In the early 1960s I was able to take a full time three year course in the London hospitals to train as a Therapist. I was particularly fortunate to receive much personal instruction from the great physician Dr James Cyriax.
Dr Cyriax was famous even notorious? for his insistence on the intervertebral disk as being the principal cause of many spinal problems. In this I strongly disagreed with him, and (bravely) told him so. Now forty years later I know that he was in error and I was right. There has been much discussion in the horn lists recently on the issue of body cavities being involved in tone production and enhancement. This led me to spending a whole hour tonight looking into the question. I was unable to locate any body areas or cavities obviously and directly involved in horn tone production. Neither head, cranial, mouth cavity or lower in the body could be confirmed as having a direct effect on tone production. I formed the impression that tone production was decided at the actual embouchure / lips. And did not appear to be at all relevant to factors prior to these. (Ignoring instrumental and mouthpiece qualities). However I must say that I am really an oboe player and have only been playing the horn for the last ten years. Can all our (great) teachers be mistaken? Dr Cyriax was, for sure. Or am I letting the cat out among the pigeons? John Roberts-James http://www.musicsolo.com http://www.spinalcorrectivetherapy.co.uk/ http://www.alternativetherapyclinic.co.uk _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
