2012-06-07 21:31
Medically spoken the secret of retaining scalp hair has been discovered long ago: It’s a) genetics, b) lack of testosterone. M.
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![[grin]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie5.gif)
in the first place. The other day I wasn't able to make the address for that 1896 article work as a link. Let's see if it will be clickable this time: