Aging: Stuff Happens. Part 1, Endurance

A round table exchange and sharing of information about surprises that affect our playing and careers as we age. Panelists: Brenda Schuman-Post with Ruth Diamond, Michael DiPietro, Terry Ewell, Leonard Hindell, Edwin Lacy, Paul Nordby, Oscar Petty, and Amy Collins. International Double Reed Society Conference at Butler University, Indianapolis, USA. June 14, 2025. BDP #367.

[Music, “Tico-Tico no Fubá” Zequinha de Abreu, Performed by Terry B. Ewell]

Next. OK, so endurance.

So, about a decade or so ago, I published a book called Wind Performers Guide to increasing endurance. And I think it's on our list there. You can certainly look at that.

One of the things that happens with aging is we lose what's called vital capacity. Vital capacity is the amount of air you can bring in your lungs and then expel the amount of working air you have. The reduction is from your 20s till your 60s. You know roughly 30 or 40%, if your smoker even more.

One of the solutions is to learn to circular breathe, so that maybe something considered is you can extend the amount of time you play on an instrument. It's harder to circular breathe on the bassoon than oboe, but in both cases with reduced lung capacity, maybe an old dog can learn a new trick, right. And and learn to do that.

I think aerobic exercise will. Absolutely. I was a runner in my 40s, but I don't do that anymore. But I still do aerobic exercises.

There were studies, I believe it was in London, on the health of the trolley person who just sat in the chair and took everybody's ticket compared to the one who walked up and down the aisle. The one that walked up and down had a longer longevity due to that.

There's also was an interesting article that came out in Pittsburgh about Brian Simpson. He had something like less than 20% lung capacity. At the time, he was just on his deathbed and at the end he decided that he wanted to go back to playing the oboe again, like he used to, and listen to oboe. He started just making notes on the oboe. And because of that, resistance of playing the oboe, it increased his lung capacity such that he was able to get out of the hospital, play in some community orchestras and things like that. So, keep playing your instruments. It's an exercise routine that is so important as we move ahead.

Yeah.

There's also, I'm sorry, go ahead.

I was going to say also, as you get older, you find that the faster you blow, all you're doing is imparting energy faster you blow the lesser you use.

Hmm.

There. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Sorry.

People don't know Arnold Jacobs' books. And if he needs, I mean, he has written well, like two books, yes.

Yeah.

So, I really recommend them. He had one lung.

Vagus nerve. It is a nerve that starts here and goes through most of our body, and there's been when you use the QR code you will see a massive number of links and books and articles.

And it's just the beginning of what we should be collecting, and particularly sound healing, which is a new area of medicine that is massive. And I encourage you to investigate sound healing because it applies to everything. But the vagus nerve responds in a stress reducing way to exhalation. So its recommended that you're stressed out and you inhale for five seconds and you exhale for 10 seconds. You will reduce your stress.

And that's what we do as double reed players. Our exhalations are generally longer extended than our inhalations, so that is twofold. It's helping us. But it's also why people respond so positively. To what we sound like because we are causing them to also relax when they hear us most of the time.

Yes.

Also, I you probably heard about this book, “Music as Medicine.” Which is out now, and I'm starting to read it and it has a lot of really great things in it. So that's on the list I believe as well. We have resources available. So ,it's important to take advantage of that and go through this you have to. Read the whole chapter, read portions of it, take a few notes and then go back to it so that you can gain from that information. So yes.

OK. Another question.

About greening, you know, probably many of.

Us in this room had COVID.

And so like, I know my allergist and I've talked about my allergies being worse after getting COVID, and it's been documented I want a doctor's allergies and so forth. So I'm just curious If there are people around here who have had issues with breathing and sinuses that have gotten worse after having COVID.

Long COVID and what the research is. I was in the clinical trials for the COVID vaccine. I was one of the first people to get it. That and what they told us originally was you will get sick. What we are trying to prevent is from the virus getting into the bottom third of your lungs and killing you. We've known they've known this all along. We are trying to keep you from dying, but you will get sick and probably more than once.

I had COVID anyway and the research is first coming out now of the long term effects on the lungs. I became diabetic after COVID and all kinds of crazy things going on. It is possible it does happen. And I do have trouble breathing. But, you know, go back to practicing long tones.

OK.

Fortunately, didn't have long COVID, but I have a friend that's a saxophone player. A wonderful saxophone player got long-term COVID, and he doesn't have the resistance to play saxophone anymore, but he plays flute brilliantly, but he had to put down the saxophone because of the resistance in the air. He had to go through it, so it definitely, it had an impact on him. So very. It's a real thing.

Well, we're going to address body image.

What? Yeah. Can I just say one thing, finishing up on endurance. It's such an important part of of playing. And as we age, we all have probably experienced making our reeds a little bit lighter as we age our muscles.

We are not as strong and resilient as we age, as when we're younger, so playing a little bit lighter reed is a normal thing. Someone mentioned keeping up long tones, valuing a warm up schedule. Warm up routine that incorporates a little bit of time with long tones on both oboe and bassoon can be helpful. It's keeping a very important part, not just the teeth, but the muscles that that embrace the reed as strong as possible for as long as possible, so a little bit lighter, reed a little bit more consistent practice with long tones. Don't spend too much time, but a minute or two, 2 1/2 minutes can be very helpful.

And this sounds crazy. I know some of you may have seen ?? doing a plank and practicing to develop abdominal muscles. For a long time, I was doing long tones lying in bed.

And that's if you can't sit up in the chair and you can't breathe. You play laying down if.

You want to keep it going, Brenda. One aspect of endurance that was not  yet addressed is kind of mental endurance. When you're practicing, you can always take a break.

When you're playing something specifically, it's kind of long. It's very easy to kind of Daydream and wander and kind of lose. And I don't know if anybody has a solution. I guess makes you get enough sleep and stuff like that.

That's true.

That's key. That's sleep. Peace is essential. Essential. And because without that, your body has not rejuvenated. Its energy source, so forth and so on.

Choice.

We just have more topics we need to address, so please please.

Awesome.

When it comes to yours also, you must do facial exercises and a lot of people don't know this, but you can do lots of exercises to increase to keep your muscles, so they are subtle and strong. Massage, so they will not stiffen up. So you have to exercise.

Those muscles, just like you would exercise your heart. Right? So we have a lot of muscles around our jaw and our lips and we have to exercise. And not only just playing, but smiling. Moving your tongue in and out, stretching all those muscles in the neck. It's really important.

Kissing.

Bravo

Can I just mention one more book? There's a in general, there's a book called “The Art and Science of Longevity” by Doctor Peter, Peter Attia, a Tia. You can get it on Amazon or any bookstore.

And basically, it goes backwards. If this is what you want to do when you're 95, this is what you have to do when you're 45 and it and it comes together sort of in the middle. And this is how you exercise. This is how you build up your endurance, and this is what you have to do if you want.

To make it as long as you can make it.

 

[Music, “Tico-Tico no Fubá” Zequinha de Abreu, Performed by Terry B. Ewell]