This morning while I was checking through a few of the tens of thousands of archived newspaper articles that contained references to saxophones, I happened across this interesting piece from the February 6, 1996 edition of the New Straits Times. According to a dentist from the University of Michigan Medical Centre at Ann Arbor, we are saxophonically sucking our thumbs whenever we play. Therefore according to Dr. Gobetti, yes, sax playing can harm your teeth.
Source: New Straits Times, February 6, 1996
A lot of kids in my Jr. and Sr. high wore braces… As a matter of fact, I was one of them. Perhaps my saxophone playing was the reason I ended up having to have my braces nearly twice as long as my orthodontist originally told me I was going to. :scratch:
Do I have a bit of an overbite? Sure, but then I did before I had braces as well. How much did my saxophone playing affect my bite?
I’ve never had a cold sore in my life, touch wood, 😉 so I haven’t experienced a flare-up due to playing.
Oh, and one last thing, (this one about the reed resting on the bottom teeth): If you’re experiencing pain in your lip, it’s possible that you’re biting on the mouthpiece too hard. Or that you haven’t developed the sax player’s callous yet. Yes, you might have jagged teeth. Those can be smoothed over with a white filling like I had done last year—or you could do like my first sax teacher did; use cigarette rolling papers.
What others are saying about whether sax playing can harm your teeth
Now admittedly I didn’t spend a lot of time researching this, but I was surprised at how few articles appeared online—on either Google or Google Scholar. I did however, find an article titled: “Specific orofacial problems experienced by musicians”, in the Australian Dental Journal 2002;47:(1):2-11.
In her paper cited above, Dr. Suzette Porter, from the School of Dentistry at The University of Queensland, provides 35 references, which could be followed up on if one was so inclined. However, for my purposes, her research findings were good enough.
The following is a quote from the Abstract of “Specific orofacial problems experienced by musicians”:
Method:
Information in this paper is gathered from
studies published in dental, music and occupational
health journals, and from discussions with career
musicians and music teachers.
Results:
Orthodontic problems, soft tissue trauma,
focal dystonia, denture retention, herpes labialis, dry
mouth and temporomandibular joint (TMJ)
disorders were identified as orofacial problems of
career musicians. Options available for prevention
and palliative treatment as well as instrument
selection are suggested to overcome these problems.
Conclusions:
Career musicians express reluctance to
attend dentists who are not sensitive to their specific
needs. General practitioner dentists who understand
how the instruments impact on the orofacial
structures and are aware of potential problems faced
by musicians are able to offer preventive advice and
supportive treatment to these patients, especially
those in the early stages of their career.
Ah yes, we’ve come a long way from the days of Tom Brown, who had four of his lower front teeth removed, and wore a scallop in his upper teeth—all from playing saxophone. But It does appear that even today, sax playing can harm your teeth.
I have been playing Tenor Saxs for years. I started having pain in the jaw and cheek area when playing. I have to stop playing and rub those areas. It’s like a spasm. Is their such a thing as using a mouth guard to help preventing the pain
I am 77 years old took up playing when was 62. ( Tenor Sax) I have worn down bottom teeth which really affects my amateur playing regarding Embouchure as I tend to bring my bottom lip right over my teeth to the inside of my bottom teeth which tends to deflect air downwards and reduce the amount of air into the mouthpiece It is difficult to just keep the lip sitting at the top of my bottom teeth. I have an appointment with my dentist who I hope can build up my bottom teeth to improve my sound. I use a Bari full bore metal ebonite combination mouth piece . I have tried the Otto liink metal but find them too small in my mouth to open my Emboucher.
@joe vellano: Berg’s vibrate A LOT! Although they shouldn’t wear your front teeth down. I have a very minor chip in one of my upper front teeth that I’ve had since Gr. 10 thanks to my stainless steel tenor Berg. The rubber cushions definitely cut-down on the vibrations. I don’t play any metal mouthpiece without one any more.
@David Wilmot: Mouthpiece cushions also have the added bonus of opening the throat just a wee bit further. It has been suggested that they aid in getting a warmer, less closed off tone.
@leonAzul: Decades of migraines from an incorrect embouchure? :nuclear: How did you ever figure out that that’s what was causing your migraines? The head/facial pain I experience since becoming ill is similar to a migraine (some of it is located in my eyes), and gets worse when I play the smaller horns (alto & soprano), or altissimo notes on tenor. If it weren’t for an excellent Rx. cocktail that my neurologist came up with, I’d likely have :hung: myself by now… No joke… I suffer from bilateral trigeminal neuralgia.
Hi Helen,
I offer the following not as a bid for sympathy, but rather as a public service advisory.
Part of the reason it took so long to determine the cause was that my migraine was asymptomatic for so long — I didn’t experience obvious headaches or vertigo that couldn’t be attributed to rhinitis (from pollen allergies or colds). About 10 years ago I experienced the first obvious fit of migraine. At the time, the proximate trigger appeared to be acute dehydration due to allergies. Working with a neurologist, I began keeping a journal, and one by one I discovered other triggers that correlated with mood swings and disturbed sleep patterns, symptoms I was now learning of typical migraine events. (Interestingly, one of the patterns is that mild migraine events seemed to predict dental problems that were often otherwise asymptomatic for up to 3 months.) Very quickly something to do with mouthpieces was indicated. Because of the timing, I began to suspect that I am unusually sensitive to plated metal, so I replaced all of my mouthpieces with either stainless steel versions or hard rubber. This provided immediate results, so I considered the matter more or less settled.
Until 2008, when I experience chronic, continuous headache for almost 9 months. At that point, it became undeniable that the combination of vibration and sensitive teeth was at the root of this.
You , Helen, have described the sense of despair and depression quite well, so there is no need for me to elaborate on that.
After a 6 month hiatus, my mind was finally cleared enough to consider a recovery strategy, and I set myself the task of building a practical double-lipped embouchure. You can be sure Sigurd Rascher’s guide to tone and range building, ‘Top-Tones for the Saxophone’, played a prominent role in this.
It seems like I’m always going 4 steps forward and 3 steps back, but the damage to my reputation had been done, and work for these last 5 years or so has been limited to repeat customers’ requests for reprints and re-orchestrations of arrangements I had done a decade or more ago. If I cannot reliably demonstrate what I am imagining, then it would be irresponsible of me to consider teaching.
So it goes.
It’s not all gloom and doom, however. I immediately experienced a liberating flexibility using this approach. Mouthpiece-reed combinations that I would have summarily rejected in the past have become not only viable but also useful for me. The greatest opportunity for improvement is in the range of the palm keys on all saxes, where my sense of pitch is still highly suspicious, though improving daily.
Peace,
paul
In general mechanical vibrations give fatigue to the nerves.
When the vibrations are strong and long enough the can do harm.
I started in bands with a lot of brass and loud music.
The vibrations in my mouthpiece became unpleasant.
Some trumpets thought I was too loud for a tenor sax.
After playing I could get migraine with loss of sight in one eye.
Then I changed to a double embouchure and the migraines dissapeared.
I also saw some accidents with metal mouthpieces and teeth which made me choose the ebonite option.
Time for everyone to adopt the double lip embouchure, with lips forward…
^^^This^^^
The fact is, if you are using that much pressure, you are doing it wrong.
Although rotating the mouthpiece around transformed the chalumeau to the clarinet because the extra leverage facilitates the so-called clarion (or clarino) register, it also offered the temptation of substituting jaw pressure for proper facial muscle development.
In The Art of Saxophone Playing by Larry Teal, there is an excellent drawing that illustrates how a proper embouchure should work.
Too bad that I didn’t heed that sooner. It took several decades of chronic migraine before I correctly identified the faulty embouchure; the struggle to recover continues (A luta continua).
Helen, for us old guys/hobbyists it’s nothing new, though I applaud the early suggestion of what we now call mouthpiece cushions.
Played with a berg larsen metal mouthpiece ..wore my front teeth down. Had to get crowns..now use a pad on the mouthpiece