Date sent:        Wed, 9 Jul 1997 22:45:14 +0100
Subject:          You Web page on musicians and injuries

I surfed in via a bassoonist's page, and I thought at first that you
were James Prevatt, whose link I followed to your page.

I am an amateur bassoonist with a pain in my left shoulder. Well, I've
almost got rid of it now, and the solution came about quite by chance...

I had my crook (bocal) recorked and when I put it into my instrument it
was stiff and I accidentally bent it. I had to take it to the shop to
get it unbent and when I got it back, it had been straightened more than
I had bent it, which altered my playing position, and allowed my left
shoulder, which tended to hunch up when I was playing, to drop into a
better position. My teacher had recognised that I had a posture problem,
but hadn't recognised what the cause was. He kept telling me to drop my
shoulder, but because of the shape of my crook, I couldn't do as he
said. I have shared with him my accidental solution to my problem, and
expect that he will add it to his store of knowledge and if he ever has
another pupil with the same problem, he will know to experiment with
crooks next time.

Incidentally, the shoulder problem only got really bad after an amateur
recording session I got involved in. Had I been a professional, there
would have been a union rep to enforce regular breaks, but because we
were amateurs and everyone was doing it for the love of it and we didn't
want to waste the technicians' time, we sat and played without a break
for about three hours. If that orchestra ever asks me to do a recording
session again, I am inclined to say *NO* unless I can get some
assurances about rest breaks from them. Playing for three hours without
a break should be on everybody's *DON'T DO IT* list.

I'm going to come back later and read you pages in more depth: you have
some very interesting and useful information online.

Helen.
-- 
                        http://www.baronmoss.demon.co.uk/

======== A later message adds: =======
Yes, you can put my email address on there, but let it be known that I
am simply an amateur bassoonist who figured out the cause of a
particular physical problem affecting myself.

Other players may not experience the difficulty I encountered. For
instance, you should see Dag Jensen's set-up. *I* would get a very sore
shoulder if I played with my instrument set up like his, but his arms
must be shorter than mine or something, because it obviously works all
right for him.