Muscle Memory vs Feedback from the Instrument

[GordonH]

Just throwing this out there for discussion:

Yesterday I had root canal work done by my dentist and my face was totally numb. No feeling across half my face and all my mouth bar the far left corner.

When I got home my french horn was sitting there having just come back from being serviced and I had the urge to play. So I gave it a go and in spite of not being able to feel the mouthpiece on my lips I was able to play quite satisfactorily.

So - maybe all this stuff about vibrational feedback at the lips thats talked about in relation to heavyweight mouthpieces and equipment is baloney?

I am not stating any opinion either way, but it was an interesting experiment.
_________________
"I play as I please." (Humphrey Lyttleton)

Bb - Bach 43
Eb - Schilke E3L-4 with D bell and slides
Pic - Chinese rotary with Blackburn lead pipe
Flugel - B&H Imperial
Cornet - B&H Sovereign 928

[stumac]

An interesting observation, muscles themselves have no memory, they are only actuators controlled by nerve impulses from the brain and responses from sensory receptors sent to the brain.

With the sensory mechanism disabled by the anesthetic there is no feedback to tell what is happening at the lips. I subscribe to the theory that what we feel as a buzz at the lips is a sympathatic vibration as a result of the standing wave created in the instrument by movement of the air molecules. Refer Prof John Harbaugh master class, youtube Trumpet Phyaics 1 and 2.

Regards, Stuart.

[John Mohan]

When I had some dental work done, I had the opposite result: Until my face completely un-numbed, I could barely play. My face muscles had no strength and though I could get up to slightly above tuning C, I had no range beyond that. Perhaps more of my face muscles were numb (and temporarily paralyzed) then were yours. In my case, I think it had nothing to do with muscle memory, but rather a temporary lack of strength in the necessary muscles.

[GordonH]