The following is a scanned image forwarded to me by a French Horn teacher. One of his students was suffering Musician’s Focal Dystonia symptoms and without any external guidance, came up with the thoughts and musings about her condition that you see in the image below. Horn player with Focal Dystonia: some thoughts For the… Continue reading…
When two people meet for the first time in a formal setting, they often shake hands, exchange names, and invariably the standard albeit cliché ice–breaker question of “So, what do you do?” will come up. An amateur musician may respond by saying something like “I’m a computer programmer”, “I’m a graphic designer” or “I’m a… Continue reading…
Anxiety or nervousness is an involuntary response which shows that subconsciously or emotionally you are unwilling to carry out a task or perform a certain action. It exists even if you consciously know that you must carry out the task. However, by altering our mental focus, we can alleviate the fear related to Musician’s Focal… Continue reading…
The following is an email follow-up from a session with a previous client that was suffering from Musician’s Focal Dystonia in the hand and fingers. The client tended to experience a 2 steps forward, 1 step back path to recovery. I have erased the identity of the client here, but wanted to include his email,… Continue reading…
When I was diagnosed with Task Specific Focal Dystonia in 2005, my neurologist told me that it was incurable. However, he did offer injections of botox into the muscles of my face to help alleviate the symptoms. I humbly declined and left his office in a state of denial. My thought being, “If my face… Continue reading…
Tension and Musician’s Focal Dystonia: Children vs adults When children play, they do not judge. They just enjoy. But when we become adults, we believe that we cannot allow failures to happen. We become afraid of the possibility of failure, which then creates a tension response. When we feel this tension response, we then try… Continue reading…
First published: 30 Sept. 2010 as “Task Specific Focal Dystonia Cured: Trumpet embouchure back on track”. Firstly some background: Cutting a very long story rather short… I began playing trumpet at age 13 in New Zealand. At 18 I started university, and at 21 auditioned for (and was accepted for) post-graduate trumpet studies at some… Continue reading…