This week, I attended a full-weekend music education conference. Aside from a 75-minute jazz rehearsal on Thursday, an hour of reading band on Friday, and a total of maybe 90 minutes trying horns and jamming with friends on Saturday, I didn't play at all on Sunday.
When I got to school on Monday morning, I tried playing. It felt weird to have such reduced flexibility and articulation clarity, so I went and checked out my chops in the mirror and found something peculiar: a very light layer of dead skin had built up on the inside of my mouth, and was torn/cracked all over due to the stretching of my lips from lip slurs and playing high and loud. I scraped most of it off, and this alleviated my playing issues for the most part. It's notable that I experienced no pain other than the discomfort of scraping off the skin.
For playing history: I've been ramming recital rep, high and loud orchestral excerpts, drum corps show music, and school orchestra music (Bruckner 8 and Tchaik 5) for the past few weeks. I haven't experienced any major issues from doing so. I, however, am also an impatient person when it comes to coming off of days off and getting chops back; this might've been what led to the skin coming off.
Has anyone else experienced this? Does anyone know how to prevent it from occurring in the future? I didn't drink nearly enough water over the course of the weekend, so that might've been a factor as well.
Thanks for any suggestions!
Skin build-up on off days
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ttf_sdjazz
- Posts: 0
- Joined: Sat Mar 31, 2018 12:00 pm
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ttf_sdjazz
- Posts: 0
- Joined: Sat Mar 31, 2018 12:00 pm
Skin build-up on off days
This week, I attended a full-weekend music education conference. Aside from a 75-minute jazz rehearsal on Thursday, an hour of reading band on Friday, and a total of maybe 90 minutes trying horns and jamming with friends on Saturday, I didn't play at all on Sunday.
When I got to school on Monday morning, I tried playing. It felt weird to have such reduced flexibility and articulation clarity, so I went and checked out my chops in the mirror and found something peculiar: a very light layer of dead skin had built up on the inside of my mouth, and was torn/cracked all over due to the stretching of my lips from lip slurs and playing high and loud. I scraped most of it off, and this alleviated my playing issues for the most part. It's notable that I experienced no pain other than the discomfort of scraping off the skin.
For playing history: I've been ramming recital rep, high and loud orchestral excerpts, drum corps show music, and school orchestra music (Bruckner 8 and Tchaik 5) for the past few weeks. I haven't experienced any major issues from doing so. I, however, am also an impatient person when it comes to coming off of days off and getting chops back; this might've been what led to the skin coming off.
Has anyone else experienced this? Does anyone know how to prevent it from occurring in the future? I didn't drink nearly enough water over the course of the weekend, so that might've been a factor as well.
Thanks for any suggestions!
When I got to school on Monday morning, I tried playing. It felt weird to have such reduced flexibility and articulation clarity, so I went and checked out my chops in the mirror and found something peculiar: a very light layer of dead skin had built up on the inside of my mouth, and was torn/cracked all over due to the stretching of my lips from lip slurs and playing high and loud. I scraped most of it off, and this alleviated my playing issues for the most part. It's notable that I experienced no pain other than the discomfort of scraping off the skin.
For playing history: I've been ramming recital rep, high and loud orchestral excerpts, drum corps show music, and school orchestra music (Bruckner 8 and Tchaik 5) for the past few weeks. I haven't experienced any major issues from doing so. I, however, am also an impatient person when it comes to coming off of days off and getting chops back; this might've been what led to the skin coming off.
Has anyone else experienced this? Does anyone know how to prevent it from occurring in the future? I didn't drink nearly enough water over the course of the weekend, so that might've been a factor as well.
Thanks for any suggestions!