Just over two weeks so far, and I still cannot play the flute for more than a couple of minutes! Top front incisor - implant - infection in the bone - operation to cut infected bone out - couldn’t recognize myself in the mirror - healing of bone and gum… It all takes time - too much! I’ve even been reduced to playing the Bodhran.
On the positive side, I can at least play the whistle again now, though it still hurts a bit. And at least I can get the tone out of my flutes, so nothing seems to have been seriously damaged.
I’m wondering whether I’d have been better off to risk living with a bridge over the hole where the front incisor would have been - though knowing me, it wouldn’t have survived Judo training for very long anyway.
HEY!!! Some of the nicest people are bodhran players!!
Be glad you went with the repair. I don’t wear the retainer I should because I hated having it in my mouth. And, it wouldn’t have survived martial arts training.
You have my sympathies. I knocked out one of my incisors when I was 10, and the dentist performed an experimental proceedure and put it back it. It lasted for about 8 years, and then I was fitted for a bridge. The constant re-working of my mouth during those 8 years did not do good things for my flute embouchure. And the pain!! I complained to my dentist that the slighted work in the front of my mouth was agony, whereas I could sleep through major work on my molars. He gave me an old-fashioned grin and said “that’s why we don’t kiss with our wisdom teeth.” So hang in there…it will get better!
Well I know about it. Remember last summer I could not go to the Augusta shindig in WV? I had implants in the bottom and instead of my teeth getting knocked loose (had I had them*) the implants cracked the bone and now I am toothless for 4 teeth worth of bottom. They made me a plate to use but I hate it. And I swear that it is easier to play without it. You just push your tongue against the lower lip inside. I could not play at first, but I swear I like it better than otherwise. This could never be the case with missing uppers but with missing lowers the air moves smoothly over the tongue. So it is not so bad.
*People who learn English as a second language are driven crazy by such constructions as: had I had them. One time an imagrant came to me and said, “What is this shit, I had to have to have them”?
Truth be told, I lost several teeth, and it has been suggested that the muscles called upon to play a transverse flute could adversely weaken one’s teeth, or the rooting thereof.
Then again, teeth do not an embouchure make, and perhaps teeth could only impede one’s airstream, eh?
Could be they are talking about the frenulum in the lips. (The little folds that attach the lip to the gum. Run your tongue along your gums by your front teeth, you’ll feel it.)
I had to have my lower one clipped, the muscles attached to it were too strong, and were literally pulling the gum off the teeth. I suppose over development of the lip muscles could produce this.
I smoke not, and avoid strong alcohol. So, perhaps it could be said that I sacrificed some teeth to play transverse flute. YMMV.
Doug
Edit: Some individuals apparently do not experience tooth troubles, but others do. It seems that the Boehm flute officially has three registers, but can also produce more than another half an octave, in a well known, fourth register. That is what likely caused my tooth troubles, frankly. The required embouchure strength pushes the teeth one way, and using the teeth to eat food pushes them another way. Eventually they get loose, and then subject to infection troubles.
Had I only played a modern “Irish” flute, where most of the playing is done in the lower registers, I might have never had tooth troubles, at all.
