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Do any of you play an instrument despite Parkinson’s?
Michael J. Fox has greatly supported Parkinson’s Research and care. I can’t help but respect the man. I recently saw that he performed with Coldplay, playing the solo to one of the band’s most popular songs. And he played it well, which got me thinking:
Do any of you play an instrument despite Parkinson’s? Do you have any tricks or tips that have helped you maintain dexterity?
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19 Replies
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My partner was a professional jazz musician but stopped during Covid and was then diagnosed with PD. It’s stopped him performing but he practices every day. If you are a musician it’s your life blood! He plays saxophone, clarinet and flute and finds he doesn’t have the lung capacity to play a full piece. The flute seems especially hard. He keeps trying different approaches and is determined to improve. I should add that he is still “early stage” and tremors are mild. I’m wondering if any other musicians have found useful tricks?
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I play a tenor horn in a brass band. I’ve had to drop down to second horn and I’m finding getting up and down from stages and negotiating my way through music stands increasingly difficult. I used to play french horn in a concert band but I find that too stressful. I can still play duets with my husband. I just hope I can keep going as long as possible. I love the social side – and feeling part of a group.
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My flute playing has been inconsistent. I recently cancelled a recital performance because I couldn’t count on my low or high registers sounding good, tone and vibrato weren’t controllable and my fingers weren’t as flexible as I wanted them to be. Then I started Sinemet and those issues have almost gone away. I have only been diagnosed recently, though I began feeling symptoms about a year ago. I am hopeful.
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Yes!
I still play the keyboard and guitar in my church and home. Though I can feel the struggle in terms of speed and hammering on weighted Keyboard and pianos but I just play and enjoy myself each time and God takes the glory!!!!
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I play an alto sax, and found that I quickly get tired. I am tired from standing a long time while playing, and tired from the weight of the sax on my neck. I discovered that if I sit down, and rest my sax on a table or pillows or anything else that will work, it makes playing it much easier.
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Yes, I play guitar. Although the guitar I played was too big, a jumbo, and found it too heavy so I recently purchased a small acoustic guitar & I’m coping much better now! I played it & sang in our church praise group for many years, However I felt the tremor in my right arm & hand was becoming too conspicuous so I stepped down from the praise group with much sadness. I’m concerned that my singing is deteriorating (difficulty in keeping tune & pitch) Has anyone else experienced this problem, I’d love to hear from them!
Hilary Lynas from N.Ire. UK
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Yes! I play guitar, bass and drums. But mostly guitar. I also produce. That’s kinda a hobby though.
I was about 42 years old when I was diagnosed in 2016. I was in a local metal band playing bass. I probably could’ve stayed on longer but I felt like if I did it wasn’t gonna be right. Bass in a metal band is pretty easy as far as mistakes in a live setting but I felt I couldn’t do the studio work anymore. So I mostly played at home, noodling just messing around. Then I would say the past 2-3 it became less and less. The last year I covered my drums with sheets because I wasn’t playing at all.
You know what helped?
DBS! I just recently had the surgery. March 31st. You could say I’m still recovering. I heard about it when I was first diagnosed. My neurologist said “There isn’t a pill or drug that will do what DBS does!” And there isn’t! At the time I wasn’t that bad and the thought of having my head cracked open was not appealing.
But putting my drums down and rarely picking up my guitars well…it sucked. I didn’t even want to produce. And that’s all editing!
Now I’m back to playing and producing.
I can’t wait to be cleared for run/jogging!
I’m not being by anyone to say these things. I’m glad I did it. But yeah, DBS folks! Thank God for modern science/medicine!
I’m just gonna leave these here…
https://youtu.be/w4I8PoLM704?feature=shared
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I played guitar for 60 years before my PD DX 5 years ago. I played well enough to do session work and perform with orchestras,
theater pit bands,Big Bands and church orchestras. My PD has significantly weakend my left hand (critical for playing). I have partially compensated for this by playing nylon strings. However, the multitasking requirements of playing (e.g. coordinating hands and fingers to respond to the written music notes) results in the PD weakened system lacking enough resources to cope with basic tremor control. Also, my upper body strength has significantly deteriorated to where I can hardly lift most guitars. I am now doing music with my PC using music writing software to control MIDI and samples to construct melodies and backing tracks.
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I’m 73 and a classically trained pianist. 7-12 years ago I was competing in amateur piano competitions around the country. All of those went on hold during the Covid pandemic. In the interim I noticed my left hand becoming much less responsive. Then about 2 years ago I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s and that started to make sense. The physical therapy programs for PD focus on exaggerating our physical movements to counteract the body’s desire to do everything in smaller movements, so I decided to do the same with my fingers and hands when doing warm up exercises. That and increasing my practice time seemed to help, and I played an hour-long recital program and competed in a competition in June this year. Honestly I feel like I’m playing as well as ever, which is a huge blessing since it means so much to me!
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I tried playing Scottish Small Pipes back in 2021… I contacted a superb tutor in Canada (Halifax). I could do the fingering and learned to play about 15 tunes on an electronic chanter.
After 3 years I purchased a stand of SSP’s from the South Island vendor. 18 mos. or so later I found it more and more difficult to play the bellows. So now, I’m trying to go back to the instrument (on my practice chanter) and then speak t a bloke names Bruce Lazeroff to design and fabricate me an electronic pump mechanism to drive my pipes.
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My husband has Parkinson’s, diagnosed recently in December 2023, motor symptoms late onset but range of other seemingly disconnected non-motor symptoms affected him his entire adult life. Age 82, tactical herbicide exposure, Bluewater Navy, avionics technician, retired college professor, no known disease in family. He is on low dose Sinemet, Murcurius Pruriens, and doing mixed activities in the gym targeting cognition, agility, balance, thoracic, cervical, trunk, plus his normal gym routine. About two years before showing tremors, he stopped playing tenor saxophone. He read music and played by ear. But suddenly he couldn’t make his mind and hands coordinate. He also said his hands hurt from stiffness. Doctors said it must be arthritis and we used Voltaren gel. But the problem seemed so sudden. . . . Arthritis? An English professor and poet? Really? He was a physically fit man even in his seventies with a great diet, no major diseases. Then the tremors, bradykinesia. Of course, his muscles in his hands were tightening up, as were those in his shoulders. Fast forward to two weeks ago. A little more than a half a year after implementing his medicine, herbal, and exercise routine and he is blowing that horn and its complicated keys every day again.
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Even before I had Parkinson’s, I never had the gift for playing an instrument. I can’t synchronize my limbs or fingers, so I’m very impressed by people who play instruments in general, especially by the people in this thread. Playing an instrument with Parkinson’s seems unreal to me, so huge respect
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moved into a “rest home” a couple of years ago — self-medicating my diabetes I often pushed things too low (“keep your HbA1C as low as “safely” possible — but no other significant effects — good eyesight! as a positive effect of my “risky” behavior) but in the rest home was disturbed to see so many with to me (former psychologist) signs of borderline dementia — so decided to improve people’s, and my, chances by learning (trying to) to play piano — tremor has made it too hard though (relatively well preserved PD with 9 year history) increased emotion — music! makes the tremor worse, so most unfortunately no go on the music — spent thousands buying gear but ….
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I’m still playing but not with bands anymore. My fretting hand is as good as it was but my fingerpicking is shot and strumming only works with simple rhythms. After so many years spent improving it is disappointing to be going backwards. Some days are better than others. I should probably practice more.
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As a teenager I learned trumpet with the Salvation Army and progressed to play “tikki draai” music in the school band and solo trumpet Abide with Me at Queen’s birthday parades. At the same time I taught myself piano to accompany Sunday school and Methodist hymns, also community songs for friends and family. The trumpet proved unpopular with my university co-residents so I stopped playing it. Excellent manual dexterity allowed me to train as a surgeon and ed doctor. Fast forward 55 years when writing became cramped and Pd mainly on right side with bradykinesia and trunk movement difficulties took over. Music making ability declined and I had to abandon my life long ambition of playing the Maple Leaf Rag. By chance I was emptying a cupboard in a spare room and came across my old trumpet intact but not playable. I proceeded to restore function with the aid of. YouTube and a lot of soapy water. And then started playing again. With only 3 keys much more feasible than MLR on the piano. And ENJOYABLE as the silver Tone returns. The lip tremor leads to vibrato that some like. And one more musical thing to fight the PD – SCOTTISH COUNTRY DANCE music which seems to allow bypass of inhibition of movement and I can march up and down the living room or patio in a way that astonishes everyone. I am nowhere near where I used to be but I still try to enjoy the life I have, and try to make music every day
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Singer songwriter here who has played rhythm guitar for forty years. I still enjoy strumming, but PD has made my voice very soft. I don’t have the poetic passion that I once did. I need to sing as way to strengthen my voice. My diagnosis came about twelve years ago and I expected the worst. I’ve found new things to occupy my time, grandchildren, travel, cooking and enjoying life shakes or not.
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I play the flute….. I’m playing less and less.
David
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I have picked with a guitar group we just get together and jam with as many as 14 people. when we full it off it sounds just great. A few of us including me sing as well. My P gave me the time to practice but on the other hand some fingering patterns are much harder to handle
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I played tradition Irish music (fiddle) in a stor which depends on considerable fine muscle control in both left and right hand. I could not play up to my previous standard and dropped out as my beginning symptoms emerged – I regret not trying harder to see whether I could have dropped back into a simpler American trad style that i played years before switching to Irish.
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