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Any experience with tongue-tied musicians?

Author: Tobin
Date: 2022-05-24 19:10

Hello all,

Have you ever experienced a woodwind player (clarinet or otherwise) that had a tongue tie (ankyloglossia) that impacted their ability to play?

If so, how significant was the impact?

I’m asking on behalf of a friend who is collecting information to determine whether they should have their child’s tie corrected or leave it as-is. Many thanks for responses from those who have first-hand experience!

James

(Yes, there’s a thread on this topic from 2006. It provides little to no information.)

Gnothi Seauton

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Re: Any experience with tongue-tied musicians?

Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-05-24 19:29

Hi Tobin,

I don't know any tongue-tied musicians, but I heard an awful lot about tongue-tie when I was hanging out at toddler's groups with my son.

The concensus among my parent friends at the time, was that if the tongue-tie was preventing the infant from feeding effectively then it should be cut.

Conversely if the infant was able to feed well enough, then as the child grew, it would go through a phase of stretching its tongue really strongly until the tie got longer to the point where it no longer impeded the movement of the tongue. My son did that.

I had one parent friend who had a tongue tie that had not been cut, and he showed me the range of motion that he had, and it was clearly enough for him to do what he needed to do. It would certainly have been enough to articulate a clarinet reed.

Having said that, when my son was little I had all sorts of difficult and critically important decision that I had to make for him. One of the biggest lessons that I learned was that I often had to ignore the advice of those adults around me and follow my own instinct. So if the parents of the child that you are asking about have a strong instinct one way or the other it might be best if they just follow it.

Caveat as always - I am not a medic and can't give medical advice, so they need to make their own decision.

I hope that helps.

Best wishes,

Jennifer

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