My Experience With Focal Dystonia
I was always particularly drawn to the trumpet. There was something about its brilliance, its power, its ability to cut through an entire symphony orchestra by itself. I took up lessons at about the age of ten, joined bands and orchestras as soon as I was able, and looked forward to studying the instrument at college and playing it professionally. Fate had other ideas.
On May 2, 2019, I graduated from the University of Alabama in Huntsville with a music degree. I had gone through all four years of college with a neurological disorder known as focal dystonia, which ruined my ability to play the trumpet and has now taken it out of my life completely. It began mere months before I started college. I tussled with it, fought with it, threw everything I had at it, and whenever I thought I had it beat, it would return with a vengeance and mock my efforts. During my time at UAH, my colleagues were often mystified by it, and sometimes had a difficult time grasping exactly what this invisible force was that kept me from performing and caused me so much stress. I hope that this piece will clear up some of the confusion. More than that, however, I want to document my struggle with this rare but endlessly frustrating disease, and hopefully persuade any musicians reading about the dangers of playing through injuries, and above all, perfectionism. Especially perfectionism, a cancer that will poison any walk of life.
To those of you reading who struggle with dystonia, I wish I could say this story has a happy ending, but I hope that you will still find something useful and encouraging. If reading about my experience prevents one musician from allowing perfectionism to infect his or her musical enjoyment, or allows one dystonic musician to find some crucial nugget of information, I think it will definitely all have been worth it.
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On a cold December morning in 2014, I woke up with a start. I immediately put my hand to my upper lip, and what I felt made my heart sink. I dragged myself out of bed, looked at my bleary-eyed self in the mirror, and sure enough, right on the center of my top lip was a big, gnarly, ultra-sensitive blackhead pimple. I had noticed it starting to form the night before, and went to sleep worried it would fester into something ugly and painful overnight. But it was not simply waking up with an ugly pimple on my face that upset me. It was the fact that the next day, I had a concert to play. I was first trumpet in the Huntsville Youth Symphony, and our Christmas concert was tomorrow.
What a magical program Carols of Christmas is. We pair up with a local church choir and play majestic John Rutter choral arrangements, popular Christmas tunes, classical selections such as The Nutcracker, all in an absolutely magnificent sanctuary with one of the best pipe organs in the region. Being a typical trumpet player, and first trumpet no less, I so looked forward to sinking my teeth into those John Rutter pieces and having a ball with those soaring, magnificent upper-register trumpet lines, a real chance to show off. But the piece de resistance was the Hallelujah Chorus, which we always play at the very end. I loved to play the heck out of the acrobatic trumpet part on that piece, and soak up the compliments afterward. But I was faced with the prospect of having to miss it all. After discovering the blackhead, I got my trumpet out and tried to practice. Nothing doing. The pimple was smack dab in the same place where the top of my mouthpiece rests, and simply holding the mouthpiece there stung unbearably, to say nothing about the added mouthpiece pressure that comes with playing. I cursed my acne-prone Italian skin and set about trying to get rid of my pimple before tomorrow night.
I tried just about everything. I tore into Google looking for home remedies, which led me to keep toothpaste on my lip for a few hours, then acne cleansing cream, and then, after justifying it by finding just enough supporting opinion (like an anti-vaxxer might do), I popped the thing with a small needle. Nothing helped; if anything, I probably made it worse by messing with it so much. Desperate, I drove to the nearest CVS in the evening and asked the pharmacist if there was anything he had that might help. He recommended Abreva, which is typically used for cold sores. He said it might not work overnight, but it was my best bet, and I was willing to try anything. I bought a tube, and before I went to sleep that night, slathered it on my lip.
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When I woke up the next morning, the pimple was still there in all its monstrousness, and was no less painful to play through. At this point, I was ready to admit defeat. I called up HYO’s conductor, Mr. Lee, and told him what was happening. I asked him not to count me out completely, because I still had one trick up my sleeve: dose up on ibuprofen. I downed three pills a few hours before concert time. After a while, I got my trumpet out, and it had worked! The pain hadn’t disappeared completely, but it had subsided enough where I could play in relative comfort. So off I went to the concert. By this time, Mr. Lee had already called a professional player to take my place; he was a local trumpet player who occasionally subbed for the Huntsville Symphony. I was glad to have him there, because I was a bit out of shape from not being able to practice for a while. I wisely let him take many of the high passages, but that didn’t stop me from really digging in wherever I could. I still took the good stuff, such as the Rutter carols and the Hallelujah Chorus. All in all, I played quite well, and went home happy.
The next time I got my trumpet out was on January 1, 2015, about two and a half weeks after the concert. The reason for the long hiatus was that the pimple took about another week to go away, and I took time off to spend with my family for Christmas. But here I was, back at it again. For some reason, my tonguing wasn’t working. Some clarification: brass players articulate notes by making a “ta” or “da” sound with the tongue. I had suddenly lost the ability to do this. Whenever I tried to engage my tongue, a facial tug of war ensued. The muscles in my face pulled back the corners of my mouth, killing my buzz; my jaw would almost clamp shut with my two front teeth resting on my bottom lip. It looked like I was chewing when I played; only after a few seconds could I manage to spit the note out. I should note that this was not the first time I had noticed hesitant articulation in my playing; in the months leading up to the Christmas concert, I had noticed a few late attacks even though I consciously knew where to attack on time. Although Mr. Lee noticed a few of these in orchestra rehearsals, they were not a huge problem and I could mostly overcome them without any problems. For a moment, I entertained the thought that I might have caused some damage at the Christmas program. Had I played through an injury and pushed something, like a bad technique I learned somewhere, over the edge? I put that out of my mind; my first thought was, “Well, you’ve been away from the horn for a couple weeks now; you’re just out of shape, give it time and it’ll sort itself out.”
Except it didn’t. It only got worse. Days turned into weeks, and the problem had still not gone away. Trying to use the tongue was triggering an uncontrollable spasm that sent my lip muscles into mayhem. My teacher, Mr. Zeiger, worked with me extensively to try and sort the issue out, but to no avail. There was also another concert coming up. Every couple of years, HYO teams up with Oakwood University’s stellar choir, the Aeolians, for a concert in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. I greatly enjoyed this program as well; it always featured many wonderful pieces inspired by the Civil Rights movement and some patriotic tunes. This was my first chance to play it as first trumpet. But by this point, I was dreading it. We were playing an arrangement of “Battle Hymn of the Republic” which has a bugle call at the beginning, played by the first trumpet. Mr. Lee knew about my condition by now, but I told him I did not want a sub; I was going to do the best I could. It turned out to be the worst solo I’ve ever played. I could not spit out the notes to save my life, and when I did, they were wrong. I was dumbfounded, and so were my orchestra colleagues. I had never played that badly with them before. The choir took notice, too, but this was the first time they’d heard me play. After the concert, a few of their members came up to me and tried to cheer me up. “You’ll get it next time, buddy.” “Don’t sweat it; nerves can get the best of us.” “Keep trying, you’ll get there; all it takes is practice.” I was grateful for their understanding and knew they meant well. But I was also boiling inside. This was not how I normally played. Something was destroying my ability to play this instrument that I love so much, and I was very worried that it might not go away. More than that, however, I was absolutely mortified. I messaged one of the choir members who is a friend of mine and apologized for my performance. She understood, and I was thankful for that. But the time had come to make some tough decisions.
After speaking with Mr. Lee, I decided to drop out of the youth orchestra. It was a painful decision, but he and I both understood that something was wrong with me, and I needed time to sort it out. He called in a trumpet player from UAH named Chad to play first trumpet. The next concert was the first in years that I had missed. During this time, my lessons with Mr. Zeiger became devoted entirely to figuring out what the heck was wrong with me and try to fix it. And suddenly, for a short while, it all seemed to go away. In the middle of February, I thought the thing had finally subsided; I could tongue more comfortably, even if there was still a slight hesitation. I actually returned to HYO. But then, only about a week later, it came roaring back, as bad as ever. I was not about to drop out for a second time, though; I moved down to a lower part and slugged it out for the rest of the year. I was very grateful to Chad for stepping in for me; during this time, we got to know each other pretty well, and he and I would become good friends in college.
As early as January, before the Oakwood concert, I had begun to suspect focal dystonia, based on the research I had done on what might be the cause of my issues. I had made a few other forays into possible medical causes- the first thing we tried was to see if I had developed an allergy of some sort to the metal in my mouthpiece, causing my lips to swell and throwing off my articulation. This yielded no fruit, of course. But by April, when my condition had still not improved, Mr. Zeiger and I agreed that I needed to be evaluated by a neurologist. Aside from that one week in February, this thing had thwarted everything we had thrown at it, adapting to it all like the Borg. I went to my family doctor first to get a referral to a local neurologist, who I saw and played for in May. He confirmed my worst fears- it did, in his judgment, look like a musician’s dystonia. But since he had rather limited experience with musician’s dystonia (and also because he anticipated our reaction), he wanted a second opinion. He therefore set up an appointment for me at Vanderbilt University.
At this point, my summer was already gearing up to be unusually crappy. In late May, we lost the family dog. Then, in the first week of June, came my favorite week of the year, the Tennessee Valley Music Festival, and my condition forced me to sit it out. The lineup for this year’s festival included Festive Overture and Symphony No. 5 by Shostakovich, two pieces with magnificent brass parts that I absolutely adore and had been salivating to play for practically all my life. But there was no way I could do it in my condition. I attended the concerts to support my friends and colleagues, but fought back tears as I longed to join them. Then, about two weeks later, my grandfather passed away. I and my siblings were very close to him. Less than a month later, with emotional wounds still fresh, I stepped into the neurologist’s office at Vanderbilt, trumpet case slung over my shoulder.
After going through the tedious formalities of paperwork, insurance information, background questions, medical history, everything short of the meaning of life, I was ushered into a small, antiseptic-looking examination room. I was to meet with two neurologists. The first neurologist was a very friendly woman who had seen several musician’s dystonia cases in her career. She pulled up a chair and tested my motor functions, then asked me to play. I got out my horn and train-wrecked my way through a basic articulation exercise; the spasming triggered by every attempt to tongue the notes was on full display. She watched my face closely, and asked me to try a few different things, taking notes on everything that occurred. Her expression became increasingly serious the more time I spent playing. I could tell what she was thinking. She left briefly and returned with an older woman, who was one of Vanderbilt’s associate professors of neurology, and they told me that they were diagnosing me with embouchure dystonia. They gave me little hope, telling me that this was a permanent, career-ending condition and that the very few treatment options available to me were generally ineffective, with very small success rates. What’s more, the older neurologist told me that I was the second-youngest case of dystonia she had ever seen. What had caused this? I was not certain, but I suspected that playing through that accursed pimple had something to do with it. I had played through an injury and seriously damaged something, I thought. All because I wanted to show off in front of my high-school-age friends and their parents and grandparents on a concert they had by now forgotten.
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So, what is focal dystonia, this mysterious ailment that the Vanderbilt neurologists told me was ending my trumpet career? Put simply, it is a “misfire” between the brain and muscles in a certain part of the body, affecting a particular set of fine motor skills necessary to perform a certain task, especially those that are performed repetitively. Sufferers suddenly find seemingly simple neuromuscular tasks impossible or extremely difficult. In medical literature it is defined as “task-specific,” meaning that the affected parts of the body are only unable to perform one specific task. Those with writer’s cramp, for example, find that they inexplicably have lost the ability to grip a writing utensil such as a pen or pencil, despite having perfectly functional hands otherwise. Their hands simply refuse to perform the simple task of holding a pencil, as it will trigger spasms beyond the sufferer’s control that worsen if fought. Yet, little or nothing else poses a problem for them; they can type on a keyboard or fold paper into origami shapes with no issues. This is what makes dystonia so mysterious, and so difficult for those without it to understand. In my case, the specific task I could not perform was tonguing. I could still form my embouchure, slur notes and phrases, and do breath attacks with no problem. But engaging the tongue was nearly impossible without triggering spams in my face, and so I had suddenly lost one of the most fundamental and necessary skills to playing wind instruments.
Athletes call it the “yips,” which refers to an otherwise talented player’s sudden, inexplicable decrease in ability. Rick Ankiel, a former outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, began his career as a pitcher, and suddenly lost the ability to pitch with anything resembling control. He threw wild pitch after wild pitch, yet, after he was moved to outfield, he became known throughout baseball for possessing one of the strongest, most precise arms in the league. It was that one specific task of pitching that he suddenly could do no longer. Mackey Sasser, a former catcher for the New York Mets, almost completely lost the ability to throw a baseball at all after a hard collision at home plate. He could not throw the ball back to the pitcher before tapping the ball in his glove several times, and even after that the throw might be a weak lob that the pitcher had to take several steps forward to retrieve. Baserunners rather cruelly took advantage of this, stealing bases during Sasser’s fits with the ball. Yet, if a baserunner tried to steal a base during a pitch, giving Sasser only a split second to react, he could pop up and fire a dart to whatever base was being stolen. If he had time to think about a throw, it became a nightmare. As with many cases of the yips, especially in the days before dystonia became well-defined in medical literature, Sasser’s struggles were misinterpreted as mere incompetence rather than a legitimate problem beyond his control.
Musician’s dystonia, as it is often called, is more prevalent than anyone realizes. It has brought down a number of famous musicians. Phil Smith, former principal trumpet of the New York Philharmonic, was forced to retire due to embouchure dystonia, although he managed to recover his playing after a few years. Timothy Lees, concertmaster of the Cincinnati Symphony, recently retired due to dystonia affecting his left hand. Leon Fleisher is a pianist known for performing only with his left hand, and did so for about 40 years due to dystonia in his right hand. Alex Klein, principal oboist of the Chicago Symphony, was forced into a long retirement due to dystonia in his hand. Even the legendary composer-pianist Robert Schumann is believed to have suffered from dystonia; he lost control of his right hand, ending his distinguished career as a concert pianist. The symptoms he described in his memoirs and correspondence are consistent with focal dystonia.
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After the Vanderbilt appointment, my mom drove me home, and I was silent for almost the whole trip. I had a lot to think about. I was supposed to start college in about a month. What was I going to do? I had planned to audition at several universities, including Vanderbilt; but I really wanted to go to the University of Alabama, because I liked their trumpet professor and orchestra director a lot (plus my sister was a violin student there, and could show me the ropes of the music department). But there was no way I could get into either school now. The audition panels would laugh me out of the room the way I was playing. I considered going through college as a pianist instead; I was decent enough at piano to focus on, say, a music ed degree, and make piano my primary instrument. But I had not anticipated the disaster that had just befallen me, and didn’t have any repertoire prepared for an audition. I also considered other majors, in things I find interesting such as aerospace engineering or history, but my heart was not in it. I could not see myself doing anything other than music. There was really only one more option left open to me: The University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Although I had applied and gained acceptance as a formality, I had not seriously considered this school; it was a small school with a very small music department that didn’t have the prestige of larger ones like Vanderbilt and Alabama. It is a STEM-focused school whose hallmarks are its engineering and space science programs. But I knew the music faculty very well. Dr. Ragsdale, the head of the music department, had been my conductor when I played in the HYO’s middle-school-level ensemble. And Dr. Sanders, the trumpet professor, had given me my very first trumpet lessons. Both were aware of my condition, and I had already taken a lesson with Dr. Sanders about my playing issues. She told me that she was skeptical of the dystonia diagnosis, and that she could pull me through whatever it was that was causing my issues. But auditioning was still out of the question, so she struck a deal with me. Music majors could sometimes be admitted without auditioning given extreme circumstances; mine seemed to qualify. The jury at the end of my first semester would serve as my de facto audition, and if I made enough progress to pass the jury, I was in. If not, then I would probably be advised to pursue a non-musical degree. I accepted, but it irked me that I was not able to audition. I had done well enough on the ACT to get a scholarship that paid for about three-quarters of my tuition, but not being able to audition meant that I could not get a music scholarship to make up for the rest. I was forced to take out loans, which annoyed me, but all in all I was just glad that I had the opportunity to study music.
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I began my first semester with my tail between my legs. I honestly felt a bit inferior at first; a lot of my friends had gotten into great music schools, many of them going to the same schools I had dreamed of attending, playing in wonderful university orchestras and performing my favorite classical repertoire. But here I was, studying music at a STEM school that didn’t even have an orchestra program, only a wind ensemble and choir. I was frustrated. Combine this with my typically shy, reserved personality towards new people, and looking back I might have appeared aloof and unfriendly towards my new colleagues in those early months. I never went with them when they went out to eat, took a weekend trip, or invited me to a gathering at their houses or apartments. Plus, I couldn’t stand it when they “creeped” on me while I was in a practice room. (This refers to the practice of peering into the window of an occupied practice room to see who’s inside.) I usually sat where I could see the window and catch creepers, and bit the head off more than one unlucky soul.
I went into my first college trumpet lesson with Dr. Sanders not knowing what to expect. The task ahead of me- getting my playing back into enough shape to pass a jury- seemed daunting. But I quickly realized that Dr. Sanders was the perfect teacher for me. “John,” she said during our first lesson, “you strike me as a very passionate individual, someone who has a strong passion for the trumpet and for music.” That was true. “I can also tell there is a perfectionist inside of you,” she continued, “who doesn’t tolerate messing up and will make you beat yourself up over the slightest mistake.” She read me like a book. As long as I had played in bands and orchestras, I had demanded perfection out of myself. In particular, I couldn’t let go of comparing myself to other trumpet players. There were a number of exceptionally talented trumpet players who went through the Huntsville Youth Orchestra program, and I told myself for years that I had to play just as well as them, or I would be considered a failure. When I became first trumpet in HYO, I held onto this attitude. Whenever I botched a solo or flubbed a high note, I would immediately think about those “heavyweight” players that had once sat right where I was, and tell myself, “They wouldn’t have messed that up. What’s wrong with you? You suck!” I couldn’t stand the thought of being considered less of a trumpet player than them. Dr. Sanders recognized this attitude in me from day 1 at UAH.
While our goal was not to ignore the physical side of my playing issues, it was clear that I needed to re-evaluate my attitude and check my ego. They were at the very source of the problem. For years I had allowed my drive for perfection to supersede proper technique, causing me to play with a large amount of diaphragm and shoulder tension, and copious amounts of mouthpiece pressure. Mr. Zeiger was well aware of this, and had spent a significant amount of time working with me on relaxation, using proper breathing and posture. But the minute I got into rehearsal in band or orchestra, everything he taught me went out the window. I went back to whatever would help me hit all the high notes and force out that orchestral sound I wanted from myself, my physical well-being taking a back seat. At the same time, I carried this sense of dread every time I played, a fear of messing up that was driven by my perfectionism. Combined with my drive to be a hero, the result was a hopeless, trumpet-playing bundle of tension. I was just setting myself up for injury.
Dr. Sanders worked to get me away from my negative mindsets. Her primary goal was to turn me into more of a musician and less of a trumpet player, if you catch my drift. She assigned a large amount of breathing and long-tone exercises for me to work on, and gradually added in articulation exercises. Soon, we began to work on a jury piece- we selected “English Suite,” a popular five-movement suite of British cornet solos including “Rule Britannia” and “Greensleeves” arranged for trumpet and piano. We chose three movements and got to work.
Dr. Sanders worked on helping me learn to stop thinking so much- to get away from trying to set up the perfect embouchure and worrying about what’s going to happen if I botch what I’m playing. All the thinking you need to do is hear in your head how to play what’s on the page musically; technical proficiency will come. Miraculously, it seemed, we made progress. Gradually, tonguing became more comfortable. I still experienced some of the same symptoms- hesitation, muscular jerking- but the more time went on, the easier playing became. I was greatly encouraged by the progress we were making. I played in the UAH Wind Ensemble, where I found it gradually becoming easier to play meaningfully. In addition, I rejoined HYO, which UAH music majors were allowed to do for an hour of credit since UAH didn’t yet have its own orchestra.
I also soon realized that my situation was not so bad after all. Being a small music department meant that UAH music majors were very close-knit. I saw them forming a tight friendship among themselves, and despite my distant personality, they seemed to be inviting me in as well. Gradually I opened myself up to them, and slowly they began to bring me out of my shell. Where the faculty is concerned, I found that being in a small department brought at least one huge advantage over a larger school. With the faculty-to-student ratio UAH’s music department had, the faculty was able to take much more of a personal interest into their students’ well-being. I was able to receive much more one-on-one time with the faculty, who seemed to care deeply about me. Would this have been the case at Alabama or Vanderbilt, where there are many hundreds of students and a relative handful of instructors?
The big day finally came in late November- I stood before the jury and played through the three movements of the English Suite. For the first time since that Christmas concert, I felt confident that I had performed well. And I was correct, as it turned out- I passed the jury with straight As from all the panel members. I was elated. I had gone from hardly being able to tongue a note to passing a jury with high marks in only one semester! The progress I was making filled me with confidence. It seemed Dr. Sanders was right- maybe the neurologists had misdiagnosed me, and what I had was simply all in my head. If I continue to progress at this rate, I thought, I should have this thing licked in no time.
I started the Spring 2016 semester a different trumpet player. Not only was I finding playing to be more comfortable, but I was enjoying it. I was finally learning how to let go of unrealistic expectations and just have fun on the instrument. For this semester, Dr. Sanders and I chose a piece called “Andante et Allegro” by Joseph Guy Ropartz, a piece whose difficulty is nothing to sneeze at. But my performance of it at my jury might have been the best I ever played anything on the trumpet. Once again, it was still a bit of a struggle to articulate. But I could make it happen. Not only that, but I was playing it musically, with feeling, and enjoying it. In the summer, I served as a trumpet intern at the Tennessee Valley Music Festival, and got to play in a brass quintet with some of those same brass players I admired that had come through HYO, and were now studying at the University of Alabama. We played “Maria” from West Side Story, and our performance was wonderful. In the Festival’s premier orchestra, made up of faculty, interns, and advanced students, we played the Star Wars Suite, another piece I had always wanted to play. It remains the most fun I’ve ever had in an ensemble. At this point, it felt like there was nowhere for me to go but up.
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The first semester of my sophomore year, I began to feel as though I was hitting a brick wall with my practicing. I couldn’t seem to make any more progress. I tried not to worry about it too much; these things take time, I told myself, and setbacks are sure to happen. But as my academic career progressed, bigger and better things were expected of me, and I knew I needed to rise to the occasion.
For my jury this particular semester, I played a Vivaldi violin piece arranged for b-flat trumpet. It was not extremely difficult, but it was a step above the pieces I had done my freshman year. As I practiced it, I tried to apply the tools that Dr. Sanders was teaching me in my lessons- playing with a relaxed, open embouchure, as devoid of unnecessary tension as possible, and making better use of my lung capacity. But as the semester went on, I found the involuntary movement triggered by my articulation becoming more difficult to control. Whereas up to this point I had managed to make such movement negligible or successfully work around it, this time I was finding those workarounds less effective. I struggled to start the first few notes of my jury piece in particular, and spent hours drilling them in the practice room and in my lessons with Dr. Sanders as well. I tried not to worry, even though my jury performance, while still pretty solid, wasn’t quite the triumph I had last semester.
In the spring of my sophomore year, we upped the ante a bit more- I played the first movement of the Naruda trumpet concerto, for e-flat trumpet. I loved playing the e-flat trumpet, but any enjoyment I got from playing this semester was short-lived. Soon, I began to completely lose control of my articulation. It was a slow burn, too- I didn’t lose it all at once. Every time I got in the practice room, my articulation was a bit worse than it was last time. I was stupefied, and incredibly frustrated. No matter how hard I worked, all the progress I had made up to this point seemed to be undoing itself, and I felt powerless to control it. Furthermore, my motivation was tanking, and soon I began to practice less.
One day, towards mid-semester, I was in the practice room working on some of the exercises Dr. Sanders assigned me. It was hopeless, and I became irate. While relentlessly drilling one particular exercise which involved articulation, I could not maintain my embouchure between registers, and after missing the correct partial for the 386,182,710th time, I reached my boiling point. I kicked over the music stand I was using, resulting in a loud bang as it struck the wall, and sending my sheet music flying. I sat there for several minutes with my head buried in my hands. I knew that this dystonia thing was back, and with a vengeance. I had to talk with somebody, make my feelings known to someone I trusted, because I was ready to give up. Dr. Sanders had already gone home for the day, and all my friends were in class. Sheepishly, I got up, walked to the music department office, and asked if Dr. Ragsdale was available. He was, so I poked my head in the door to his office and asked him if he had a minute.
I explained that things were not going well in the practice room, and that I was having to drag practice time out of myself. I felt as though I was falling back into the trap of perfectionism that had contributed to my condition in the first place. It was difficult to describe; it was like some sort of feedback loop where my worsening symptoms kill my desire to practice, which in turn worsens my symptoms, which then ruin my patience again, and on and on it went. Dr. Ragsdale listened attentively, and then laid out for me what my goals should be. I was about halfway done with my degree; by the time I reached my senior year, I needed to have reached a peak in my playing ability. Then I would do my recital and graduate with flying colors. It would be wonderful, but the only way I could make it happen was if I practiced my butt off, doubled down and worked as hard as I could. And these playing issues that seem to be creeping back in? Think of yourself as Luke Skywalker, or any other well-written hero. He had to go through hell and back before he became strong enough to defeat Darth Vader. It’s a trope that permeates the world of fiction, and it happens in real life, too. Right now you’re Luke undergoing Jedi training in a nasty, dank swamp, Dr. Ragsdale explained. You hit rock bottom, then you learn from it, then you come out of it a warrior.
That conversation lasted well over an hour, and I left it encouraged. I practiced more patiently for the rest of the semester. But my playing still did not improve. When juries came around, I gave an underwhelming performance of the first movement of the Naruda concerto. Dr. Sanders came around afterwards and told me I did well. But deep down I felt disappointed. I had botched a lot of the piece, and my jury marks were nothing to write home about. All because I could not get my accursed face to cooperate.
That summer, I interned at the Tennessee Valley Music Festival again. In the Festival Orchestra, we played the finale of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. I struggled mightily, making a number of embarrassing mistakes in rehearsal as my face jerked around. The worst moment of all came when I was assigned to perform on the final concert with the middle school-level orchestra, whose trumpet players were very inexperienced and still lacked confidence. They were playing an arrangement of selections from the E.T. score by John Williams. On the Bicycle Chase fanfare, I missed the highest partial completely, and it remains one of the most egregious and embarrassing performance errors I’ve ever made. In a middle school orchestra. Playing a watered-down, simplified arrangement of a film score everybody knows. After the concert, I wanted to seek out the guest conductor who had directed the middle school orchestra and apologize, but I couldn’t work up the gumption.
By the end of the week, I was devoid of hope and confidence. I realized that my playing ability was failing beyond hope of recovery. Middle-school orchestra repertoire was even giving me fits. I was gradually heading towards a complete collapse of my embouchure, and I despaired as I wondered how in the world I would ever graduate before I tanked.
And tank it did. My junior year, I started to notice that the hesitancy in my articulation that I could not control was spreading to my slurring as well. The simple act of changing notes underneath a slur (meaning not tongued if you’re not aware what that means) was triggering the same kind of movement that killed my buzz. For all this time, breath attacks and slurring were my one solid foundation, the one thing I knew I could still do and do well. On days when my tonguing was especially bad, I could hide behind some cleverly-modified slurs and breath attacks if I needed to. But not anymore; it gradually worsened until my playing was a complete mess.
Fall semester of junior year, I played in brass quintet, and it was a living hell, one of the worst musical experiences of my life. Not for the quintet itself or its members; they were all good friends of mine, and I adored our coach, Ms. Nutt. It was how badly I was playing, and how frustrating I felt I was making the experience for everyone. I couldn’t come in on time in my entrances to save my life. On passages requiring a lot of tonguing I couldn’t make my tongue work steadily, and as a result tempos would drag. Because of me! I felt like I was dragging the group down. I KNEW where to come in, how to keep a steady tempo, I just couldn’t physically make it happen on the horn. I confided these feelings to a couple of my friends in the group as well as Ms. Nutt. They told me I wasn’t dragging anyone down, I was doing fine, we would be alright. It really wasn’t, though; I was pretty embarrassed by how I was playing in quintet and how much I felt I was holding them back. When our concert rolled around, I told my parents to stay home. The program went about as well as I thought it would, and I didn’t stick around after it was over.
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It all finally came to a head that spring. I had lobbied Dr. Sanders to allow me to do my recital this semester, while I still might have something left in the tank. It was my only remaining trumpet requirement; I had passed the final level of studio instruction in the fall despite my underwhelming jury. But Dr. Sanders was convinced that I wasn’t ready yet, that I needed to take another semester of studio instruction, and do my recital next semester. I was flabbergasted, not to mention frustrated. There might not BE a “next semester” at this point, I argued. My playing was going down the cellar fast despite the many hours of practicing I was doing. Plus, to be honest, I practically hated the trumpet by this point. It was a wild beast I couldn’t tame. I was ready to finish my requirements and take a break from it. But Dr. Sanders insisted, and I sheepishly accepted. I basically had no alternative. I couldn’t switch to another primary instrument, not even piano, without prolonging my education by several more years, and I was already feeling burned out. So I signed up for another semester of lessons, with the hope that maybe this time, I would pull though it, and we would find something that would finally work.
For my jury, we chose the first movement of the Kent Kennan trumpet sonata. I worked harder on it than I had worked on any other jury piece, and was rewarded with the most pathetic jury performance in the history of jury performances. My face was paralyzed by this point. Nothing worked. It seemed that my embouchure had finally collapsed completely. I passed by the skin of my teeth, but my jury marks were dismal, and brought my grade for the semester down to a C. It was the only C, and lowest grade, I ever got in college. In music! In my instrument! I was embarrassed, for having played like that in front of the faculty and for nearly failing at something so essential to the degree requirements of a music major. At this moment I felt completely burned out. I felt sick of college and even sick of music. I entertained thoughts of dropping out and joining the Army or something drastic like that.
I met with Dr. Sanders after the semester was over. I didn’t know how in the world to proceed from here. But she ran an idea by me that I hadn’t considered before- after talking to some of the low brass faculty who had heard my jury, maybe I could take lessons on a brass instrument with a larger mouthpiece and relearn some of the fundamentals, like breathing and tonguing. I was intrigued; in the past, I had tried playing on trombone and euphonium mouthpieces and found it lessened my symptoms rather dramatically. Maybe this could work, I thought. So I set up euphonium lessons with Joel Mason, UAH’s tuba and euphonium instructor.
I greatly enjoyed working with Joel, whose jovial, boisterous personality has always been endearing to me. It seemed to go well at first; I took to the euphonium pretty quickly. He had me purchase a number of “breathing toys” meant to retrain proper breathing technique, as he believed the core of my issues was here. I readily admit, my breathing technique was never stellar. His training was very beneficial in helping me improve my breathing. But soon, the same dystonic symptoms I suffered on trumpet crept in, and once again, they thwarted our attempts to fix them like a mutating bacteria.
After I switched back to trumpet, I was much better at breathing thanks to Joel’s tutelage, but I still couldn’t tongue. In fact, I felt it was worse than before, even after allowing time for my face to readjust to trumpet mouthpieces. Now I felt helpless. I was about to start my senior year of college, and still had to get my recital out of the way. I spoke with Dr. Sanders and Dr. Ragsdale to try and work out what the heck I was going to do.
I discussed several options with them; the one I favored was that I take a semester off of lessons and ensembles and try to fix my playing without the pressure to perform. I could perhaps take lessons with Dr. Sanders “off the books,” without having to prepare jury repertoire and what not, and perhaps get some lessons with other local teachers as well for more input. What did I have to lose? I had already finished the studio instruction requirements, and all I had left was the recital, which was clearly not happening until next semester anyway. Dr. Sanders and Dr. Ragsdale believed that I should take lessons this semester as usual. This put me in a bit of a quandary. I knew I needed time to work on the fundamentals again, and without the pressure of juries and concerts. I told both Dr. Sanders and Dr. Ragsdale about this, and they tried to talk me out of it. I told them I would think about it. A few days later, I emailed them and said I was dropping all my lessons and ensembles. It was an agonizing decision to make, as I had never gone against their advice before. But I felt very strongly in my heart of hearts that I was making the right decision. I wanted to tear down and rebuild my playing from the bottom up.
I contacted Dr. Gray, a local trumpet teacher and Army musician who had played in the U.S. Army Materiel Command Band (which relocated in 2018, but Dr. Gray remained in town). I was not abandoning Dr. Sanders; I just wanted to get a fresh pair of eyes to take a look at my playing issues. We set up some weekly lessons, and started at the bare fundamentals of trumpet playing. It was a similar approach to my lessons with Joel, but trumpet-focused. Also, Dr. Gray would be serving as the trumpet instructor at UAH in the Spring since Dr. Sanders was taking a sabbatical, so I would be doing my recital with him anyway. It seemed to be a great opportunity to get to know him and familiarize myself with his pedagogical style.
I asked him to evaluate me as if I were playing trumpet for the first time, and he made note of how I buzzed, breathed, and set my embouchure. We set out trying to seek out my most natural playing setup in hopes of regaining what worked previously, while still ironing out bad habits. He had me do lots of timed breathing, and emphasized doing so with correct support and without hesitation, and we tried to work this into tonguing. Our lessons involved lots of experimentation, grabbing onto things that worked and seeing what we could learn from them.
Remarkably, we made progress. Only very slow progress. Gradually my tonguing showed slight improvement. But it was clear to me that I would not be starting my final semester in any sort of shape to prepare recital repertoire. I decided that I would certainly try to beat dystonia in these remaining months, but would also need to show that I was, in fact, dealing with a real performance injury if worse came to worse. I did not want dystonia to prevent me from graduating on time. So I decided that I would seek another medical diagnosis, in hopes of either confirming this was dystonia or, if it wasn’t, finding out if there was a medical solution to what was happening to me.
Once again, I was headed back to the neurologist, this time at UAB. I played for him, he evaluated me, and confirmed that this was a legitimate case of embouchure dystonia. This pretty much sowed it up for me. Despite the progress I was making with Dr. Gray, I knew that my playing, at the very least my normal playing, was not coming back. The UAB neurologist was very understanding and listened attentively to my situation. I explained that I was supposed to give a trumpet recital next semester to fulfill my final degree requirements, and that I obviously could not perform in this condition. In response, he promised to write a letter confirming the diagnosis, and suggesting that I be allowed some alternative that would let me graduate on time. As soon as I got the letter a few weeks later, I nervously sent copies to Dr. Sanders and Dr. Ragsdale.
After the semester was over, I went to meet with Dr. Ragsdale to discuss what to do about my recital. I was more than a little nervous; would he feel like I was trying to cheat or skim my way out of fulfilling my responsibilities as a music major with the neurologist’s note? I was worried about disappointing him. As soon as we sat down, he asked me how my playing was. I told him it was slightly better than it was at the start of the semester thanks to my work with Dr. Gray, but still in bad shape overall. He then asked if I was confident I would be able to recover my playing in time for my recital; I said probably not, even though I wanted to try. He nodded understandingly, then told me that after reading the neurologist’s letter, he had looked into the music department accreditors’ rules regarding recitals. He explained that in the case of a diagnosed performance injury, a student may give a lecture in place of performing as long as the lecture topic is related to the student’s instrument. I was incredibly relieved; a burden had been lifted. I had worried for a long time that I would be forced to come back semester after semester to try and beat this thing, or switch to a different focus or maybe even degrees entirely. But knowing I would graduate on time, knowing dystonia would not prevent me from doing my recital and graduating, was a relief I can’t describe.
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For my final semester, I rejoined wind ensemble, and willingly took last chair, where I played as much as I was able. It felt great to be back in an ensemble again, even if I was train-wrecking my part and was the only non-freshman in the trumpet section. We performed a great repertoire of works by Maslanka, Ticheli, Grainger, and other wind ensemble giants that I thoroughly enjoyed. For once I felt like I was having fun again, even if that fun mostly came from being able to soak up the sound of a nice, big ensemble around me rather than my own playing.
I also began working with Dr. Gray again. I had resolved that I wanted to try to get my playing back in enough shape to perform at least something on trumpet for my recital. I knew it was a long hope, but after these four long years of intense work on this instrument, it would really suck if I had nothing to show for it. So we kept at it, returning to many of the same things we had done in the fall, although we examined internal mechanics a bit more closely (i.e. where my tongue was when I was setting up to play). And, like in the fall, progress came in inches. But it was soon clear that a few months was not enough time to recover enough of my playing to even perform a short piece or a few brief excerpts to accompany my lecture. It would be a lecture recital, with a lecture only.
For a lecture topic, I chose the history of orchestral trumpet playing in the United States. Orchestral playing was always my niche when it came to trumpet. It was the one thing I hoped to experience in my professional life as a trumpet player- performing in the trumpet section of a symphony orchestra. Besides, all of my instructors up to this point- Mr. Zeiger, Dr. Sanders, Dr. Gray- had plenty of experience as orchestral trumpet players. So this seemed a natural topic. Dr. Gray was very helpful to me while I was putting the lecture together. I chose four important trumpet players who had helped shape American orchestral playing into what it is today: Max Schlossberg, William Vacchiano, Adolph “Bud” Herseth, and Phil Smith. I enjoyed the research a lot, but still wished deep down that I could play.
My recital happened on April 3, 2019. In the weeks leading up to the recital, I admittedly didn’t advertise myself very much. I created a Facebook event, and designed a poster, which I never printed out. Basically, I felt bummed about having only a lecture to show for my four years at UAH, during which I battled this neurological beast with everything I had, only for it all to come crashing down on me. And this recital was a moment I had looked forward to since middle school- the chance to show all my friends, family, and colleagues what I was capable of, how musical I could be. But instead, all I could do was stand up there and talk. As a result, I never really felt motivated to do much advertising. Looking back, it was a petty and selfish thing to do. But then again, just like that Christmas concert in 2014, who else in the audience even remembers?
My last hoorahs with the UAH Wind Ensemble were our final concert on April 26 and commencement on May 2. I graduated that day as well. After slogging through the commencement repertoire and numerous repetitions of Pomp and Circumstance as well as my paralyzed embouchure would allow, I joined my fellow graduates, walked, and received my diploma. I tried to play one last time, during a UAH Summer Band rehearsal later that month, but the result only further convinced me that enough was enough, as far as trumpet playing goes. I put my horns in my closet the next day, and have not played them since.
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Was it all worth it?
I’ve asked myself that question a lot since I put my trumpets away. It sometimes feels like a waste to know that I devoted so much of my life since I was ten years old to becoming the best trumpet player I could possibly be, only to have it torn away. It was certainly painful to lose it like I did, but a wise person once gave me a bit of advice I’ve always remembered: when you lose someone or something important to you, sadness is natural, but never forget to be thankful for the time you were blessed to have with what you lost. That’s how I always try to think when I reflect on my years as a trumpet player. I got to do so many wonderful things- making friends in HYO, traveling with them to Chicago, playing wonderful repertoire like Jupiter from The Planets, Scheherazade, Star Wars, spending seven semesters with the closely-knit UAH Wind Ensemble, and much more.
I also grew tremendously as a musician thanks to my teachers and friends alike. Ending up at UAH turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. In Dr. Ragsdale I found a wonderfully encouraging and supportive mentor. And Dr. Sanders taught me how to be a real musician, one who enjoys playing and doesn’t obsess over technical details and perfection. That alone, I believe, makes my entire experience with dystonia worth it. Under her tutelage, I shed my perfectionist shell and emerged with infinitely more confidence than I had when I started. And I made so many great friends at UAH that I will have for life. After they penetrated my distance and shyness, I learned to enjoy life and the people around me, and had many great experiences with them I’ll always remember.
Of course, one obvious question is: what does the future hold for me now? What am I going to do from here on out, without the trumpet? Long before I started college, conducting had greatly appealed to me. By my senior year of high school, I knew I wanted to study conducting in my post-graduate studies; as an undergraduate I planned to either study music education or trumpet performance as a route to conducting (I did neither, as it turned out; my musical focus was Liberal Arts). That desire did not go away; indeed, it grew exponentially as I progressed through my undergraduate studies. At UAH, I soaked up everything I could from Dr. Ragsdale’s awesome conducting classes, and he is perhaps my greatest single inspiration in choosing conducting as a career path. In the summer of 2017, adding onto UAH’s wonderful Summer Band program, I helped put together a Summer Orchestra, and conducted Le Tombeau de Couperin by Maurice Ravel. It was a nerve-wracking but absolutely magical experience, and firmly convinced me that conducting is my passion. In the summer of 2018, I conducted Sibelius’s Finlandia, one of my favorite orchestral pieces ever, which only convinced me further. In the spring of 2020, I conducted my first opera, Cosi fan Tutte. Conducting is something I thoroughly enjoy, and I hope to make a career of it if all goes well. If I can’t go through life with a trumpet on my face, a baton in my hands isn’t a bad trade!
Thumbnail: silhouetted trumpet player. Wikimedia Commons, User:Stannered. Creative Commons Attribution- Share Alike 3.0 Unported
