{"id":242,"date":"2007-03-13T00:01:51","date_gmt":"2007-03-13T08:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/03\/13\/no-pain-no-gain\/"},"modified":"2013-02-07T18:04:24","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T02:04:24","slug":"no-pain-no-gain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/03\/13\/no-pain-no-gain\/","title":{"rendered":"no pain, no gain"},"content":{"rendered":"

A timely story<\/a> from the Manchester Guardian<\/em> newspaper about musicians playing while injured and their reluctance to seek treatment:<\/p>\n

Research indicates that professional musicians are considerably more susceptible to back pain than the rest of the population, and that 52% of musicians who experience muscular discomfort will find the problem to be associated with intensive practice or the unusual posture of playing an instrument. Yet performance-related injury remains something of a taboo subject. Few musicians are prepared to admit that common aches and pains could become career-threatening; many orchestral players insure their instruments far more comprehensively than they insure themselves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a timely story because I’ve been suffering from some pain in by right arm brought on by a lot of practicing (I’ve got a recital coming up) and a high repertoire load at work. I’ve taken the second half of the current subscription series concerts off (Tchaikovsky concerto) to try to decrease my fatigue and get a handle of healing properly (luckily, our spring break begins after our Salem concert Tuesday night).<\/p>\n

I had a very hard time standing up for myself and requesting to be relieved from the second half of the concerts. I still feel guilty about it. However, it was the smart thing for me to do, and under our system, I’m able to do so without penalty. Some orchestras have done away with having a player who also is a part of the personnel manager system. We’re lucky that we have both Bridget Kelly, who just resigned from our cello section as the orchestra personnel manager, and also Jason Schooler (from the bass section), and his soon-to-be replacement Martha Warrington (from the viola section) as assistant personnel managers. Having a player in a position to help and who understands the demands of the job and the stresses that they place on the body is invaluable. The fact that our general manager\/interim-president Mary Crist was a french horn player in a major orchestra and understands what we go through is also very helpful.<\/p>\n

There is a stigma attached to performance injuries: you’re not supposed to show weakness. If you’ve gotten hurt, then you must have done something wrong to make it happen.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6many orchestral players, particularly those on freelance contracts, are still reluctant to seek the help they need. Dr Jonathan White, medical adviser to the City of Birmingham Orchestra, says: “There is a huge stigma attached to admitting one might have a problem. Music is a competitive industry, and few players are willing to divulge anything that might affect their employability.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sometimes just working hard like you’re “supposed” to do over stresses the muscular and ligament systems. Sources of problems can be extremely hard to diagnose, and some doctors don’t understand our similarity to athletes in terms of injuries and loss of peak performance.<\/p>\n

“The problem is that medics and musicians rarely speak the same language,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Add to that the fact that the workers’ compensation and disability systems place huge barriers to getting help for long-term medical bills, and you can get an understanding of why musicians often just suffer in silence until it’s almost too late.<\/p>\n

Research links<\/a><\/footnote><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A timely story from the Manchester Guardian newspaper about musicians playing while injured and their reluctance to seek treatment: Research indicates that professional musicians are considerably more susceptible to back pain than the rest of the population, and that 52% of musicians who experience muscular discomfort will find the problem to be associated with intensive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[67,55,3656,3660],"class_list":["post-242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-classical","tag-orchestra","tag-the-orchestra-world","tag-viola"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-3U","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7811,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/08\/29\/is-the-oregon-symphony-the-future-model-for-the-symphony-orchestra\/","url_meta":{"origin":242,"position":0},"title":"is the oregon symphony the future model for the symphony orchestra?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"August 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"You have to wonder. 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