 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Micke Isotalo ★2017
Date: 2019-09-25 10:40
A recent science podcast at www.thenakedscientists.com had a feature about the lungs of wind players.
The question answered was "Do wind players have specialized lungs?"
Surprisingly to me they said that there is no difference in total lung capacity or other measures related to the lungs between a wind instrument player and a non player.
That would thus mean that any exercises supposed to increase lung capacity would be in vain.
The only differences they had found was related to the way in which the lungs are used, which included the strength of the diaphragm.
Another surprise for me was that they have found a lot of lung damage among wind instrument players, such as inflammation.
Thus as a conclusion I suppose it could even be said that our lung function as wind instrument players is lower compared to non players.
A full transcript as well as the recording itself of this part of the program can be found here (with a picture of a clarinetist): https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/do-wind-players-have-specialised-lungs
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2019-09-25 17:27
That's kind of an odd article. He casually admits that there is a difference in the way wind players use their lungs, and in the strength of the muscles, but brushes that off as though it's hardly relevant. I think it's hugely relevant.
He doesn't cite the papers that the studies were done in either. I would be very interested to see the actual papers and find out what was measured and in how big and disparate a population.
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Author: ruben
Date: 2019-09-26 02:19
Sunny: good, critical scientific eye!
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: hans
Date: 2019-09-26 03:12
The lung damage and inflammation found isn't surprising. Wind instrument players who don't keep their equipment clean risk inhaling bacteria and fungi, which will colonize it quickly. Several years ago the British Medical Journal published an article about shortened life expectancy among wind instrument musicians who practised "circular breathing"; those who practise it appear to be at higher risk than the rest of us.
Pete Fountain suffered from respiratory weakness as a child and was told to play clarinet to strengthen his lungs. In his case the prescription seems to have been successful and he lived to age 86.
I'm going to go and clean my mouthpieces now....... ;-D
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2019-09-26 04:01
I don't see what circular breathing would do differently than regular breathing. For a brief moment you close off your oral cavity and push with your cheeks. Where is the risk factor?
Ok, so the lung's function is a chemical exchange. When you take a breath, air with oxygen in it comes down to little receptor/transmitter sites called alveoli. There the oxygen is "sucked in" and carried off by the blood to the heart where it is distributed via the arterial system to all the cells of the body. The cells in turn "poop out" carbon dioxide that is carried off by the blood via the venal system where it goes to the heart and back to the alveoli where carbon dioxide is shed by the lung when we breathe out.
This chemical exchange can be negatively affected by the presence of tar from smoking or cancer (tissue growth "gone wild"). Neither of those have anything to do with capacity.
As I have stated in other posts, one of music's greatest tuba players had an amazing career with just one lung, half a "normal person's" lung capacity.
The associated musculature of breathing is what is important to wind players and how they use it. And though the diaphragm is a necessary part of the push/pull aspect of breathing muscles used in opposition to create a steady stream of air (what we do), the diaphragm by itself only causes the air to get sucked in..........not out. So here I would say it plays quite the secondary role to what is important to wind players and singers.
just for the record
.................Paul Aviles
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Author: Tom H
Date: 2019-09-26 05:22
I wash my mouthpiece and reed thoroughly after each use. Have never had any lung issues. The notion that wind players (other than "infected" ones due to mp hygiene) have more or less lung problems than non wind players is hard for me to believe. What about those who practice/play many hours daily vs. one hour?
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Author: hans
Date: 2019-09-26 07:17
The BMJ link might be of interest: https://www.bmj.com/content/319/7225/1612
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2019-09-26 13:25
I could not agree more!
If you play the saxophone, you will die.
Don't play the saxophone.
:-)
................Paul Aviles
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Author: MichaelW
Date: 2019-09-26 17:58
Certainly wind players have no other lungs than other people, and the author is right in saying that it's the way they use them (i.e. the respiratory muscles) that makes the difference. Vital capacity and „tidal volume“ can be improved by training or, on the other hand, reduced by inflammatory diseases, emphysema, silicosis etc.
If there was found no difference in respiratory parameters between wind instrument players and other people I couldn't imagine that there was „a lot of inflammation, a lot of damage“ in their lungs.
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Author: m1964
Date: 2019-09-26 18:33
I have found a few articles on the subject:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19382523/
https://www.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/jappl.1964.19.5.967
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6195392/
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/95e2/fc698f2c7688272f37fa6d0e5ab9043b1e87.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjTqNzU0-7kAhVxm-AKHUEvDt0QFjALegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw11lbKApxoxMvl0QV1VENex&cshid=1569506833651
The last article is interesting.
However, we do not play to increase our lung capacity or forced expiratory volume so keeping our clarinets, reeds and cases mold- free is all we can do.
After all, we all carry many different bacteria in our mouth and on the skin, including wind players and anyone else.
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