Oboe Notion Sirs:
No champion of ladies' bands am I, but unless the female method of tone production tillers radically from that of the male it seems almost libelous to attribute drooling to their horn players (TIME, March 25 ). Closer observation would show you that it is condensed moisture from the breath rather than saliva which accumulates within the tubing of brass instruments. As for ascribing the difficulty of French horn playing to the necessity of passing ' breath "evenly through some 16 feet of tubing, a matter of sustaining tone, a more fundamental problem is that of even starting the designated tone owing to the multiplicity of overtones which may accidentally take precedence. Turning to the two woodwind musicians to whom you refer as "oboe players," actually only one ot them is playing the oboe. The other is playing the English horn, readily distinguished from the oboe by the metal pipe extension of the reed mouthpiece and the wider spacing of keys. Incidentally this musician gives a fair illustration of the modern method of tone production on this type of instrument whereby pressures are more concentrated about the mouth rather than throughout the head. Still the old notion persists that the oboe player eventually goes crazy, for only recently I had to calm such anxieties in the parent of a promising young musician.
JOHN S. LIVERMORE
Monroe Junior-Senior High School
Rochester, N. Y.
Sirs:
... My 12-year-old son is taking oboe lessons, in training for the local high school had heard stories that oboe-playing endangered the brain, but when I asked our local family physician about it, he said he had never heard of it. and could not see how the damage would come about. Now in your last issue (March 25, p. 50) you speak of "the doctors treatises which warn all oboe-players against congestion in the head." W ill you please advise me whether this statement is facetious, and if not. what is your authority for it? I know that the oboe is an expensive instrument, but if it also turns out to be dangerous, something must be done.
PAUL T. STONESIFER
President The Pittsburgh Synod of the
Reformed Church in the U S Mt. Pleasant, Pa.
Sirs:
. . . Only crazy oboists I have discovered were crazy anyway. .
ALLAN P. STERN
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
Not insanity or congestion in the head but pain in the tongue, sometimes inducing chronic sore throat, is the oboist's occupational hazard. Wind & brass players are subject to emphysema (enlargement of the lungs). Curious readers Ire referred to "Occupational Diseases of Musicians" by Robert Pollak in the February issue of Hygeia.—ED.
Nebraska's Mullen
Sirs:
"Kansas' once-potent Democrat Arthur Mullen . . ." (TIME, March 25, p. 14) The Old Man" (affectionate alias by majority of Nebraskan voters) was never Kansan was is and will continue to be potent . . . non-meddler in patronage, reluctant recommender. Still Nebraska claims wholly. Kansans please quitclaim.
L. K. SHOSTOK
Lincoln, Neb.
Sirs:
. . Because Arthur Mullen is from Nebraska—we cannot be blamed. We can do nothing. Because TIME gives him to Kansas—we rejoice and are duly grateful. May your circulation be tripled, if the gods please. . . .