Light headed spells while playing

Mr. Benge · Veteran Member Joined: 09 Sep 2007 Posts: 231

What are some of the most common causes of getting light headed while playing. It's happened to me off and on over the last year or so. Yesterday we were playing a gig outside, not really hot, prob about 75 or so. I was drinking plenty of water. I had about 6 of these spells, some were mild but a couple almost took me down, thought I was gonna completely pass out. Sometimes it almost feels like the air is not moving through the horn as fast as it needs to be, so pressure builds up which maybe causes strain and leads to this. Do I need more open equipment? Or use less air? Confused.

robertgrier · Posted: Sun May 08, 2011 12:18 pm Post subject:

sounds like you are overblowing. Common if you are not used to playing outside. With nothing to bounce your sound back at you, it's easy to blow louder to try and hear yourself.
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Irving · Heavyweight Member Joined: 11 Feb 2003 Posts: 1888

If it is happening when you are playing in the high register, it could be that you are taking in too much air. Try taking in less, and see what happens.

Mr. Benge · Veteran Member Joined: 09 Sep 2007 Posts: 231

Could be the overblowing. I had a mic and a monitor but to be honest the sound guy wasn't giving me near enough. I'd say I was at 50% of what I normally am in the monitor so I was definitely not able to lay back and take it easy like usual.

crzytptman · Posted: Sun May 08, 2011 2:12 pm Post subject:

Billy B · Posted: Sun May 08, 2011 3:49 pm Post subject:

Tension.
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pfeifela · Posted: Sun May 08, 2011 4:25 pm Post subject:

It sounds like vagal nerve stimulation. In essence, there is a nerve that runs through your chest and into your heart. When it is stimulated it SLOWS the heart rate. Bearing down and creating internal tension as may occur from coughing, a bowel movement, vomiting, nausea, or playing a trumpet can stimulate this nerve. The heart then slows down and causes a corresponding but usually brief reduction in blood pressure that may result in lightheadedness, dizziness, or even fainting. Some body types are more prone than others. It is a common and well understood phenomenon in the medical community. Barring additional pathology such as an underlying cardiac problem it is generally quite benign. However, anytime you have dizziness or a loss of consciousness a physician should rule out other more serious conditions before assuming it to be vagal-related.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/vasovagal-syncope/DS00806
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jess_spencer · Posted: Tue May 17, 2011 3:54 pm Post subject:

This may seem kind of silly, but whenever I get dizzy while I play, it always helps if I eat something. Trumpet is a very physical instrument and low blood sugar definitely affects you, especially considering the amount of oxygen we take in for each breath. Sometimes, during a lesson, I used to get really light headed while playing. I'd usually have my lunch mid day after my lesson (thinking that I'd rather not have food gunked up in my horn), but once I started to eat before, these problems went away. Again, may seem silly and trivial but I hope it helps!

cheiden · Posted: Tue May 17, 2011 5:09 pm Post subject:

I'm going to guess it's the reduced feedback of playing outdoors. When you're delt with a big change in your feedback you will always attempt to compensate usually with undesirable results. It takes a great deal of discipline to avoid this sort of over-compensation. Regardless of the quality of your monitoring you need to learn to regulate your effort to minimize the over-excertion and chop abuse that usually results.
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Tony Scodwell · Heavyweight Member Joined: 17 Oct 2005 Posts: 1961

I experienced the same sort of symptoms upon my first venture into blood pressure medication two years ago. After six months on the first medication that was prescribed for me, my old eight bar phrases had become four bar phrases with occasional light headed experiences, not the best scenario for a trumpet player. I saw my doctor and told him of my symptoms [the stuff was also playing havoc with my lower tract] and he changed medication for me which helped a lot. A little research on my part pretty much confirmed that blood pressure meds are a crap shoot and nobody really can predict the effects they will have on different people. Experimentation was the prescription and the new one was much better without the bad side effects.
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windchaserb · Regular Member Joined: 02 Feb 2012 Posts: 25 Location: MA

Here are a couple of references to the cause of dizziness while trumpet playing. It has to do with blood pressure (or lack thereof)

The article describes a variety of problems including dizziness.
http://www.ehow.com/info_12082192_physical-effects-playing-trumpet.html

An excerpt from the article:
Dizziness
Trumpet players often suffer dizziness or black-outs when they play high notes. The pressure in the aperture that is required to produce a note causes the heart valves to collapse so blood cannot enter; consequently, the blood pressure drops. There is not enough blood flowing to the brain, so when the trumpeter stops blowing, the blood pressure rises quickly, causing the dizziness. According to Bache and Edenborough, in addition to changes in blood pressure and heart rate, it may cause a more serious condition, such as accumulation of blood in the brain.

This is one of the articles referenced in the above
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1993108/?page=1
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Branson · Heavyweight Member Joined: 26 Jan 2011 Posts: 503

Check these posts out-

http://www.thetrumpetblog.com/why-do-trumpet-players-pass-out-part-i/

http://www.thetrumpetblog.com/why-do-trumpet-players-pass-out-part-ii/
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Wes Clarke · Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 3:43 am Post subject:

Branson,
It was good that he had those two big floor pillows to fall on.

My son has been playing about 18 months and has experienced this the last couple of weeks as his teacher is assigning studies about a third higher than he's been playing. Most of what I've read here and at a couple of other threads support what I've always felt. This phenomenon is caused by tension, too much air intake, or pressure. Or some combination of those. We talked last night a lot about breathing exercises and breathing while playing. We'll see if it helps him.
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Pinsel · Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 3:58 am Post subject:

Maybe your breathing introduces a valsava maneuver. The air ain´t coming out and you press more to compensate but that makes the tension even harder so it is an endless circle of getting more tense.

The valsava maneuver is also mentioned in the nih study posted earlier in this thread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN1FLJUZ53o watch the first 50 seconds.