I've been thinking (take cover, this could be dangerous)... I'm developing still another new theory, so don't take me too seriously. (I don't even take myself seriously!) But, what if I don't actually have embouchure dystonia? What if this thing I have is really cervical (neck) dystonia? When my neck moves involuntarily, the effect spreads to my lips & tongue with synchronized motions in an effort to compensate for the movement in my neck. This is my lips way (muscle intelligence) of trying to maintain the stability needed to produce a smooth tone. It seems to have worked for quite a while. I remember as early as a year before I realized that something was seriously wrong, I noticed that when I tongued rapid passages, my head bobbed forward and backwards in a very tiny motion in the exact rhythm of my tonguing. It didn't dramatically interfere with my sound at that point, so I paid no attention to it, thinking it must be normal. Eventually, the neck bobbing became wider and wider as did the compensating lip movements until it was impossible to play with a steady tone. That's when I had my complete chops "melt down."
Now that I've learned to eliminate the tension by relaxing my neck, my head no longer bobs when I tongue rapid passages.
Shortly after my "melt down," one of the embouchure ghuru's I consulted with told me that I had "conditioned" myself to play this way. I think he was right: Whenever I put my horn to my mouth, my lips had been conditioned to wah-wah in synch with my wobbling neck. I naturally associated the wobbling w/ my embouchure since it was most noticable when I played my horn. But for several weeks after my "melt down" I also noticed trembling in my lips when I drank from a cup. Once I calmed down a bit, the trembling disappeared. (I'm sure you can all relate to the panic I felt initially.)
Hmmmm... As I work with condition, whatever it is, everything my embouchure (and to a lesser extent my tongue) does is directly tied to the tension in my neck. When my neck is tense it wobbles forwards and backwards, then my lips and tongue move in exact synchrony to compensate while I play my horn. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that I have a neck problem, not an embouchure problem. I don't think there's ever really been anything wrong with my embouchure. It functioned quite well before all this stuff started and it functions quite well now (actually better in certain ways) and I haven't made any changes in my embouchure mechanics. I think my lips were just doing their intelligent best to compensate for the involuntary movements that originated in my neck.
I hope this makes sense. Thoughts?
Valerie
Wells123456 at Juno.com
